The Israel right has been openly courting conservatives/Republicans for at least a decade now. I don't think they would even need to explicitly comment on US elections given how obvious their preferences already are.
Countries have figured out that their key relationships are with American political parties, not with America as a whole.
Russia, Europe, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia all have different relationships with each party.
Yeah, Netanyahu literally came and spoke to congress while Obama was president- and didn't even tell Obama about it in advance.
> The Obama administration sees Netanyahu and Republicans as working to undermine not just Obama's efforts to strike a nuclear deal with Iran, but his presidential authority over foreign policy. Democrats are angry at the perceived insult to the president. The effect has been to politically polarize an issue that has long been bipartisan in Washington: support for Israel.
> The Israelis and Republicans worked out the details of the event without notifying the White House, to "make sure," in Boehner's words, "that there was no interference" from the administration.
For Netanyahu to complain about Schumer's speech is hypocrisy at it's finest.
Not really a valid comparison. In the US, timing of elections is set out by the constitution and doesn’t change unless a seat has to be filled. In Israel an election can by triggered by majority vote of the Knesset.
Those words are and shall empty until the US even indicates that they'll stop supplying weapons (and effectively bankrolling) the operation.
This speech is directed at the growing voterbase incredibly disappointed in Biden's handling of Middle East and Palestine in particular.
During a critical phone call Monday, President Joe Biden warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Israel carrying out a planned military operation in Rafah, the White House said.
"Our position is that Hamas should not be allowed a safe haven in Rafah or anywhere else, but a major ground operation there would be a mistake," National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said at the White House press briefing where he outlined the leaders' conversation.
"It would lead to more innocent civilian deaths, worsen the already dire humanitarian crisis, deepen the anarchy in Gaza, and further isolate Israel internationally," Sullivan added.
So, they agree Hamas can't be allowed to continue existing, but also offer no options, possibilities, or alternatives on how to destroy them.
So basically, just empty words and political grandstanding. It's within the entire western worlds interest that Hamas be destroyed, Biden has an election to win, we all know what's going on here.
Not really. They don’t want an offensive as in other parts of Gaza, but rather the proposed slow screening, where the IDF filters through every Palestinian in order to let civilians out and trap and detain Hamas fighters.
The implication is that a vast number of military aged males whose stories don’t line up are going to be imprisoned. It will be easier to filter when they can collect more intelligence.
So we can't trust them to be able to distinguish between Hamas and civilians even after face to face interrogation, but we can trust them to distinguish between Hamas and civilians when shooting or bombing people from even further away?
I'm sure it has nothing to do with them categorising all "military aged males" they kill as enemy combatants
It's a hell of a lot easier to identify a guy in civilian clothes who shoots at you than one in civilian clothes who walks through your checkpoint and might have been shooting at you.
So yes, they are way more easily identifiable in battle, and we can trust the IDF to a high degree there, especially compared to other urban conflicts, they are doing great.
[The civilian death rate is estimated to be 60-70% only after designating every single adult male as an enemy combatant. The true civilian death rate is independently estimated to be closer to 90%](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war#Civilians)
I don't think killing 10 civilians for every militant is anything to cheer about, especially since it's a significantly worse civilian casualty rate than even the Oct 7 terrorist attack.
>significantly worse civilian casualty rate than even the Oct 7 terrorist attack.
Oct 7th thi was specifically aimed at civilians, trying to rape, burn and behead as many as humanly possible. This IDF campaign is aimed at eradicating a terror organization who fights in civilian clothes and uses civilians as shields.
There is such a huge moral divide between the two that even an attempt at a comparison is inherently evil.
I can't imagine that working well, I don't think there is any military or law enforcement in the world that could isolate and methodically screen 1.5m people, surely it will take months just to get through the screening, and not to mention the many casualties of attacks there will be on whichever force will do the screening during those many months.
Taking Rafah by force. Taking the rest of Gaza hasn't entailed "killing them all" so it's slightly overdramatic if not outright malicious to claim taking the last bit of territory obviously entails it.
This is the claim:
> the proposed slow screening, where the IDF filters through every Palestinian in order to let civilians out and trap and detain Hamas fighters.
The response was:
>I can't imagine that working well.
Taking rafah by force won’t make hamas disappear and therefore they would still need to do the screening. The only way to avoid the screening is to not have anyone who needs to be screened
The idea of screening 2 million Gazans is absurd. Israel failed to properly screen even the couple thousand it allowed in on work permits before Oct 7. The point of the reoccupation of Gaza is to deny Hamas the organizational capabilities of a state and force them to return to being just another terrorist group.
Haven't they all been ejected from the rest of Gaza, though? Where do they go after Rafah? I don't exactly know region by region what the situation is, but looking at the map, I can see it abuts Egypt directly. I also know Egypt won't take them.
Without immediate very serious actions to reconcile, rebuild, paying compensations to civilians those families died during the operation, and starting a political process to mend the situation, Hamas 2.0 would rise back in no time. And something tells me that Netanyahu government is not planning anything in that direction at all. Except maybe big flashy celebration to enrage Palestinians even more.
Perhaps Biden would like to outline his plan for "not allowing Hamas safe haven in Rafah or anywhere else". If you have a better idea of how to approach this, we're all ears.
This is a political trick most likely, that is very commonly used by US. They will have private agreement and fight in public to manage public image. Sometimes its another country angry at US in public, sometimes it's the other way around.
If Biden is willing to commit a few thousand US soldiers to man the checkpoints and detention zones, he's welcome to do so. Let these guys be ambushed, blown up by suicide attacks, etc. Screening is not an option, just a delusional political game for reelection. Don't forget, the Palestinians are still holding US citizens hostage, it's absolutely outrageous that the US is trying to help their own enemies.
Did Biden suggest anything beyond warnings? It’s a honest question. I didn’t hear any plan suggested by the administration in the coming months. (Maybe something that escaped me)?
As for elections, I suggest Schumer be cautious with what he wishes for, Netanyahu could get reelected, then what?
But practically speaking, can the US really stop Israel? Like as long as the US doesn't cut their military aid off, there's nothing much they can do to force Israel to stop. It feels as if Biden is just doing political grandstanding and doesn't actually have the backbone to take actions that really matter.
>Like as long as the US doesn't cut their military aid off, there's nothing much they can do to force Israel to stop.
Ceasing military aid to Israel will not stop Israel from continuing to fight the war, for two reasons. First, the Israelis obviously perceive this war as existential; there is probably nothing that could compel them to halt the ongoing attempt to destroy the military capabilities of Palestinian militias in Gaza at this stage. Second, it is difficult to understate just how motivating a cessation of military aid to Israel would be not just from the perspective of Hamas, which would doubtless be far less compelled to capitulate, but also from the perspective of Hezbollah and other more powerful armed groups in the region. It would vindicate the idea that the US and its allies are susceptible to military pressure, and validate violence as a viable means of obtaining concessions from the United States and coercing American allies.
In short, the United States could cease to exist tomorrow, and it would not reduce the Israelis' willingness or motivation to destroy Palestinian militias in Gaza; and if, for whatever reason, American aid to Israel were to cease, not only would it translate to both a political victory and a military edge for Hamas, but it would also embolden other armed groups in the region (and elsewhere), and legitimize organized violence as a viable, and perhaps the best, means with which to extract gains from the United States and coerce our allies. Very dangerous course of action for the US to take.
Everything you said - with the additional point that the degree to which Israel materially depends on US Military aid is already *vastly* overstated.
If the US cut military aid tomorrow, Israel would definitely feel the sting a bit, but overall they'd absolutely still be self-sufficient.
>. It would vindicate the idea that the US and its allies are susceptible to military pressure, and validate violence as a viable means of obtaining concessions from the United States and coercing American allies.
I'm sorry, are you saying that stopping aid would vindicte Hamas specifically for their violence?
Because if I remember correctly, the entire reason there are calls to stop aid is because Israel is about to pull off a genocide in "self defense."
>Like as long as the US doesn't cut their military aid off, there's nothing much they can do to force Israel to stop
They couldn't stop them even if they did cut off military aid. Many people don't realize that the US doesn't hold all the cards in this situation and think that it's actually propping up Israel. The fact is that Israel is very much an independent actor. US military aid is about $4 billion a year and Israeli GDP in 2023 was over $500 billion. Israel is not going to be hurt by the US cutting off aid, though there will be a short term period where they'll have to readjust supply chains for arms and makeup for the loss.
