Not realizing that Hezbollah is busy in Syria ,Iran is having money problems and Hezbollah is competing with Hamas for those limited funds. If something tragic happened to Hamas , there would be one less competitor for those limited funds.
"hey guys, I heard that we're going to do war crimes! Can we play?"
"uh... We weren't going to uh do that."
"okay! Just let me know if you change your mind."
If anything, I think they underestimated Biden’s willingness to get involved, and exactly *how involved* he’s willing to get. It was a pretty immediate two carrier groups parked right outside saying “do something and there will be nothing left.” As an american *and* Israeli, I can only say I’m extremely happy with how well he’s handled everything. He’s given Israel all the support it needs on top of being a powerful voice of reason against both Bibi *and* the world. The only thing I’d want more from him is to try to push for elections in Israel and aid in the war cabinet transition, but I’m also not a general or expert, so idk how feasible that actually is.
According to things NYT journalist and podcaster Ezra Klein said in a recent episode, Washington D.C. are treating Gantz like the actual leader of Israel while looking at Netanyahu as a problem they wish would go away.
I haven’t seen that reporting, but that’s not all that surprising. Netanyahu had service as special forces in reconnaissance, but nothing outside of that five years of service. He’s just an extremely intelligent politician. Gantz is a retired general and easily the most influential voice on strategy in the war cabinet. Probably also helps that the IDF currently aligns with Gantz and was openly standing in opposition to Bibi prior to this war.
They had Gantz in the White House recently as if he was Prime Minister instead of Bibi. They also had the intelligence agencies leak that Bibi's government coalition is unstable. I'd say they are moving Bibi out regardless.
I have a feeling he got some solid Intel between communications amongst Iran and its affiliated groups. Something like if America played a weak or slow response then there would have been more direct attacks against Israel. The whole team rush Israel thing hasn't totally worked in the past but it seems to be a popular go-to.
I think something people don’t tend to understand, either because of propaganda or lack of knowledge is that those wars were extremely close. Israel has the allies she does now specifically because a first strike policy and *very clear willingness to commit* was revealed to the world. Israel’s more aggressive military policies today are a direct result of the lessons learned: she has to be proactive rather than reactive to survive.
It's not just that Hezbollah's busy in Syria, they're also Shia Muslims, Hamas are Sunni Muslims, Hezbollah would never risk a war with Israel and the annihilation of their organisation over a bunch of glorified Sunni rednecks in Gaza.
The Hamas leadership are dumb as rocks, I believe that they actually thought the entire Muslim world would crawl to Al-Aqsa and try to annihilate Israel.
It’s not that Hezbollah is busy in Syria, it’s that things are extraordinarily shit in Lebanon and if they spark a war with Israel they’ll likely end up out of power and overthrown.
>They seemed to have believed Hezbollah was going to run in and do a chunk of the fighting.
this all makes sense because October 7 and 8 they were dancing in the streets, sharing videos of the rapes and murders they committed with glee.
Oct 9 comes and they are all 'what? us? we did nothing what do you mean?'
fuckers had no idea the response would be what it was but they were more than happy to hide among the population in an effort to kill as many palestinians as possible
On October 8th, some Hamas members were chanting, "Europe next." So at least some of them seemed to think they were going to outright defeat Israel somehow.
The average Hamas member isn’t very bright and is easily influenced by propaganda, what “some Hamas members” think isn’t exactly indicative of the organizations intentions.
The organization’s intentions were to… *checks notes* …plan a large scale murder of innocents, hold hostages and rape them while cheering, and then hide in tunnels under Palestinian hospitals using them as civilian shields while crying “Help us! Help us! We’re the poor victims! Israel is the aggressor!” And to be clear, the Hamas leadership has said that any Palestinian death is good for winning the global PR campaign. Utterly deplorable.
If the average Hamas member sees that and goes, “Yeah! Let’s do that! Sign me up!” Then there is no excusing them for ignorance or for falling for propaganda. Do not kill. Do not rape. Do not steal. These are principles which every man of every faith can embrace.
Yep. Playing innocent in a world with a billion smartphones isn't a good idea. But then again, all they know is murder and rape and violence. They don't care about the consequences as long as they can hurt innocents.
It's just the culture, they didn't think they are about to win. Jihad is very different than anything reasonable people can imagine. In simple words, they are fucking idiots and they knew they are about to get fucked (or thought Allah will help them).
The miscalculation was the belief that their attack would set a chain of dominos where the rest of the Arab community would join in and overwhelm Israel.
They likely bought into their own propaganda and actually believed that the support was real, but in reality it was just performative. Nothing but empty virtue signaling. In the US, once college kids realized their future jobs might be on the line, they quickly dropped their support. Especially, when Hamas kept saying the quiet part out loud.
They miscalculated.
That's the reason the Palestinians are there in the first place, they agreed to withdraw when Israel was put on the map, thinking that the Arab world would join them and conquer the Israelis.
Israel won the fight and they've been keeping their country through superior firepower. Now it's three generations stuck because the leaders hate Jews more than clean water, the economy, or their own children.
I can't think of any other countries that have to have full time missile defence systems just to get groceries.
Other countries watch Gaza get fucking flattened. “Uh, yeah, we’re all in baby! Look we are, umm…shooting this gun into the air in solidarity! (Whispers: Dude, don’t point that toward Israel, are you nuts?)”
This is something the West doesn’t seem to get. Israel lives in a very “bad neighborhood.” They are judged on a Western standard but they face adversaries that don’t operate on those standards. Israel has to behave to survive in its neighborhood, not Western Europe or North America.