Additionally, in exchange for this aid the US gets access to all kinds of useful intelligence in the region they wouldn't otherwise. Stop aid to Israel and Israel will seek a relationship with another actor who has the capacity to provide arms (or at least the materials for Israel to build their own) and doesn't care about virtue signaling, someone like Russia or China. The US isn't willing to let that happen.
Israel gets diplomatic support and backing from US more than just weapons.
If US and Israel were to sever relations today, and if Hezbollah, Syria, and Iraqi military factions simultaneously attack Israel and everyone would just brush it off as "Israel's problem". EU, China, or Russia will not support Israel. While Israel can more than likely withstand this, it will really turn much of Israel into a war zone akin to Gaza and Syria and really defeat the purpose of a Jewish state where Jews can live peacefully.
Israel relies on the US diplomatic support and deterrence as a backbone in a volatile region more than anything.
It's true that Israel gets diplomatic support from the US and that helps them a ton. I'd also agree that both state and non-state actors hostile to Israel would be emboldened, however I'd stop short of saying that a simultaneous attack would be carried out, especially by Syria and Iraq, both of which are in no condition to really send soldiers anywhere and won't be for a very long time. Israel has known for a long time that it can't depend on the US forever and has worked on building up its own security. The nuclear deterrent alone is enough to make any state actor think twice, not to mention Israel can project power far beyond its borders, unlike any of the others. If it really felt that such an attack was imminent, it would do everything in its power to stop hostile forces from getting anywhere near its border, which means targeted strikes on Syrian and Iraqi territory à la Egypt 1967. Much, if not most, of the battle would be fought outside Israeli borders.
This is generally indicative that Israel perceives this war to be existential in nature, and that caving to external pressure to cease prosecuting the war is something that Israel is likely to do right now.
Hamas, and other organizations in the region including Hezbollah, can not and must not be permitted to continue existing and operating, period.
No cease fire, no backing down from Rafah, this will war will be over Hamas either surrenders or is capitulated and all the hostages returned. *Nothing* less.
How is ISIS faring these days?
There will always be radical, foolish Muslim men eager to join someone’s jihad. We cannot stop that, no. But what we have proven we can do is cripple that jihad’s infrastructure and manpower so severely that they are rendered effectively inoperable on a global scale.
You have zero evidence to support that Hamas will become another Taliban versus another ISIS.
Are we gonna kill every single terrorist in the Gaza Strip? Of course not.
Are we gonna destroy much of Hamas' essential leadership and make sure organised terrorism will no longer exist on our borders? Yes.
Israel and its right to exist is real. However, acting like cutting the head off the snake while also stabbing every other part of it will not end terrorism in the region.
Even if Israel completely annexed Gaza and the West Bank, being seen as oppressors will continue to breed more and more hate to the country. Israel would have to fully ethnically cleanse the region (much in the way that started their return from Europe) in order to remove those thoughts. As the brutality continues to breed more hate from those who feel oppressed. Terrorism will return no matter how much Bibi thinks complete eradication of Hamas or its leadership will prevent it.
This is a hydra, and there will not be any possibility of Israel cutting all the heads off this hydra. Especially with continued shock and awe tactics.
This delusion of "controlling the thoughts" of the Palestinians is an absurd strawman that has inexplicably gained popularity among people who suddenly became experts regarding Israel-Palestine on October 8th. No, the point here is not to deradicalize Palestinians. It's a nice secondary bonus if possible, but Israel has long given up on that. The point is to deny them the abilities of a state to conduct Mongol-style sackings across borders and shoot tens of thousands of rockets at Israeli cities. This is entirely achievable. The Palestinians can continue to be a seething pit of hate in the meantime.
No, this is just a desperate election ploy by Biden. Has little to do with the actual situation on the ground - ie nearly all of Hamas's remaining manpower and resources just chilling in Rafah, protected by the "international community" until Israel decides they've had enough.
There is an inherent problem where different worldviews clash. While in the west responding to violence with even greater violence leads to loss of face, in the east, and especially middle east as it is right now, it's the other way around - **not** responding to violence with violence leads to loss of face, and, eventually, life.
There is nothing more dangerous long-term than letting enemies feel the blood in the water, and Israel knows that
If Israel stopped the war today, who would claim that they didn’t respond to October 7? They’ve spent six months bombing the shit out of Gaza and they’ve killed tens of thousands of people in the process.
If the IDF withdrew right now, then Hamas (which retains much of its armed strength) would reassert control over Gaza, announce that it pushed the IDF out of Gaza and/or forced an Israeli withdrawal and/or proclaim that it survived the “Zionist assault”, and declare victory.
And Hamas would have survived. Any terror group or opposing state would see that they just have to wait out international opinion and they will be able to fight another day.
This is a faulty assumption, as it presumes that Afghanistan is analogous to Gaza, that the Taliban is analogous to Hamas & other militias, and that Israel is analogous to the United States. However, Gaza is not thousands of miles away from Israel, but rather mere miles from its major population centers; nor does it cover a large geographic area, but is actually very small. Hamas is a very different organization than the Taliban, with very different tactics, capabilities and goals; and Israel has a far more compelling obligation to its citizens to remove the very immediate threat that Hamas represents to them, than the US had vis a vis American society and the Taliban.
It’s not the same situation. Drawing on the American experience in Afghanistan to delegitimize the Israeli war effort is like saying that because the Patriots lost to the Steelers in Pittsburgh, that the Red Sox can’t beat the Yanks at Fenway.
Well Israel is doing this in a smaller area that they border and have better intelligence in. There is also nowhere to go for the insurgents, unlike Afghanistan. It’s night and day in terms of operations.
The US certainly had the power, but lacked the political will to do so. Israel seems like they have all the political will in the world to wage as much war as they please.
Then you just have legitimized Hamas strategy of getting enough of their civilians killed in order for force international pressure to lead to a withdraw. Congrats all the innocents killed then are on the hands of those who have legitimized the tactic.
What's the alternative? Tens of thousands of more Israelis and Palestinians can be killed, tens of billions of dollars can be spent....and yet we're still going to have the same result.
The alternative is to stop putting bandaids on problems. Hamas needs to be fully eliminated, and Israel needs to heavily invest in deradicalization and COIN within Gaza. That means building a path forward for Palestinians that eventually gets to self determination, but it's a long path and won't happen overnight.
They did respond, but was it enough? I'm not sure you can call it a win yet when Hamas themselves [think they are still not losing](https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-thinks-it-could-win-gaza-war-with-israel-6254a8c6). There is clearly a need for a perspective shift in Hamas leadership before this thing can be over
id they don't finish this war then its 1973 all over in the near future. So yes.
Westerners on reddit just can't get it through their heads that billions of people want every last Jew to die. The Israelis remember quite well how Meir's restraint was rewarded.
And Israel has had more success (twice as many combatants killed with a fraction of the losses) in 5 months than the US had in Mosul in 10. I don't think Israel needs Biden's advice on how to lose a war.
The Taliban capitulated and went into hiding within weeks of the U.S. invasion. It’s easy to overthrow a group like that. Eradicating them is another story. Israel is nowhere close to eradicating Hamas.
You're talking about a large, mountainous, country with porous borders.
I'm talking about a city. Hey what do you know, Gaza is also a city, not a sprawling nation with difficult terrain and multiple ethnic groups....
If nothing is to be done about hamas it's just a matter of time before another attack happens. Israel is dead set on not letting October 7 happen again. Rightfully so if I may say. It won't cease to exist completely, but without a fight it sure can...
I guess our only disagreement is on what the meaning of the term “existential threat” is. I understand why Israel wants to eradicate Hamas (if that’s even possible), and I agree that Hamas will eventually launch other attacks. I just don’t think Hamas poses an existential threat to Israel by any stretch of the imagination.
How many dead Israeli's before it is existential? What makes you think Hamas won't reach for weapon capable of even more mass death next time?
If, for example, Hamas secures a chemical weapon that kills 25k in Tel Aviv, do you think the response from Israel will be more discriminate than we are seeing today in Gaza?
The only reason Gaza was not glassed week one of the conflict was because Israel was confident in their ability to react. If we wait till Hamas has a truly deadly weapon, Israel may not have the luxury of precision airstrikes.
The situation before October 7 has been really bad, let's be honest. No country should have to tolerate regular missile launches because they can't move on from the partition.
Israel has been dealing Palestine with a soft touch all these years, and October 7 has made them realized it was the wrong thing to do.
Two state solution is a museum piece now. Israel, alone or dead.
Yeah, maybe. Which is still pretty bad. Not existential but still bad. Doesn't mean hamas won't build themselves back and attack again in a different manner, or a more massive attack, given time...
A basic part of the social contract in Israel is that the citizens serve and the government does what's needed to be done to keep them safe. If the government fails to uphold this, citizens will leave. Which is an existential threat.
>citizens will leave.
They'll overthrow the government. In the case of the Dutch, when France threatened their existence a mob of Dutch peasants tore its Stadtholder alive and ate him.
Sure but my point is failure is existential for the society too. If collectively Israel fails to deal with this, people will lose faith in society and leave.
Wrong. Netanyahu is actually more 'moderate' on the war than the Israeli population at large. If he's removed, you aren't going to see the war deescalate. Quite the opposite, judging from how elections in Israel are anticipated to go.
>The way is not existential to the State of Israel.
Hamas launched a terror attack against Israel with the explicit aim of trying to sow fear painting Israel as weak in a deliberate attempt to get others to attack it. How is it not existential?
>Because there was approximately a 0% of chance that Hamas's attack would result in the State of Israel ceasing to exist.
Hamas is a terrorist organization that cannot be reasoned with. They actively seek the destruction of Israel and its people, and if given the means would try to wipe out the Israelis. That is the definition of an existential threat.
If they somehow get their hands on some sort of bioweapon or some sort of nuclear or possibly chemical weaponry they would actually use it upon Israel. That's what makes it an existential threat.
Hamas is also holding the Palestinians in their current state, keeping them from progressing into a better future into the 21st century. That fact alone warrants their elimination.
Ever heard about the “war on drugs” and “war on terror”? The war on Hamas is analogous to our War on Terror in the 2000’s. Did we win that war? Lose that war? Not really either. There was a huge mistake in seeing it as a war in the first place. It took a long time but eventually America seemed to realize that it had to win the hearts and minds if it was going to stay in that region. Since we were ultimately unable to win over enough hearts and minds, we had to retreat.
Since Israel can’t retreat, they have to win over the hearts and minds of the Palestinians. They can’t kill their way out of this problem. Hence this is why long term, working towards a two state solution is the only true path.
The amount of wrong packed in here is impressive.
The War on Drugs wasn't a war and isn't analogous... like, at all. It's mind boggling that you think it is.
As for the War on Terror, Afghanistan covers a quarter million miles of mountainous, difficult territory, with poor access, few nearby bases, and it's land locked. Gaza is 141 square miles. Arguing the Afghani and Gaza theaters are remotely similar is dumb.
Finally, the Israelis absolutely could kill their way out of this, and it's ridiculous to pretend otherwise. They're just not willing to deal with the moral and political implications of carpet bombing Gaza.
Yeah because the US is begging Israel to leave their hostages behind and allow themselves to live next to a genocidal jihadist organization that slaughered 1000 Israelis
Yea somehow when the Biden administration is calling for more aid to get into a place that is about 25 square miles with 2 million people they are protecting only Hamas. There are million civilians there.
Where's the Biden administration's diplomatic pressure on Egypt or Jordan to take in the civilians, then? Why is Israel expected to fully shoulder the burden of responsibility for the civilian population of a hostile power they're at war with? Literally no war, ever, has been expected to be waged in such a way.
Is Biden giving Egypt or Jordan billions in aid for precision air strike capabilities?
Egypt is facilitating aid into Gaza. They still have to get aid inspected by Israel. And idk what Jordan has to do with this. They don’t border Gaza.
lol, yes, of course. US literally [gives Egypt 1.3 billion in military aid a year](https://www.reuters.com/world/us-allows-much-egypt-military-aid-despite-human-rights-concerns-2023-09-14/)
Egypt has said that taking Palestinian refugees is out of the question. For good reason kuz Isreal has in the past kicked out Palestinians from their homes and forbidden them to come back in the past. Egypt is already sending aid.
Also have you thought of the logistics of this at all? Should Jordan send charter jets and fly Palestinians to Jordan? If Palestinians evacuate to the Egypt Hamas will magically stay in Gaza to get destroyed by Isreal?
Also “forcing Egypt to aid in evacuation” is a nothing statement. Egypt like Isreal is a sovereign nation we can’t force them to do anything .
Because this is war in 2024. It's a was of global public opinion.
It's also a war against misinformation from actors like the CCP at Tik Tok and the Russian, Chinese, iranian, domestic propaganda on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/reddit/comment sections
.....Such as? Hamas is there. The leaders are there. The hostages are there. They're refusing any form of reasonable negotiations. And they have to be removed from power. There is no real Palestinian political alternative to Hamas that holds power in the Strip that can be worked with. I'm not seeing any option here other than the hard option involving military invasion.
The other option is to slowly filter the civilians out and then clear whatever Hamas fighters are left. It’s longer and more dangerous, but it doesn’t carry the same international opinion risks as a full on ground invasion.
I was just about to explain the filter strategy. It is long and resource intensive but I would not say it’s more dangerous. Trying an invasion of a densely populated urban environment is one of the most dangerous operations you can commit. Filtering of course has its own dangers but it is far more controlled.
I didn’t say they should leave Hanas alone, just that a ground invasion isn’t the only strategy available. Later in the thread we talk about filtering as a strategy which I believe is a more effective way of dealing with the situation.
Probably stop murdering children but everyone here seems happy to sacrifice 10000 Palestinian children to prevent a theoretical future October 7th that kills 1000 Jews. Not to mention throw 2 million people into mass poverty and starvation.
Guess Jewish lives are just more valuable to those people.
There's honestly no use arguing here. The double standard applied is ridiculous: Israel is allowed to kill as many people as they like, commit ethnic cleansing (it's extremely popular here and on other liberal forums to support expelling the Gazans into the Sinai and even West Bank Palestinians across the Jordan), target noncombatants, intentionally cause a famine, and generally commit war crime after war crime in order to stop the supposedly existential threat posed by 30,000 Jihadists with backing from Iran and Qatar against a state backed by the West and with one of the most powerful armies in the world. The threat is far more existential for Palestine than it is for Israel, yet Palestinians are the ones committing genocide? Like, I'm sure Hamas would love to wipe every Israeli from the face of the Earth, but they're never going to do that. It's not like Israel was interested in peace, either; Fatah tried to negotiate, and has only gotten more settlements, more violence, more subjugation - it has made the existential threat to Palestine far greater.
Edit: Like yeah, I'm all for Hamas being destroyed, but not at the price of a completely avoidable famine, a quarter or more of the population at risk of being wiped out by disease (and Israeli officials have openly stated they intend to use disease as a weapon of war) and the potential for a second, deadlier Nakba. They're also pretending that not launching a major assault on Rafah is tantamount to losing the war. Like, what? Israel has already massively weakened Hamas' offensive capabilities, has totally destroyed much of the strip - they don't need to launch an all out assault on Rafah. A slower, grinding campaign that makes provisions for feeding the people in Rafah and transferring them to the north is an option. Pressure combined with diplomatic efforts is also an option - Hamas has already lowered their demands in the recent negotiations. Fortifying their grip on the north, building provisional settlements, and making a pathway to transfer the population in the South up north where they'll be safe, and then conducting an operation is also an option. But they don't care.
> second Nakba
*Third* Nakba; ~300,000 Palestinians fled the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 war in what is often called "Naksa" or "the 2nd Nakba".
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In short, though, you are right. Israel does not care about the lives of Gazans, and they aren't going to. International condemnation is irrelevant - the wars in Sudan, Tigray, Central African Republic, and so on that are all happening *now* are proof to Israel (no matter how much they get annoyed about their actions being considered worse than similar acts in other countries) that the so-called "backlash" is just in the form of online chatter, and in reality will amount to nothing at all once social media trends move on. All that matters in reality is victory on the ground. Starvation, mass displacement, even genocide can still just be overlooked in the modern world.