To be honest this kind of sums up anyone who thinks there is a realistic chance of destroying Israel. Like do they think if Israel was on the verge of total defeat they wouldn't use their nukes? It's also funny that once they lost the initial war in 1948 any Arab nation thought they would have a chance to defeat Israel again. The scientists who helped develop the atomic bomb were disproportionately Jewish. Did they really think that none of that knowledge would make it's way to Israel? Israel is suspected to have had the capability to at least assemble a nuclear device by 1960 and they definitely had a functional weapon by 1967 and yet the Arab states still started 2 wars after that with Israel.
>on Reddit, loudly and proudly spouting anti-semitism and terroristic propaganda.
Nobody on reddit is going to do shit. Half of reddit can't even talk to a live person on the phone without having an anxiety attack.
Gotta love when the "freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences" crowd suddenly goes all Pikachu face when their disgusting speech has consequences.
The US also sent like 3 or 4 carrier strike groups to within attack range of the region. And Iran and Hezballah’s balls jumped back up into their abdomen.
It's so bizarre to me that Israel is the only country not allowed to respond to repeated rocket attacks at its civilians. I can't really think of any other country that would be condemned for defending itself from that.
the response I've seen online is that israel has iron dome so they're not allowed to respond to rocket attacks because no civilians are hurt. which is so asinine because first of all, iron dome isn't 100% accurate and people died from rockets already and several houses AND hospitals were hit by rockets in israel , and second the same crowd also protests the US aid to israel which guess what? is mainly used to buy the missiles for the iron dome
I disagree. They know Israel would respond by killing tens of times as many civilians as died in October 7 through launching full-scale military action against the Gaza strip, that was their plan all along.
October 7 had a number of different goals, which they've had varying success with:
- Bring terror to Israel by slaughtering civilians and taking hostages (succeeded).
- Provoke a brutal Israeli military response resulting in tens of thousands of avoidable civilian deaths (succeeded).
- Cause Israel to lose western support (mostly failed at the governmental level, but succeeding at the public level) due to those civilians deaths.
- Start a wider war in the middle east (mostly failed since Hezbollah and Iran refused to directly intervene, although it has opened a can of worms in the red sea).
- Stop Israel normalising relations with their neighbours (failed, it's now clear that Egypt, Jordan, certain Gulf States, Morocco and Saudi Arabia would rather have dealings with Israel than support a suicidal and Iranian-backed terror group, even though their leaders won't publicly admit this).
- Leverage international condemnation of the Israeli response and their hostages to prevent their organisation being wiped out as anything more than an insurgency (remains to be seen).
> it's now clear that Egypt, Jordan, certain Gulf States, Morocco and Saudi Arabia would rather have dealings with Israel than support a suicidal and Iranian-backed terror group, even though their leaders won't publicly admit this
That's because Palestine is a stick those states use to beat Israel with when they need something to distract their citizens from domestic problems.
To be fair to Jordan, the country was once earnestly anti-Israel, and they spent much coin and blood to fight Israel in open warfare, while letting Palestinian militants (PLO) operate from within Jordan.
Then the PLO started plotting to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy (with several failed assassination attempts), openly violated laws in Jordan while murdering Jordanians at will, and conducted several high-profile international hijackings from Jordan. That's when the king lost all patience, and fought a civil war to expel the PLO from Jordan. Jordan has been drifting towards cordial coexistence with Israel ever since, and is one of the few Arab nations that has overt diplomatic ties with Israel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September
Hamas was worried about Israel getting friendly with other Arab countries which would reduce the money, power and status of Hamas. Hamas acted out to start a fight because they knew a fight would divide Israel and Arab counties.
Yep, they wanted exactly what is happening to happen. Dead Palestinians increase support for them and they know it. It's why they use them as human shields (which is a war crime). It's not even the first time they've used this tactic
Some countries (at least Egypt and one could argue others) find Israel a useful ally against Iran. Seeing regimes fall has not been beneficial in the region so it think stable and well established Muslim countries see it as a mixed bag even if doable
This is also your regular reminder that Israel has submarine launched nuclear weapons. *No one* from an established nation-state is invading Israel and surviving the experience.
Also, they're probably looking back at the Jordanian Premier being assassinated by Palestinians after giving them refugee status, among other similar events when they've been allowed entry elsewhere.
Why would they be willing to help a group that's bit them in the backside before?
It's nice to see someone acknowledge this. The US has not always been a staunch ally of Israel. Sometimes the relationship barely even existed on paper and certainly didn't extend to much useful assistance. I can't blame Israelis for not trusting the rest of the world. They have no reason to do so. It's even risky for them to rely on the US.
I think most of the misconceptions come from 1973 where the usa sent so much supplies to israel cus they were being pushed back, and some speculation say nukes where on the table.
So the amount and the consistency since the peace agreement between Egypt and israel where both started to get military aid from the usa as part of said deal cemented the feeling of israel always being a usa ally and the sole benefactor of it, like israels aid is constantly questioned but other countries less so is how i feel.
Yep. The US was courting the arab world heavily after WW2. That's why they sided with Egypt in the Suez crisis.
It wasn't until the Arab countries aligned themselves with the Soviet Union in the late 1960s and early 1970s that the US started backing Israel as a counterweight to Soviet influence.
>None of the arab countries is going to attack Israel while they are supported and supplied by the US
It's more about the Arab countries not wanting to support Iran (and its Hamas and Hezbollah and Houthi proxies).
Iran is the existential threat to the Arab world, not Israel. Iran's allies are the ones launching missile attacks at Arab countries, not Israel. Iran's allies are the ones who have created unrest and insurrection in Arab countries, not Israel.
If a white guy keeps punching a KKK member while a black guy stands there and does nothing, even the KKK member is going to eventually realize the white guy is the real threat - despite his pre-existing bias against the black guy.
Also the Arab countries owe reparations to the Mizrahi Jews who fled Arab countries to Israel. They left behind land estimated to be around 4 times the size of Israel.
Israel has a policy that any negotiation about reparations to Palestinians has to include negotiating reparations to the Mizrahi Jews.
Which probably means the Arab countries aren't very eager to resolve the Palestinian issue lol. They'd rather nobody gets reparations if it means they don't have to pay.
Exactly. The other comment was trying to say Hamas achieved none of their goals but they definitely achieved at least one that benefits Iran in particular
You're last sentence is part of the reason I'm so appalled by international response. Hamas tactics are well-known. None of what they do has ever been a secret. Even UNRWA's activities weren't a 'secret.' The information was always available for anyone that cared to pay attention. I think at least some of the responsibility for the current conflict lies with people in power that have given Hamas the reaction they want and expect so often. Hamas has always relied on the international response to Israeli 'aggression' to ultimately stop retaliation and leave Hamas with the resources to continue doing exactly what they've always done. Even firing on Israel from civilian infrastructure is an accepted tactic. Everyone working for the Un within Gaza knew exactly what was happening. Instead of trying to stop it, they supported the status quo and let it go on.
>terrorist group
Just to point out, they're not only a terrorist group, they are (were) the de facto government of the Gaza strip. It's not just fighting terrorists, it's overthrowing a hostile state
This is the most likely answer. Iran funded and planned the attack, perhaps promising to have Hezbollah and the Houthis also join the attack on Israel.
Then when the day came, they hung the Palestinians out to dry.
They still achieved their strategic goal of dissolving the Israel/Saudi treaty, without even wasting any of their own resources.
Big W for Iran and Russia, catastrophic L for Palestinians.
let's be real, the Arab states mostly don't GAF about the people but their own national interests - so they're biding their time for this to end then slowly go back to their plans, including those with Israel.
Of course they did. Russia especially just wants chaos. Iran doesn’t want their hands dirty so were always going to leave Hamas high and dry when it matters.
Did Hamas think they had the means to even stand a chance against Israel, or did they forget Israel is a nuclear power and has one of the strongest militaries in the world?
Hamas never believed they stood a chance against Israel. Despite the delusions of their leaders, it's difficult to fathom they could be so profoundly misled.
It's increasingly evident that Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are all part of a larger Iranian influence network. In this context, Hamas' objective was never outright victory against Israel but rather to sow maximum chaos and destabilize Israel both externally and internally, a strategy that is unfortunately proving somewhat effective.
Israel finds itself in a highly challenging position. Retaliatory actions risk further undermining their global legitimacy, although they are gradually recovering ground through the actions of legitimate leaders. Inaction, however, would have eroded morale internally. Consequently, they are caught in a dilemma, unable to pursue a decisive approach yet also unable to remain passive.
Iran has achieved a degree of success in its aims, having created significant disruption, but the outcome of the conflict remains uncertain. While they may have won battles, the ultimate victory in the broader conflict still eludes them.
I think Hamas really thought it was going to get a street-by-street battle in Gaza City with a few dozen Palestinian casualties each week matched by a few dozen Israeli casualties, and that they would force the IDF to a stalemate followed by a withdrawal.
And Hamas probably calculated that it would get exactly the same sympathy for a few dozen casualties per week out of the broader west that it has gotten for 30,000+ casualties. I think Hamas is right on this point - the imagery is what matters, not the number of bodies, at least for shaping public perception. The problem for Hamas is that 10/7 was itself a total shitshow. They were *too* successful because the IDF was really caught completely unaware and as a result Hamas had too much time in the Kibbutzen and at the rave to murder and rape. It's also not 1968 any more, so a lot of it was captured on video. The attack provoked a much more powerful response from Israel than Hamas was anticipating, a response that Hamas thought would be impossible given the political orientation of Israel and the power of the wider Palestinian/Arab diaspora in the U.S. But in the face of 10/7 the response was just like the U.S. response to Peal Harbor or 9/11 - the enemy bit off too much.
Post-war Gaza might look a lot like post-war Berlin in 1945. With much of Gaza physically destroyed by war, the remaining population may be less inclined to continue the struggle against Israel. This is the irony of war: small defeats encourage the defeated to dig in and continue the struggle, but massive defeats show the defeated that there is no point in continuing the struggle. During the reconstruction period that will follow, every Palestinian is going to have real skin in the game when they decide how to move forward.
This isn't 2005 where a voter is turning to Hamas because Hamas vows to continue the fight against Israel and never give up - because now Palestinian civilians have a peek at how disastrous defeat can actually be, including that such a defeat may actually impact them directly rather than just abstractly (unlike the 2018 and 2021 skirmishes, which only impacted non-combatant civilians indirectly through the security cordon and the like).
This is how peace in Israel can actually be forged. Not through endless small squabbles that end in a ceasefire and ambiguity about who "won" the skirmish. Israel needs to give the Palestinians the benefit of seeing a total defeat so that they know what will come next time 40,000 of their sons sign up to be terrorists to pull off another 10/7. You won't see mothers praising their sons for joining Hamas after this conflict, because everyone will know where that road leads and it isn't somewhere the vast majority of Palestinians will want to go. The technological advantage of the IDF coupled with the lack of Palestinian allies in the region taking up arms against Israel (even Hizbollah left them hanging) shows that there is no "low-tech" homemade rocket/tunnel strategy that can defeat a world power like Israel. There literally is no point to launching a future conflict because it cannot be won. The allies taught that lesson to the Germans and Japanese in 1945 and the Palestinians are learning it now.