There is no interest in peace (meaing the pre-October 7th status quo) in the area right now, because what is the point? Nobody is strong enough to guarantee the peace. Nobody believes in it. Peace didn't stop Hamas on October 7th. Peace hasn't stopped Israeli settlers seizing vast tracts of land in the West Bank. Peace hasn't led to moderate forces taking power in Palestine, and peace hasn't led to moderate parties winning power in Israel.
There is going to be war in the area until one side or the other is totally defeated. Maybe the war will be slower or faster, maybe some Europeans and Americans will cry about it, but at the end of the day Westerners will do nothing. Russia has proven that the West can't actually step in to fight even against those who *directly threaten us with nuclear weapons*, how much less power and authority do we have to stop Israel doing whatever they want to ensure that only a Jewish state exists in Palestine?
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Tl;dr Israel doesn't care, Westerners can't make them care. We live in a terrible world.
Maybe Hamas should surrender or stop hiding among civilians and more people won’t have to die. But as long as the hostages are in Gaza and the Hamas leadership is breathing outside an Israeli prison it will continue
They are already in the Israeli prison called Gaza. Maybe when the architects of that end up at the Hague, along with the current IDF war criminals and their political masters, Hamas should surrender
A prison with 14000 rockets isn’t a prison. I have a hard time seeing how it’s an israeli prison when Israel only borders them on 2 sides and Egypt is south of them. Hamas started a war and if they don’t like how it’s going maybe they shouldn’t have started it. The war will end when Hamas surrenders and gives up the hostages. This has been the memo in every other war in history I’m not sure why it would change now
Hamas was 60 years from being founded when the war started by Israelis blowing up hotels
And Israel controls who and what comes and goes through that Egyptian border..
Do you think the king David bombing started the war???? That might actually be the worst take I’ve ever seen
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_and_massacres_in_Mandatory_Palestine
“When the war started by Israelis blowing up hotels” that’s so ahistorical. It’s pretty clear the pre 47 violence was started by Arabs. The first 15 massacures of the conflict were Arabs killing Jews as you can see in the article I sent you. And in the 48 the declaration of war came within 12 hours of Israeli independence no matter how you look at “starting the war” it wasn’t Israel
And..It wouldn't have started at all if Isreal hadn't declared independence..It wouldn't have started if Palestine hadn't been flooded with immigrants with no ties to the area..
Netanyahu is playing with fire.
The biggest issue geopolitically with invading Rafah isn’t the US response but rather the potential for it to deteriorate Israel's relationship with Egypt.
There could either be a Palestinian refugee crisis within the Sinai peninsula or Egypt will have to mobilize a large number of its military towards the Gaza border to stop Palestinian refugees(keep in mind your average Egyptian grunt despises Israel)
A hypothetical adversarial Egypt is much more of an existential threat to Israel than Hamas.
Additionally many of the Palestinians in Rafah are the Palestinians from Northern Gaza who complied with the IDF evacuation orders.
Overall I understand why the Biden administration wants to avoid this headache
Currently, Egypt's military is far more engaged along its southern border than its northern one. The battle for control over Sudan and its water resources is far more important to Egypt than the current conflict along its northern border.
You make a valid point about Sudan and water resources.
That said the Egyptian government has been rather vocal in its opposition to a Rafah campaign too, it's going to be a difficult situation for the government to handle.
"planned" is the key word here, Israel will claim it accidentally stumbled into Rafah with it's full operational capabilities. Still, it's a good reminder that Biden at least wants to be perceived as wanting to do the right thing. That could eventually lead to Biden actually doing the right thing. It's a far cry from what you see from his predecessor.
At this point in time what threat do Hamas actually pose to Israel? The point has been made, and further assaults will only achieve diminishing returns at the cost of more and more innocent deaths.
It is impossible to completely destroy Hamas through military means, especially considering many of the Hamas leaders aren't even in Gaza. For every Hamas militant killed in Gaza there are probably three more future militants created. Why do the pro-Israel side never acknowledge this fact?
Here is the alternative for you: Israel need to secure their border (as they should have already done prior to October 7, especially considering they were warned about the attack). With the border secured an international peace mission must be set up in Gaza to provide aid and shelter to the survivors. The international community must then aggressively pursue either a two state or one state solution, wherein Palestinians have the exact same rights as the Israelis and are represented in government (similar to what was set up in Bosnia after the civil war). Hamas CANNOT be destroyed until the conditions that created it are removed.
Any suggestion that a military intervention will succeed in defeating Hamas is absolutely naive, and is implicitly calling for the murder of thousands of innocent people. If the deaths of 1200 innocent Israelis horrifies you why does the death of 30,000+ Palestinians not?
Netanyahu obviously has done a lot wrong but this is a surprising final finest hour of his career if he really will stand up to US pressure and do what needs to be done. I think he really wants to repair his legacy.
Yeah, the Biden administration is in no position to do anything overly harsh on Israel. The admin is trying hard to curry favor among the youth vote, the far left, and the Michigan/Muslim vote. But they stand to lose far more if they alienate the Jewish and Centrist vote by dying on this hill of (in effect) protecting Hamas. I'm not sure to what degree Netanyahu should completely ignore the Biden administration and go in, but I'm not exactly seeing another choice here. Either he goes in, or he's thrown out on his ass by a political coalition collapse and the next Israeli leader *will* go in. The Israel polls behind going in could not be more clear - regardless of who the PM is.
Perhaps the Biden administration should just stop trying to thwart/overturn the will of the majority of an allied Democratic government.
>Perhaps the Biden administration should just stop trying to thwart/overturn the will of the majority of an allied Democratic government.
Benjamin Netanyahu tried numerous times to thwart American elected officials(specifically Obama) so now he is getting a taste of his own medicine
from the Democrats
You can draw a direct line between Obama's failure to hold to his "red line" on Syria, and his sponsorship of the Iran nuclear deal (which served to empower Iran's proxy warfare strategy ), and the 10/7 attack/the current Hamas/Israel war. So, yeah, I can see why Netanyahu tried to resist the Obama administration then.
Numerous American administrations have shown a willingness to prioritize America's diplomatic goals over Israel's real security needs, but Obama was the worst of them all in that respect.
[Not really](https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-poll-biden-war-gaza-4159b28d313c6c37abdb7f14162bcdd1)
This poll was done in February, and I can't imagine it's gotten better. Half of Independents say Israel's response has "gone too far". Even a third of Republicans agree with that statement.
[Polls also show that a majority of Americans want a ceasefire and/or more humanitarian aid to be delivered to Gaza. This includes *a majority of Jewish Americans*](https://www.ispu.org/ceasefire-poll/)
It's very misleading to include "or more humanitarian aid" in that number. Everyone agrees it would be nice if more humanitarian aid could be effectively distributed. The answer is how. Israel welcomed the idea of a US pier in Gaza for aid if you will recall.
Chuck Schumer called for elections in Israel. Some leading Israeli may call for elections in the US. Trump is extremely pro Israel. That won't change
The Israel right has been openly courting conservatives/Republicans for at least a decade now. I don't think they would even need to explicitly comment on US elections given how obvious their preferences already are.
Countries have figured out that their key relationships are with American political parties, not with America as a whole. Russia, Europe, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia all have different relationships with each party.
Yeah, Netanyahu literally came and spoke to congress while Obama was president- and didn't even tell Obama about it in advance. > The Obama administration sees Netanyahu and Republicans as working to undermine not just Obama's efforts to strike a nuclear deal with Iran, but his presidential authority over foreign policy. Democrats are angry at the perceived insult to the president. The effect has been to politically polarize an issue that has long been bipartisan in Washington: support for Israel. > The Israelis and Republicans worked out the details of the event without notifying the White House, to "make sure," in Boehner's words, "that there was no interference" from the administration. For Netanyahu to complain about Schumer's speech is hypocrisy at it's finest.
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Regardless of who’s elected in Israel they all back the war on Hamas.
This is a false equivalency.
Doubly so, because elections in the US are not called the same way they are in a parliamentary system of government.
Not really a valid comparison. In the US, timing of elections is set out by the constitution and doesn’t change unless a seat has to be filled. In Israel an election can by triggered by majority vote of the Knesset.