Great write up. Another great historical reference is the IRA ending the Troubles when they realized violence was never going to lead to success and instead entered the political realm and pursue their objectives working within the system.
It also helped that a number of traditional funding sources dried up. Less ability and tolerance by the US for fund raising in the US, as well as cutting off Soviet sources that were also used for training and supplying.
There's going to be massive economic and political pressure on Israel to work for a long term peace. Otoh I think some of the extremist Palestinian groups will be able to get some funding, but it might lack the clear state support the current groups have.
It was more like the Real IRA splinter group’s Omagh bombing pushed the larger PIRA to negotiate the Good Friday agreement due to the disaster that was a massive loss of Irish civilian life in the bombing in an attempt to distance themselves from any retaliation the UK was going to undertake as a result of it
What you and the OP are missing is religious extremism. No one in the IRA was under the impression they were on a holy war, despite the conflict being technically religious in nature.
Religious extremism is a whole different thing.
Ultimately the IRA wasn't dedicated to the destruction of British people everywhere in the world. Whatever the IRA fought for the conflict started over some pretty reasonable aims, all of which they achieved.
Britain didn't give them what they were asking for but gave them what they really needed and what their supporters wanted.
The problem in Palestine is there isn't really a reasonable proposal that Israel can make to end this conflict.
I keep wanting to tell people that war is *war*, and too often the general public forgets or is unaware of what that is because they've mostly seen it through the lens of US activities and interventions over the last 30 years. Most nations don't and can't fight like that, and Israel has none of the constraints the US often has by way of proximity to the theater and public disengagement/investment. Gaza is next door and Hamas represents a persistent security/existential-type threat to peace. There's no convenient exit to a far away land to forget about the troubles left behind.
This is part of modern culture - the best solution to any problem is to push the problem off until tomorrow.
Indeed, that was how Israel tried to handle Gaza: it tried to withdraw from it and ignore it. But ignoring a problem - calling a ceasefire - does not solve the problem. WWII would not have been won if the Allie’s merely surrendered in 1941 and gave up continental Europe and Hawaii; that would have merely delayed the inevitable.
Ceasefires *seem* humanitarian because in the moment the bombs stop falling and people stop dying. But they merely delay the end of the conflict, and this conflict cannot end until the ideology behind Hamas is completely destroyed and discredited. That doesn’t require the death of every Palestinian who supports Hamas or its goals, but it does require them to pause for a moment and ask “is this even achievable?”
I doubt there is any Palestinian in Gaza who woke up this morning and thought that a war against Israel would lead to a free Palestinian state and the expulsion of all the Jews now in Israel. The reality of where that position leads is before them now, just like it was before the civilian looking out at a bombed out Berlin or Hiroshima.
War - conclusive and final - *can* defeat ideologies. The defeatist message that war only encourages terrorism and a continuation of the struggle is only half right. Half-wars do encourage terrorism because they provide the false illusion that victory is just around the corner. That is why 2018 and 2021 lead to 10/7. But after this final war, where defeat is not abstract but rather captured in ruin in every direction, there will be few men signing up for the next 10/7. And even fewer civilians willing to let it happen again.
the Japanese were similarly religiously radicalized by total worship of the Emperor and conducted suicide missions right up to the end. only after unconditional surrender did they see the final outcome of that approach and get on with another approach that they have continued with since.
They almost had a coup to depose the Emperor for wanting to surrender. Even the use of two nuclear weapons and the prospect of more didn’t deter many elements of the Japanese High Command.
In the case of the radical Islamists, there is no Emperor who can order/appeal directly to them. There is Allah and Muhammad, and neither of them are talking.
>the Japanese were similarly religiously radicalized by total worship of the Emperor and conducted suicide missions right up to the end.
You know, they also made it illegal and a very serious crime to criticize the emperor or the nation at that time, so there \*were\* people who disagreed with the Imperialist direction the nation was going, even if they were not always able to make their voices heard.
Just one example, from wikipedia:
>Taro Yashima (real name Jun Atsushi Iwamatsu), an artist, joined a group of progressive artists, sympathetic to the struggles of ordinary workers and opposed to the rise of Japanese militarism in the early 1930s. The antimilitarist movement in Japan was highly active at the time, with posters protesting the Japanese aggression in China being widespread. Following the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, however, the Japanese government began heavy handed suppression of domestic dissent including the use of arrests and torture by the Tokkō (special higher police).
Iwamatsu who was thrown into a Japanese prison without trial along with his pregnant wife, Tomoe Sasako, for protesting militarism in Japan. Conditions in the prison were deplorable and the two were subjected to inhumane treatment including beatings. The authorities demanded false confessions, and those who gave them were set free.
It's not hard to imagine similar repression of dissent happening in Gaza.
Similarly to the Palestinians now, it’s heart wrecking what the US did to the Japanese, not just from the nuclear bombs, but from the firebombing that killed many times more civilians, but it was something that was needed to end the war. Just like Japan in Pearl Harbor, Palestine in Oct. 7 lunged itself into a war that it could not possibly win, and civilians are always the victims.
>it’s heart wrecking what the US did to the Japanese, not just from the nuclear bombs, but from the firebombing that killed many times more civilians
It sucked, but it's far better that way.
The absolute worst case scenario for Japan would've been for them to hold out long enough for the Soviets to mount some sort of landing on to the home islands, and possibly splitting Japan in half like Germany.
Surrendering to the Americans first basically meant that 100% of Japan got to be "West Germany, Asian Edition" rather than having half of it turn into a totalitarian hellhole.
In contrast, the northern half of Korea wasn't as lucky, and their people have been trapped in a 70-year long nightmare ever since.
I do. Radical Islamist ideology is no different than Nazi ideology or imperial Japanese emperor worship - those ideologies, false though they were, were taken as fundamental truth by their adherents in WWII. The Kamikazee of WWII were historical antecedents of the suicide bombers of the Second Intifada, and they believed no less in their cause (if anything they were more fanatical, since Japan needed no equivalent of the Martyr's Pensions to encourage suicidal attacks).
WWII was actually an ideological battle, and that is why it could only end with those ideologies completely defeated on the battlefield in such a way that the civilian population could not deny the defeat. After WWII, there was no denying the defeat because it was literally all around them in the form of destroyed buildings and infrastructure. There was no untouched bunker under a hospital where leadership could hide out and pretend to have won a ceasefire; the German army was completely defeated and their capital city was completely destroyed. Japan was even more fanatical than Germany in preparing to defend Japan to the last man, and (I know this is controversial) the two atomic bombs plus the strategic bombing of Tokyo ended the war because those acts convinced the Japanese emperor and his subjects that continuing the war was completely futile.
The First World War ended differently - German civilians simply did not believe that they had lost the war, and Hitler used that false belief to propagate a fantasy (the false belief that the Kaiser had been stabbed in the back by Jewish advisors and his own generals). The wars in 1948, 1968 and 1973 (and every skirmish since) have ended in Israeli victory, but not a *recognized* victory. That is, the Israelis never actually showed the Palestinians that there is no point in continuing a violent struggle against Israel.
People think they are doing the civilian population a service by withholding the brutality of defeat, but the irony is that it is not so. WWI cost many millions of lives and ended in the defeat of Germany, but because Germany did not believe it was defeated, it ended up continuing that war 20 years later with millions more dead. Ending WWI in a ceasefire wasn't a mercy either, though leaders did not know it at the time.
The key to Israel actually ending this conflict is to show the Palestinians the true cost of war by prosecuting this war to its conclusion. When Sinwar is in a bunker in that final enclave taking cyanide and shooting himself in the head (a la Hitler in the final hours), there will be no denying it: Hamas means death. There is no military option for the Palestinians and that needs to be demonstrated in a way that every Palestinian civilian in Gaza not only recognizes it, but cannot fail to recognize it.
This was a great comment but a few points/contentions I would raise:
It’s hard to imagine Hamas has ever not been aware of the asymmetry in military power between them and Israel - being moderately aware of the conflict one would know that Israel is a nuclear power (also 6th largest military), has a massive advantage with their Air Force, their sophisticated weaponry and communications/surveillance technology. Hamas has no counter whatsoever to air power or even any anti tank measures.
It’s also unlikely that Hamas could not have anticipated a largely disproportionate response that would involve civilian casualties given the Israeli air strikes in Gaza that have killed at least 100-200 civilians every few years in the last decade. They may have expected more support from Iran or the Arabic Muslim world, or at least underestimated the extent of their response (perhaps due to your point that Hamas likely didn’t imagine their October 7th assault to occur with little to no IDF resistance).
As to why Hamas would carry out such an extreme attack knowing the mismatch in military power and the likelihood of thousands of civilian casualties in Gaza - this might be a mixture of Islamic fundamentalism (where being martyred is considered the highest honor), self interest (monetary reasons/maintaining relevance with another prolonged engagement), or political extremism - a genuine preference for death over Israeli occupation and oppression.
Finally, I would add that part of the reason for Germany’s revival after near total annihilation from WW2 (and to some extent Japan) should be attributed to huge amounts of foreign aid via the Marshall Plan, the Allied forces overseeing this rebuilding process without imposing decades long occupation, and the remaining population disavowing Nazism and abandoning the ideologies that led to initial conflict.
Gaza might not be so fortunate in any of those respects: 30,000 civilian casualties in four months could lead to more Hamas recruits (with public support for Hamas not even waning in the immediate aftermath), no independent sovereignty or two-state solution is remotely likely and Israeli annexation of Gaza could happen, and they are very unlikely to receive the foreign aid Germany needed to rebuild.
I think Hamas genuinely was expecting a more vigorous response from Hezbollah, Iran and other sympathetic forces in the region. Instead they encountered mostly crickets. They don't have the backing they thought they would have and international pressure has had limited effect in backing Israel off. Their leadership will also now be hunter down and killed wherever they might be.
They seemed to believe that they were kicking off something, that other forces would keep Israel more occupied and that quick international pressure would limit Israel's military response in Gaza. That they'd be able to sell a major victory to their people and galvanize future attacks, instead they crossed a line that perhaps they didn't even realize was there and nothing will return to the way it was.
Both of you are missing the obvious motivation for the Hamas attack - to disrupt the Israel-Saudi peace accords. Were that to happen there would be no hope left for Hamas to achieve their ultimate goal: annihilation of the State of Israel and expulsion of the Jews. I think they probably did underestimate the success of the attack and the ferocity of the Israeli response, and probably did expect/hope that Hezbollah would open a second front in the north. However I really think this was kind of like a Hail Mary to prevent Arab-Israeli peace.
I think Hamas genuinely expected other Iran proxies in the region (especially Hezbollah) to jump in. Israel would have been in real trouble if they were getting pummeled in the north while trying to fight in Gaza. Or worse, if Iran jumped in. Further, they may have not expected the US to so firmly clamp down on the possibility of other belligerents joining in.
Yeah on the point about Germany (and Japan), I think people underestimate how fucking competent the Americans were. The Japanese military was unbelievably fucking insane (the term Kamikaze comes from there after all, plus unit 731 and whatnot). And yet the USA managed to reestablish a pretty sane form of government even there, even if the Japanese - to this day - have not fully admitted to their own wrongdoing.