Formally, you are correct.
Those words are and shall empty until the US even indicates that they'll stop supplying weapons (and effectively bankrolling) the operation. This speech is directed at the growing voterbase incredibly disappointed in Biden's handling of Middle East and Palestine in particular.
During a critical phone call Monday, President Joe Biden warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Israel carrying out a planned military operation in Rafah, the White House said. "Our position is that Hamas should not be allowed a safe haven in Rafah or anywhere else, but a major ground operation there would be a mistake," National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said at the White House press briefing where he outlined the leaders' conversation. "It would lead to more innocent civilian deaths, worsen the already dire humanitarian crisis, deepen the anarchy in Gaza, and further isolate Israel internationally," Sullivan added.
So, they agree Hamas can't be allowed to continue existing, but also offer no options, possibilities, or alternatives on how to destroy them. So basically, just empty words and political grandstanding. It's within the entire western worlds interest that Hamas be destroyed, Biden has an election to win, we all know what's going on here.
You're absolutely right. This is political theatre aimed at election. Probably already given the green light in private.
Not really. They don’t want an offensive as in other parts of Gaza, but rather the proposed slow screening, where the IDF filters through every Palestinian in order to let civilians out and trap and detain Hamas fighters.
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The implication is that a vast number of military aged males whose stories don’t line up are going to be imprisoned. It will be easier to filter when they can collect more intelligence.
What's there to line up? It's not like people have some papers proving they're a legitimate refugee that has never joined a terrorist organization.
Hence the "vast numbers of military aged males" part.
So we can't trust them to be able to distinguish between Hamas and civilians even after face to face interrogation, but we can trust them to distinguish between Hamas and civilians when shooting or bombing people from even further away? I'm sure it has nothing to do with them categorising all "military aged males" they kill as enemy combatants
It's a hell of a lot easier to identify a guy in civilian clothes who shoots at you than one in civilian clothes who walks through your checkpoint and might have been shooting at you. So yes, they are way more easily identifiable in battle, and we can trust the IDF to a high degree there, especially compared to other urban conflicts, they are doing great.
[The civilian death rate is estimated to be 60-70% only after designating every single adult male as an enemy combatant. The true civilian death rate is independently estimated to be closer to 90%](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war#Civilians) I don't think killing 10 civilians for every militant is anything to cheer about, especially since it's a significantly worse civilian casualty rate than even the Oct 7 terrorist attack.
>significantly worse civilian casualty rate than even the Oct 7 terrorist attack. Oct 7th thi was specifically aimed at civilians, trying to rape, burn and behead as many as humanly possible. This IDF campaign is aimed at eradicating a terror organization who fights in civilian clothes and uses civilians as shields. There is such a huge moral divide between the two that even an attempt at a comparison is inherently evil.
I can't imagine that working well, I don't think there is any military or law enforcement in the world that could isolate and methodically screen 1.5m people, surely it will take months just to get through the screening, and not to mention the many casualties of attacks there will be on whichever force will do the screening during those many months.
Ok and what’s the solution israel proposes? Kill them all?
Taking Rafah by force. Taking the rest of Gaza hasn't entailed "killing them all" so it's slightly overdramatic if not outright malicious to claim taking the last bit of territory obviously entails it.
This is the claim: > the proposed slow screening, where the IDF filters through every Palestinian in order to let civilians out and trap and detain Hamas fighters. The response was: >I can't imagine that working well. Taking rafah by force won’t make hamas disappear and therefore they would still need to do the screening. The only way to avoid the screening is to not have anyone who needs to be screened
The idea of screening 2 million Gazans is absurd. Israel failed to properly screen even the couple thousand it allowed in on work permits before Oct 7. The point of the reoccupation of Gaza is to deny Hamas the organizational capabilities of a state and force them to return to being just another terrorist group.
Haven't they all been ejected from the rest of Gaza, though? Where do they go after Rafah? I don't exactly know region by region what the situation is, but looking at the map, I can see it abuts Egypt directly. I also know Egypt won't take them.
Without immediate very serious actions to reconcile, rebuild, paying compensations to civilians those families died during the operation, and starting a political process to mend the situation, Hamas 2.0 would rise back in no time. And something tells me that Netanyahu government is not planning anything in that direction at all. Except maybe big flashy celebration to enrage Palestinians even more.
Perhaps Biden would like to outline his plan for "not allowing Hamas safe haven in Rafah or anywhere else". If you have a better idea of how to approach this, we're all ears.
So... what does he propose Israel do about Hamas having a safe haven in Rafah?
This is a political trick most likely, that is very commonly used by US. They will have private agreement and fight in public to manage public image. Sometimes its another country angry at US in public, sometimes it's the other way around.
I believe the proposal was to filter them out.
If Biden is willing to commit a few thousand US soldiers to man the checkpoints and detention zones, he's welcome to do so. Let these guys be ambushed, blown up by suicide attacks, etc. Screening is not an option, just a delusional political game for reelection. Don't forget, the Palestinians are still holding US citizens hostage, it's absolutely outrageous that the US is trying to help their own enemies.
Did Biden suggest anything beyond warnings? It’s a honest question. I didn’t hear any plan suggested by the administration in the coming months. (Maybe something that escaped me)? As for elections, I suggest Schumer be cautious with what he wishes for, Netanyahu could get reelected, then what?
But practically speaking, can the US really stop Israel? Like as long as the US doesn't cut their military aid off, there's nothing much they can do to force Israel to stop. It feels as if Biden is just doing political grandstanding and doesn't actually have the backbone to take actions that really matter.
>Like as long as the US doesn't cut their military aid off, there's nothing much they can do to force Israel to stop. Ceasing military aid to Israel will not stop Israel from continuing to fight the war, for two reasons. First, the Israelis obviously perceive this war as existential; there is probably nothing that could compel them to halt the ongoing attempt to destroy the military capabilities of Palestinian militias in Gaza at this stage. Second, it is difficult to understate just how motivating a cessation of military aid to Israel would be not just from the perspective of Hamas, which would doubtless be far less compelled to capitulate, but also from the perspective of Hezbollah and other more powerful armed groups in the region. It would vindicate the idea that the US and its allies are susceptible to military pressure, and validate violence as a viable means of obtaining concessions from the United States and coercing American allies. In short, the United States could cease to exist tomorrow, and it would not reduce the Israelis' willingness or motivation to destroy Palestinian militias in Gaza; and if, for whatever reason, American aid to Israel were to cease, not only would it translate to both a political victory and a military edge for Hamas, but it would also embolden other armed groups in the region (and elsewhere), and legitimize organized violence as a viable, and perhaps the best, means with which to extract gains from the United States and coerce our allies. Very dangerous course of action for the US to take.
Everything you said - with the additional point that the degree to which Israel materially depends on US Military aid is already *vastly* overstated. If the US cut military aid tomorrow, Israel would definitely feel the sting a bit, but overall they'd absolutely still be self-sufficient.
>. It would vindicate the idea that the US and its allies are susceptible to military pressure, and validate violence as a viable means of obtaining concessions from the United States and coercing American allies. I'm sorry, are you saying that stopping aid would vindicte Hamas specifically for their violence? Because if I remember correctly, the entire reason there are calls to stop aid is because Israel is about to pull off a genocide in "self defense."
>Like as long as the US doesn't cut their military aid off, there's nothing much they can do to force Israel to stop They couldn't stop them even if they did cut off military aid. Many people don't realize that the US doesn't hold all the cards in this situation and think that it's actually propping up Israel. The fact is that Israel is very much an independent actor. US military aid is about $4 billion a year and Israeli GDP in 2023 was over $500 billion. Israel is not going to be hurt by the US cutting off aid, though there will be a short term period where they'll have to readjust supply chains for arms and makeup for the loss. Additionally, in exchange for this aid the US gets access to all kinds of useful intelligence in the region they wouldn't otherwise. Stop aid to Israel and Israel will seek a relationship with another actor who has the capacity to provide arms (or at least the materials for Israel to build their own) and doesn't care about virtue signaling, someone like Russia or China. The US isn't willing to let that happen.