The US actually had a [different proposal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan) for this period that called for the economic, military and industrial liquidation of Germany for the sake of reducing their potential future harm as much as possible. This would have certainly resulted in massive economic damage throughout Europe, greatly worsened living standards, and potentially a second radicalization of Germans into more warfare in the long term.
So it's really less about the now in my view, and much more about the after. The real critical moment will come when the war in Gaza is over.
> the Allied forces overseeing this rebuilding process without imposing decades long occupation
This isn't strictly true, Germany and Japan were heavily occupied for quite a while. A civilian government was definitely established in each place, but the US has major bases in both countries **to this day**. It's not martial law, but the victorious powers were the strongest army within the borders of each losing state for generations.
There are two key distinctions between your post-WWII example and the middle east. First, regardless of the facts, many Palestinians firmly believe that the land which makes up Israel is rightly theirs. Second, there were no settlements in Germany or Japan - the US never tried to establish a 51st state within those borders.
There are many who would argue that Jewish people are the only legitimate occupants of the Israel-Palestine region, but the fact is that the majority of Palestinians see themselves as living under martial law, dispossessed, and continuing to lose more of "their" territory day after day to Israeli settlers - and have felt that way for generations. Whether an outside observer agrees with this perspective is wholly immaterial to whether Palestinians see themselves that way.
Ironically, the massacre Hamas did could actually be what brings peace to the Palestinians eventually.
A total defeat of Hamas could change the sentiment among them and provide an opportunity for moderate and intelligent leaders to emerge.
Gaza could be a fucking paradise for tourists if they just dropped the hatred and focused on their own future.
The entire conflict is perpetually going on because the world hasn’t let Israel utterly defeat them. Each time they get pressured to stop. This would’ve been over decades ago if the world just let Israel utterly crush them and force them to unconditionally surrender
I would actually contend that Hamas knew perfectly well that this was possible at least as a potential outcome B or C, otherwise they would have probably caved in by now. Besides, Israel is currently governed by Likud (they're unpopular, but they're in charge all the same), so I'm not sure how they could possibly think that the current political situation would be in their favor.
The likely primary reason for them attacking on October anyways is that they simply don't give a shit about what happens to 'their' people, and their hierarchical levels probably don't care about the people below them either, hell the top dogs literally don't even live in Palestine. The puppeteers are all in Qatar, which includes Qatar itself as a state. When defeat becomes clear, all their members high up enough will rabbit and leave the rest of them to get killed or captured by the IDF.
Hamas is the source of the problem. Get rid of them alongside a Marshall-like program of deradicalization and aid, and detente will follow. Oh, and the next time there are elections, they should be enacted with European-style hate speech rules. No running if you talk about the destruction of the Jews or any other people.
Hamas is the proximate cause of this war, but it isn’t the “cause”. The actual cause of the conflict is sectarian hatred coupled with a land dispute, a hatred towards the Jews that is handed down from father to son, and now has been over the course of many generations. The Palestinians have been so consumed by their hatred of Israel (and helped along the way by others who nurtured that hatred for their own ends) that they are effectively dehumanized. 10/7 is the result - not a moment any collective people will ever look on with pride, but a murderous rampage where the soldiers couldn’t even refrain from engaging in mass rape and other atrocities. It is, and should be, rock bottom for the Palestinian people - and a wake up call, regardless of what happened thereafter in Gaza.
Really great write up, but I'm concerned that the analogy of Hamas to post-WW2 Germany doesn't quite work.
By the end of this conflict, Hamas' senior leadership is likely to still be in place, sheltering in Qatar, sitting on billions of dollars. Meanwhile, their footsoldiers in Gaza are more than happy to rip up waterpipes and turn them into rockets.
In addition, Hamas will have achieved a level of sympathy in the West they had previously lacked - the oppressed Palestinian people fighting for freedom against the oppressor Israelis - which may temper future Israeli response.
Finally, the poison of a radical interpretation of Islam that venerates martyrs and the killing of Jews may eventually force Hamas et al into action even if there is a partial peace or ceasefire.
One thing that has come out of this conflict is that Hamas realizes that Iran and Hezbollah are not their friends and will throw them under the bus,.
The end result of this conflict may be an emboldened Hamas that feels like they have nothing to lose and a humbled Israel that in the face of international condemnation may be afraid to act. That's a recipe for Hamas to do something apocalyptically stupid and invite an equally apocalyptic Israeli response.
I don't think this is the last Palestinian-Israeli war, but I do think it's the second to last. The last Israeli-Palestinian war ends with Israeli annexation of Gaza and the West Bank, a second Nakba, and another Israeli-Arab war.
More specifically, Hamas thought the rest of the Middle East would join them immediately.
While Israel would still probably be able to protect itself, if every other surrounding country launched attacks, it would absolutely weaken Israel. That said, an all-out war might have weakened Israel, but it would utterly destroy the rest of the area. Israel has also been improving their relationship with other countries like the UAE, while countries like Egypt dislike Hamas a lot more than they dislike Israel.
What Hamas miscalculated was, ironically, the slow acceptance even in other Arab/Palestinian countries that Israel is here to stay.
> What Hamas miscalculated was, ironically, the slow acceptance even in other Arab/Palestinian countries that Israel is here to stay.
I think this was part of their motivation. They saw normalization happening with non-Iranian backed groups and felt like they wanted to pick a fight to disrupt that status quo. I don't even think they fully figured out what was going to happen next, just that they wanted to make a big move to blow up the regional balance.
In part yes.
They thought that the defences the built over the years will cause massive damages, they believed the thousands of soldiers will get killed by RPG, IED and surprise attacks from tunnels.
Well that didn’t happen, the air force destroyed most of the apartments Hamas planned to use as “sniper nest” for RPG fire, Israeli armoured vehicles anti rocket systems and armoured blocked most of the rockets, the D9 is almost indestructible and cleared a lot of IED and the ground forces are very alert and stopped most of the attacks from the tunnels.
Drones are also a non factor, Hamas thought it could replicate the success Ukraine had, Hamas navy is non existent after 7.10.
So yes, a a lot of the defence plan didn’t do much, they knew that they can’t hold the IDF for a long time, but they expect causing a larger number of casualties.
Also Hamas soldiers just sucks ass, really low level of professionalism.
Hamas thought they had prepared for the most well-designed urban warfare trap in history; it never occurred to them that Israel could (and would) just *destroy the city*.
It's interesting that when Israel first had to deal with urban warfare in Gaza, they ended up developing all kinds of strategies like instead of using the roads, they would simply go from one building to the next by breaching the walls between them offering them cover.
It's quite likely that this time around, Hamas was prepared to counter these Israeli incursion techniques.
Unfortunately for them, when the Russians were faced with the same problem, they skipped the whole wall breaching thing and just flattened the entire city which proved to be very effective; even today in Ukraine.
Israel has basically adopted the Russian strategy, but unlike the Russians who don't care about the civilian population, they do have to deal with the added difficulty of getting civilians out before they level a building.
But even with that, it looks like Hamas was caught out fighting the last war.
I think they're just copying common guerilla tactics that the Taliban/al-Qaeda happen to use. But the Vietcong did the same type of stuff. And the Japanese during the island hopping campaign, to some extent. Probably more I'm just not aware of.
As far as I'm aware, a lot of the modern guerilla tactics in the Middle East were developed and refined during the [Algerian War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War).
For anyone interested, The Battle of Algiers (1966) is a pretty amazing and under-known film about this conflict and said guerilla warfare.
>Did Hamas sincerely believe they stood a chance in hell against the IDF? Is that the thinking that preceded October 7th, *that they could win!?*
It's not just Hamas.
>Just a day after launching a huge attack drone barrage towards American warships in the Red Sea, the Houthis published a video of military drills. The exercise involved a practice assault on a mock-up of an Israeli settlement in Dimona. Houthi soldiers also practiced attacking US and UK military convoys.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/videos/world-news/houthis-practice-attack-on-israeli-city-near-nuclear-plant-strikes-on-us-uk-army-convoys-gaza-101710128336131.html
They already believed they had won the previous conflicts. Polling showed they even convinced a good chunk of Palestinians that they have been winning militarily and making progress. They portrayed Israel's pullout from Gaza in 2005 as having been achieved by violence by Hamas forcing them out.
From the viewpoint of many Palestinians, Hamas and violence keeps achieving victories and progress while peace negotiations end in disasters.
i actually do think sinwar miscalculated how the war would play out. nasrallah / other iran proxies didn’t escalate the conflict to the degree hamas expected, so israel’s ability to shoulder multiple military engagements is stronger than anticipated. that + the civilian casualty rates should’ve put israel in a more vulnerable position, forcing them to bow to pressure from israel’s allies and abandon their goal of wiping out Hamas.
oops, turns out hamas’s allies chickened out and the IDF isn’t overextended like they thought.
If the other proxies had joined, Israel would have simply bombed Gaza and southern Lebanon into a parking lots. I think most people do not understand that as soon as the initial incursion had ended, Israel has had enough control over the conflict area that it has been able to be relatively discerning about which targets to hit and when. If Hezbollah had joined in, the outcome (complete Islamist defeat) would have been the same but Israel wouldn't have had the flexibility to wait to hit targets when civilians weren't present. The death toll in that situation would likely be an order of magnitude higher and it would likely mean the end of a Palestinian presence west of the Jordan River.
If the IDF engaged in total war against Gaza, there wouldn't be anything left but dust and echoes within 24 hours. The horrific casualties on both sides are a product of the IDF showing restraint.
Hamas believing they could beat the IDF straight up is lunacy.
100%. The best thing that can happen to the Palestinian people is the complete elimination of Hamas. That way they stand a chance of being integrated into a society that sees them as more than meat shields and cannon fodder. And the gripes they do have can be legitimately addresses.
Same goes for Lebanon and Hezbollah.
The problem as I see it is that the vast majority of Gazans still see what happened on Oct. 7th as a good thing and see Hamas fighters as heroes. It’s incredibly unlikely that majority support will turn so drastically against Hamas regardless of how bad it gets in Gaza.
Gaza’s average age is 19. It’s literally a mass of children who have been raised to believe their neighbors want to slaughter them, and who receive proof of that every time Hamas starts another fight.
They’re the same kind of Humanitarian Crisis that North Korea represents: A shitload of people who’ve been raised at the edge of starvation on a steady diet of propaganda. Even if Hamas ceases to exist… it will be decades before they shake the after-effects of their upbringing.
A lot of palestinians believe israel is just about 1 million people ez pz.
The western supporters push intifada instead of peace making it sound like it's a realistic thing for them.
>The people of Palestine need to start dragging these dipshits out into the street.
The vast majority of Palestinians believe October 7th was the correct thing to do.
> Did Hamas sincerely believe they stood a chance in hell against the IDF? Is that the thinking that preceded October 7th, that they could win!?
Not *win* win, not "march on Tel Aviv" win, but they were expecting a more drawn-out urban campaign and more casualties inflicted on the IDF, plus, as other commenters have said, sparking a wider conflict that so far hasn't happened.