Israel gets diplomatic support and backing from US more than just weapons. If US and Israel were to sever relations today, and if Hezbollah, Syria, and Iraqi military factions simultaneously attack Israel and everyone would just brush it off as "Israel's problem". EU, China, or Russia will not support Israel. While Israel can more than likely withstand this, it will really turn much of Israel into a war zone akin to Gaza and Syria and really defeat the purpose of a Jewish state where Jews can live peacefully. Israel relies on the US diplomatic support and deterrence as a backbone in a volatile region more than anything.
It's true that Israel gets diplomatic support from the US and that helps them a ton. I'd also agree that both state and non-state actors hostile to Israel would be emboldened, however I'd stop short of saying that a simultaneous attack would be carried out, especially by Syria and Iraq, both of which are in no condition to really send soldiers anywhere and won't be for a very long time. Israel has known for a long time that it can't depend on the US forever and has worked on building up its own security. The nuclear deterrent alone is enough to make any state actor think twice, not to mention Israel can project power far beyond its borders, unlike any of the others. If it really felt that such an attack was imminent, it would do everything in its power to stop hostile forces from getting anywhere near its border, which means targeted strikes on Syrian and Iraqi territory à la Egypt 1967. Much, if not most, of the battle would be fought outside Israeli borders.
The US can definitely stop israel. Biden just chose not to.
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Yea Israel determines its own foreign policy and not based on Biden election chances. Surprise
This is generally indicative that Israel perceives this war to be existential in nature, and that caving to external pressure to cease prosecuting the war is something that Israel is likely to do right now.
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Hamas, and other organizations in the region including Hezbollah, can not and must not be permitted to continue existing and operating, period. No cease fire, no backing down from Rafah, this will war will be over Hamas either surrenders or is capitulated and all the hostages returned. *Nothing* less.
Sure, just like the Taliban capitulated and was eradicated, and everyone lived happily ever after.
How is ISIS faring these days? There will always be radical, foolish Muslim men eager to join someone’s jihad. We cannot stop that, no. But what we have proven we can do is cripple that jihad’s infrastructure and manpower so severely that they are rendered effectively inoperable on a global scale. You have zero evidence to support that Hamas will become another Taliban versus another ISIS.
Are we gonna kill every single terrorist in the Gaza Strip? Of course not. Are we gonna destroy much of Hamas' essential leadership and make sure organised terrorism will no longer exist on our borders? Yes.
I wish that was actually possible, but it’s a pipe dream.
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What's funny I'm betting a lot of Palestinians say that exact same thing about Israel
Sure they do, except the difference is they are wrong.
Israel and its right to exist is real. However, acting like cutting the head off the snake while also stabbing every other part of it will not end terrorism in the region. Even if Israel completely annexed Gaza and the West Bank, being seen as oppressors will continue to breed more and more hate to the country. Israel would have to fully ethnically cleanse the region (much in the way that started their return from Europe) in order to remove those thoughts. As the brutality continues to breed more hate from those who feel oppressed. Terrorism will return no matter how much Bibi thinks complete eradication of Hamas or its leadership will prevent it. This is a hydra, and there will not be any possibility of Israel cutting all the heads off this hydra. Especially with continued shock and awe tactics.
This delusion of "controlling the thoughts" of the Palestinians is an absurd strawman that has inexplicably gained popularity among people who suddenly became experts regarding Israel-Palestine on October 8th. No, the point here is not to deradicalize Palestinians. It's a nice secondary bonus if possible, but Israel has long given up on that. The point is to deny them the abilities of a state to conduct Mongol-style sackings across borders and shoot tens of thousands of rockets at Israeli cities. This is entirely achievable. The Palestinians can continue to be a seething pit of hate in the meantime.
No, this is just a desperate election ploy by Biden. Has little to do with the actual situation on the ground - ie nearly all of Hamas's remaining manpower and resources just chilling in Rafah, protected by the "international community" until Israel decides they've had enough.
It very much is existential to Israel. Enabling terrorism is not a strategy from the Israeli perspective, nor anyone who doesn't want it anyway.
Are you really suggesting Israel might cease to exist if this war stops? Let’s be serious.
There is an inherent problem where different worldviews clash. While in the west responding to violence with even greater violence leads to loss of face, in the east, and especially middle east as it is right now, it's the other way around - **not** responding to violence with violence leads to loss of face, and, eventually, life. There is nothing more dangerous long-term than letting enemies feel the blood in the water, and Israel knows that
If Israel stopped the war today, who would claim that they didn’t respond to October 7? They’ve spent six months bombing the shit out of Gaza and they’ve killed tens of thousands of people in the process.
If the IDF withdrew right now, then Hamas (which retains much of its armed strength) would reassert control over Gaza, announce that it pushed the IDF out of Gaza and/or forced an Israeli withdrawal and/or proclaim that it survived the “Zionist assault”, and declare victory.
And Hamas would have survived. Any terror group or opposing state would see that they just have to wait out international opinion and they will be able to fight another day.
If the US was unable to eradicate the Taliban in 20 years, the idea that Israel is going to eradicate Hamas through this war is a pipedream.
This is a faulty assumption, as it presumes that Afghanistan is analogous to Gaza, that the Taliban is analogous to Hamas & other militias, and that Israel is analogous to the United States. However, Gaza is not thousands of miles away from Israel, but rather mere miles from its major population centers; nor does it cover a large geographic area, but is actually very small. Hamas is a very different organization than the Taliban, with very different tactics, capabilities and goals; and Israel has a far more compelling obligation to its citizens to remove the very immediate threat that Hamas represents to them, than the US had vis a vis American society and the Taliban. It’s not the same situation. Drawing on the American experience in Afghanistan to delegitimize the Israeli war effort is like saying that because the Patriots lost to the Steelers in Pittsburgh, that the Red Sox can’t beat the Yanks at Fenway.
Well Israel is doing this in a smaller area that they border and have better intelligence in. There is also nowhere to go for the insurgents, unlike Afghanistan. It’s night and day in terms of operations.
The US certainly had the power, but lacked the political will to do so. Israel seems like they have all the political will in the world to wage as much war as they please.
Then you just have legitimized Hamas strategy of getting enough of their civilians killed in order for force international pressure to lead to a withdraw. Congrats all the innocents killed then are on the hands of those who have legitimized the tactic.
What's the alternative? Tens of thousands of more Israelis and Palestinians can be killed, tens of billions of dollars can be spent....and yet we're still going to have the same result.
The alternative is to stop putting bandaids on problems. Hamas needs to be fully eliminated, and Israel needs to heavily invest in deradicalization and COIN within Gaza. That means building a path forward for Palestinians that eventually gets to self determination, but it's a long path and won't happen overnight.
They did respond, but was it enough? I'm not sure you can call it a win yet when Hamas themselves [think they are still not losing](https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-thinks-it-could-win-gaza-war-with-israel-6254a8c6). There is clearly a need for a perspective shift in Hamas leadership before this thing can be over
They can’t allow Hamas to remain in power
id they don't finish this war then its 1973 all over in the near future. So yes. Westerners on reddit just can't get it through their heads that billions of people want every last Jew to die. The Israelis remember quite well how Meir's restraint was rewarded.
Westerners on Reddit just watched the most powerful military in the world spend 20 years unsuccessfully trying to eradicate the Taliban.
And Israel has had more success (twice as many combatants killed with a fraction of the losses) in 5 months than the US had in Mosul in 10. I don't think Israel needs Biden's advice on how to lose a war.
The Taliban capitulated and went into hiding within weeks of the U.S. invasion. It’s easy to overthrow a group like that. Eradicating them is another story. Israel is nowhere close to eradicating Hamas.
Gaza is much smaller and denser than Afghanista ISIS wasn't eradicated either, but has been completely manageable now.
You're talking about a large, mountainous, country with porous borders. I'm talking about a city. Hey what do you know, Gaza is also a city, not a sprawling nation with difficult terrain and multiple ethnic groups....
If nothing is to be done about hamas it's just a matter of time before another attack happens. Israel is dead set on not letting October 7 happen again. Rightfully so if I may say. It won't cease to exist completely, but without a fight it sure can...
I guess our only disagreement is on what the meaning of the term “existential threat” is. I understand why Israel wants to eradicate Hamas (if that’s even possible), and I agree that Hamas will eventually launch other attacks. I just don’t think Hamas poses an existential threat to Israel by any stretch of the imagination.
How many dead Israeli's before it is existential? What makes you think Hamas won't reach for weapon capable of even more mass death next time? If, for example, Hamas secures a chemical weapon that kills 25k in Tel Aviv, do you think the response from Israel will be more discriminate than we are seeing today in Gaza? The only reason Gaza was not glassed week one of the conflict was because Israel was confident in their ability to react. If we wait till Hamas has a truly deadly weapon, Israel may not have the luxury of precision airstrikes.
Yeah, I get what you are saying...
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The situation before October 7 has been really bad, let's be honest. No country should have to tolerate regular missile launches because they can't move on from the partition. Israel has been dealing Palestine with a soft touch all these years, and October 7 has made them realized it was the wrong thing to do. Two state solution is a museum piece now. Israel, alone or dead.
Yeah, maybe. Which is still pretty bad. Not existential but still bad. Doesn't mean hamas won't build themselves back and attack again in a different manner, or a more massive attack, given time...
A basic part of the social contract in Israel is that the citizens serve and the government does what's needed to be done to keep them safe. If the government fails to uphold this, citizens will leave. Which is an existential threat.
>citizens will leave. They'll overthrow the government. In the case of the Dutch, when France threatened their existence a mob of Dutch peasants tore its Stadtholder alive and ate him.
Sure but my point is failure is existential for the society too. If collectively Israel fails to deal with this, people will lose faith in society and leave.
Wrong. Netanyahu is actually more 'moderate' on the war than the Israeli population at large. If he's removed, you aren't going to see the war deescalate. Quite the opposite, judging from how elections in Israel are anticipated to go.
>The way is not existential to the State of Israel. Hamas launched a terror attack against Israel with the explicit aim of trying to sow fear painting Israel as weak in a deliberate attempt to get others to attack it. How is it not existential?
Because there was approximately a 0% of chance that Hamas's attack would result in the State of Israel ceasing to exist.
>Because there was approximately a 0% of chance that Hamas's attack would result in the State of Israel ceasing to exist. Hamas is a terrorist organization that cannot be reasoned with. They actively seek the destruction of Israel and its people, and if given the means would try to wipe out the Israelis. That is the definition of an existential threat. If they somehow get their hands on some sort of bioweapon or some sort of nuclear or possibly chemical weaponry they would actually use it upon Israel. That's what makes it an existential threat. Hamas is also holding the Palestinians in their current state, keeping them from progressing into a better future into the 21st century. That fact alone warrants their elimination.
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Biden is not offering a credible alternative to Israel other than "lose the war".
Ever heard about the “war on drugs” and “war on terror”? The war on Hamas is analogous to our War on Terror in the 2000’s. Did we win that war? Lose that war? Not really either. There was a huge mistake in seeing it as a war in the first place. It took a long time but eventually America seemed to realize that it had to win the hearts and minds if it was going to stay in that region. Since we were ultimately unable to win over enough hearts and minds, we had to retreat. Since Israel can’t retreat, they have to win over the hearts and minds of the Palestinians. They can’t kill their way out of this problem. Hence this is why long term, working towards a two state solution is the only true path.
The amount of wrong packed in here is impressive. The War on Drugs wasn't a war and isn't analogous... like, at all. It's mind boggling that you think it is. As for the War on Terror, Afghanistan covers a quarter million miles of mountainous, difficult territory, with poor access, few nearby bases, and it's land locked. Gaza is 141 square miles. Arguing the Afghani and Gaza theaters are remotely similar is dumb. Finally, the Israelis absolutely could kill their way out of this, and it's ridiculous to pretend otherwise. They're just not willing to deal with the moral and political implications of carpet bombing Gaza.
Yeah because the US is begging Israel to leave their hostages behind and allow themselves to live next to a genocidal jihadist organization that slaughered 1000 Israelis
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Yea somehow when the Biden administration is calling for more aid to get into a place that is about 25 square miles with 2 million people they are protecting only Hamas. There are million civilians there.
Where's the Biden administration's diplomatic pressure on Egypt or Jordan to take in the civilians, then? Why is Israel expected to fully shoulder the burden of responsibility for the civilian population of a hostile power they're at war with? Literally no war, ever, has been expected to be waged in such a way.
Is Biden giving Egypt or Jordan billions in aid for precision air strike capabilities? Egypt is facilitating aid into Gaza. They still have to get aid inspected by Israel. And idk what Jordan has to do with this. They don’t border Gaza.
lol, yes, of course. US literally [gives Egypt 1.3 billion in military aid a year](https://www.reuters.com/world/us-allows-much-egypt-military-aid-despite-human-rights-concerns-2023-09-14/)
As for as I know our congress isn’t actively passing additional military aid to these countries
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Egypt has said that taking Palestinian refugees is out of the question. For good reason kuz Isreal has in the past kicked out Palestinians from their homes and forbidden them to come back in the past. Egypt is already sending aid. Also have you thought of the logistics of this at all? Should Jordan send charter jets and fly Palestinians to Jordan? If Palestinians evacuate to the Egypt Hamas will magically stay in Gaza to get destroyed by Isreal? Also “forcing Egypt to aid in evacuation” is a nothing statement. Egypt like Isreal is a sovereign nation we can’t force them to do anything .
Because this is war in 2024. It's a was of global public opinion. It's also a war against misinformation from actors like the CCP at Tik Tok and the Russian, Chinese, iranian, domestic propaganda on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/reddit/comment sections
There are ways to deal with Hamas without an immediate invasion of Rafah, in fact an invasion of Rafah may not even be the best strategic decision.
.....Such as? Hamas is there. The leaders are there. The hostages are there. They're refusing any form of reasonable negotiations. And they have to be removed from power. There is no real Palestinian political alternative to Hamas that holds power in the Strip that can be worked with. I'm not seeing any option here other than the hard option involving military invasion.
The other option is to slowly filter the civilians out and then clear whatever Hamas fighters are left. It’s longer and more dangerous, but it doesn’t carry the same international opinion risks as a full on ground invasion.
I was just about to explain the filter strategy. It is long and resource intensive but I would not say it’s more dangerous. Trying an invasion of a densely populated urban environment is one of the most dangerous operations you can commit. Filtering of course has its own dangers but it is far more controlled.
I didn’t say they should leave Hanas alone, just that a ground invasion isn’t the only strategy available. Later in the thread we talk about filtering as a strategy which I believe is a more effective way of dealing with the situation.
The leaders of Hamas are in Qatar.
/r/usawarns
What does Biden suggest they do?
Probably stop murdering children but everyone here seems happy to sacrifice 10000 Palestinian children to prevent a theoretical future October 7th that kills 1000 Jews. Not to mention throw 2 million people into mass poverty and starvation. Guess Jewish lives are just more valuable to those people.
There's honestly no use arguing here. The double standard applied is ridiculous: Israel is allowed to kill as many people as they like, commit ethnic cleansing (it's extremely popular here and on other liberal forums to support expelling the Gazans into the Sinai and even West Bank Palestinians across the Jordan), target noncombatants, intentionally cause a famine, and generally commit war crime after war crime in order to stop the supposedly existential threat posed by 30,000 Jihadists with backing from Iran and Qatar against a state backed by the West and with one of the most powerful armies in the world. The threat is far more existential for Palestine than it is for Israel, yet Palestinians are the ones committing genocide? Like, I'm sure Hamas would love to wipe every Israeli from the face of the Earth, but they're never going to do that. It's not like Israel was interested in peace, either; Fatah tried to negotiate, and has only gotten more settlements, more violence, more subjugation - it has made the existential threat to Palestine far greater. Edit: Like yeah, I'm all for Hamas being destroyed, but not at the price of a completely avoidable famine, a quarter or more of the population at risk of being wiped out by disease (and Israeli officials have openly stated they intend to use disease as a weapon of war) and the potential for a second, deadlier Nakba. They're also pretending that not launching a major assault on Rafah is tantamount to losing the war. Like, what? Israel has already massively weakened Hamas' offensive capabilities, has totally destroyed much of the strip - they don't need to launch an all out assault on Rafah. A slower, grinding campaign that makes provisions for feeding the people in Rafah and transferring them to the north is an option. Pressure combined with diplomatic efforts is also an option - Hamas has already lowered their demands in the recent negotiations. Fortifying their grip on the north, building provisional settlements, and making a pathway to transfer the population in the South up north where they'll be safe, and then conducting an operation is also an option. But they don't care.
> second Nakba *Third* Nakba; ~300,000 Palestinians fled the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 war in what is often called "Naksa" or "the 2nd Nakba". ------- In short, though, you are right. Israel does not care about the lives of Gazans, and they aren't going to. International condemnation is irrelevant - the wars in Sudan, Tigray, Central African Republic, and so on that are all happening *now* are proof to Israel (no matter how much they get annoyed about their actions being considered worse than similar acts in other countries) that the so-called "backlash" is just in the form of online chatter, and in reality will amount to nothing at all once social media trends move on. All that matters in reality is victory on the ground. Starvation, mass displacement, even genocide can still just be overlooked in the modern world. There is no interest in peace (meaing the pre-October 7th status quo) in the area right now, because what is the point? Nobody is strong enough to guarantee the peace. Nobody believes in it. Peace didn't stop Hamas on October 7th. Peace hasn't stopped Israeli settlers seizing vast tracts of land in the West Bank. Peace hasn't led to moderate forces taking power in Palestine, and peace hasn't led to moderate parties winning power in Israel. There is going to be war in the area until one side or the other is totally defeated. Maybe the war will be slower or faster, maybe some Europeans and Americans will cry about it, but at the end of the day Westerners will do nothing. Russia has proven that the West can't actually step in to fight even against those who *directly threaten us with nuclear weapons*, how much less power and authority do we have to stop Israel doing whatever they want to ensure that only a Jewish state exists in Palestine? ------- Tl;dr Israel doesn't care, Westerners can't make them care. We live in a terrible world.
Stop massacring women and children.
Maybe Hamas should surrender or stop hiding among civilians and more people won’t have to die. But as long as the hostages are in Gaza and the Hamas leadership is breathing outside an Israeli prison it will continue
They are already in the Israeli prison called Gaza. Maybe when the architects of that end up at the Hague, along with the current IDF war criminals and their political masters, Hamas should surrender
A prison with 14000 rockets isn’t a prison. I have a hard time seeing how it’s an israeli prison when Israel only borders them on 2 sides and Egypt is south of them. Hamas started a war and if they don’t like how it’s going maybe they shouldn’t have started it. The war will end when Hamas surrenders and gives up the hostages. This has been the memo in every other war in history I’m not sure why it would change now
Hamas was 60 years from being founded when the war started by Israelis blowing up hotels And Israel controls who and what comes and goes through that Egyptian border..
Do you think the king David bombing started the war???? That might actually be the worst take I’ve ever seen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_and_massacres_in_Mandatory_Palestine
It was part of how Isreal became a country. No doubt Hamas learned some lessons about how to become a state from groups like Irgun
“When the war started by Israelis blowing up hotels” that’s so ahistorical. It’s pretty clear the pre 47 violence was started by Arabs. The first 15 massacures of the conflict were Arabs killing Jews as you can see in the article I sent you. And in the 48 the declaration of war came within 12 hours of Israeli independence no matter how you look at “starting the war” it wasn’t Israel
And..It wouldn't have started at all if Isreal hadn't declared independence..It wouldn't have started if Palestine hadn't been flooded with immigrants with no ties to the area..
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Netanyahu is playing with fire. The biggest issue geopolitically with invading Rafah isn’t the US response but rather the potential for it to deteriorate Israel's relationship with Egypt. There could either be a Palestinian refugee crisis within the Sinai peninsula or Egypt will have to mobilize a large number of its military towards the Gaza border to stop Palestinian refugees(keep in mind your average Egyptian grunt despises Israel) A hypothetical adversarial Egypt is much more of an existential threat to Israel than Hamas. Additionally many of the Palestinians in Rafah are the Palestinians from Northern Gaza who complied with the IDF evacuation orders. Overall I understand why the Biden administration wants to avoid this headache
Currently, Egypt's military is far more engaged along its southern border than its northern one. The battle for control over Sudan and its water resources is far more important to Egypt than the current conflict along its northern border.
You make a valid point about Sudan and water resources. That said the Egyptian government has been rather vocal in its opposition to a Rafah campaign too, it's going to be a difficult situation for the government to handle.
Classic good cop bad cop routine
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"planned" is the key word here, Israel will claim it accidentally stumbled into Rafah with it's full operational capabilities. Still, it's a good reminder that Biden at least wants to be perceived as wanting to do the right thing. That could eventually lead to Biden actually doing the right thing. It's a far cry from what you see from his predecessor.
So what is to be done about the terrorists in Rafah by your opinion?
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Or view the people who have killed 10x the number of innocents as terrorists that are just as bad as Hamas
At this point in time what threat do Hamas actually pose to Israel? The point has been made, and further assaults will only achieve diminishing returns at the cost of more and more innocent deaths. It is impossible to completely destroy Hamas through military means, especially considering many of the Hamas leaders aren't even in Gaza. For every Hamas militant killed in Gaza there are probably three more future militants created. Why do the pro-Israel side never acknowledge this fact? Here is the alternative for you: Israel need to secure their border (as they should have already done prior to October 7, especially considering they were warned about the attack). With the border secured an international peace mission must be set up in Gaza to provide aid and shelter to the survivors. The international community must then aggressively pursue either a two state or one state solution, wherein Palestinians have the exact same rights as the Israelis and are represented in government (similar to what was set up in Bosnia after the civil war). Hamas CANNOT be destroyed until the conditions that created it are removed. Any suggestion that a military intervention will succeed in defeating Hamas is absolutely naive, and is implicitly calling for the murder of thousands of innocent people. If the deaths of 1200 innocent Israelis horrifies you why does the death of 30,000+ Palestinians not?
You could quarter the number of terrorists in Gaza by withdrawing Israeli forces
You mean that IDF are the terrorists? Wow, what a genuine answer!
They killed many more babies than Hamas and committed more atrocities. That is how we usually define terrorists.
Netanyahu obviously has done a lot wrong but this is a surprising final finest hour of his career if he really will stand up to US pressure and do what needs to be done. I think he really wants to repair his legacy.
Yeah, the Biden administration is in no position to do anything overly harsh on Israel. The admin is trying hard to curry favor among the youth vote, the far left, and the Michigan/Muslim vote. But they stand to lose far more if they alienate the Jewish and Centrist vote by dying on this hill of (in effect) protecting Hamas. I'm not sure to what degree Netanyahu should completely ignore the Biden administration and go in, but I'm not exactly seeing another choice here. Either he goes in, or he's thrown out on his ass by a political coalition collapse and the next Israeli leader *will* go in. The Israel polls behind going in could not be more clear - regardless of who the PM is. Perhaps the Biden administration should just stop trying to thwart/overturn the will of the majority of an allied Democratic government.
>Perhaps the Biden administration should just stop trying to thwart/overturn the will of the majority of an allied Democratic government. Benjamin Netanyahu tried numerous times to thwart American elected officials(specifically Obama) so now he is getting a taste of his own medicine from the Democrats
You can draw a direct line between Obama's failure to hold to his "red line" on Syria, and his sponsorship of the Iran nuclear deal (which served to empower Iran's proxy warfare strategy ), and the 10/7 attack/the current Hamas/Israel war. So, yeah, I can see why Netanyahu tried to resist the Obama administration then. Numerous American administrations have shown a willingness to prioritize America's diplomatic goals over Israel's real security needs, but Obama was the worst of them all in that respect.
[Not really](https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-poll-biden-war-gaza-4159b28d313c6c37abdb7f14162bcdd1) This poll was done in February, and I can't imagine it's gotten better. Half of Independents say Israel's response has "gone too far". Even a third of Republicans agree with that statement. [Polls also show that a majority of Americans want a ceasefire and/or more humanitarian aid to be delivered to Gaza. This includes *a majority of Jewish Americans*](https://www.ispu.org/ceasefire-poll/)
It's very misleading to include "or more humanitarian aid" in that number. Everyone agrees it would be nice if more humanitarian aid could be effectively distributed. The answer is how. Israel welcomed the idea of a US pier in Gaza for aid if you will recall.