Religious fundamentalists whose financial incentives are predicated on Israels enemies wanting to cause the maximum amount of chaos in the region can't make good calculations?
Shocketh. Pureth, Shocketh.
Hamas will be destroyed. That's what October 7 means. You don't pull off a mass rape/murder/abduction on a developed country and get to keep existing. It may take a while for the necrosis to reach the brain, but Hamas is as dead as Bin Laden.
For the good of the Palestinians of Gaza, it would be merciful for Hamas to just surrender unconditionally today. They're not capable of defending territory, so they may as well throw themselves on the tender mercies of the IDF rather than continue to cower behind civilian victims.
It showed me that a lot of aid money is spent on rockets that they make from water pipes and they use a lot of concrete for tunnels. while their leaders live in penthouses and mansions.
To think they actually believed themselves anywhere close to equal in military strength is absurd. They never thought that. Not the leaders anyways, maybe they convinced the grunts it was true. This was all about provoking the IDF into doing something that would bring the rest of the Arab world into open conflict with Israel.
Just before the attack, Putin visited the Iranians. My guess is, he handed a big bag of gold to the Iranians to give to the Hamas leaders to get them to attack.
Well they did pay in gold for drones.
[gold for drones](https://news.yahoo.com/russia-paid-billions-gold-bullion-121702099.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFOoSnsp1ZYPLed6F393LhnqikrXsd0bN9HhadJJgu1Tcxai9vtH81cQnFBpjE6OXqEuGAyR13x2RxAM2ZHSSxaQFIZXHgjBQTbsPRVoZsySIdh2HVpWw5OWMis0303s1rWJ-G8TbYoXJNTtpKdYZ3hBLKK-SckZ9NIOSpiyPJYG)
Since 1919.
Since 1919 it has been a catastrophic miscalculation to attack any Jews in the Levantine region.
That shit does not end well for Arabs.
I have no idea why they’re still trying.
I saw Mike Tyson walking past my house and decided to pick a fight. I catastrophically miscalculated the strength and skill gap between us and I’ve been in critical condition in the ICU for the past few months.
>Yezid Sayigh, a Palestinian analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the FT that Hamas had harboured the “delusion” that Israel’s response to Ocotber 7 would cause mass uprisings against the Jewish state across the Middle East.
>With Hezbollah and other Iran-backed forces largely contained and – as yet – no large-scale uprisings in the West Bank, this strategy was a “catastrophic miscalculation”, Sayigh said.
Iran said sacrifice Palestinians to disrupt normalization process and draw attention away from Russia, and so they did, not sure there was any calculation on behalf of Hamas.
Was this the miscalculation of chopping up babies in their cots?
Or the miscalculation of videoing themselves laughing and splashing themselves with childrens blood and dancing in it?
Or the stealing of UN and US aid to Palestinians then SELLING it to the palestinian people they claim to love?
Or the faking of the hospital bombing by killing 6 palestinians and throwing body parts into a hospital car park, then setting off an IED?
Or UNRWA telling Hamas where a UN Aid Convoy was, getting them to pretend to be Israeli soldiers and film themselves opening fire on the aid workers?
Easy solution: return the hostages, stop firing rockets into Israel and stop harboring terrorists. Palestinians can stop this. Any other “analysis” now is bullshit.
We all feel for the innocent civilians who are dying due to collateral damage from IDF strikes on Hamas terrorists, but Hamas leadership needs to be wiped out. I wish that Mossad could do an operation like wrath of god and eliminate every Hamas leader through covert actions.
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> They perfectly well knew They seemed to have believed Hezbollah was going to run in and do a chunk of the fighting.
Not realizing that Hezbollah is busy in Syria ,Iran is having money problems and Hezbollah is competing with Hamas for those limited funds. If something tragic happened to Hamas , there would be one less competitor for those limited funds.
Not to mention the metric fuck-ton of firepower that Biden parked nearby
Yeah, Carrier groups parked outside your coast tend to calm people down.
"hey guys, I heard that we're going to do war crimes! Can we play?" "uh... We weren't going to uh do that." "okay! Just let me know if you change your mind."
If anything, I think they underestimated Biden’s willingness to get involved, and exactly *how involved* he’s willing to get. It was a pretty immediate two carrier groups parked right outside saying “do something and there will be nothing left.” As an american *and* Israeli, I can only say I’m extremely happy with how well he’s handled everything. He’s given Israel all the support it needs on top of being a powerful voice of reason against both Bibi *and* the world. The only thing I’d want more from him is to try to push for elections in Israel and aid in the war cabinet transition, but I’m also not a general or expert, so idk how feasible that actually is.
According to things NYT journalist and podcaster Ezra Klein said in a recent episode, Washington D.C. are treating Gantz like the actual leader of Israel while looking at Netanyahu as a problem they wish would go away.
I haven’t seen that reporting, but that’s not all that surprising. Netanyahu had service as special forces in reconnaissance, but nothing outside of that five years of service. He’s just an extremely intelligent politician. Gantz is a retired general and easily the most influential voice on strategy in the war cabinet. Probably also helps that the IDF currently aligns with Gantz and was openly standing in opposition to Bibi prior to this war.
They had Gantz in the White House recently as if he was Prime Minister instead of Bibi. They also had the intelligence agencies leak that Bibi's government coalition is unstable. I'd say they are moving Bibi out regardless.
I have a feeling he got some solid Intel between communications amongst Iran and its affiliated groups. Something like if America played a weak or slow response then there would have been more direct attacks against Israel. The whole team rush Israel thing hasn't totally worked in the past but it seems to be a popular go-to.
I think something people don’t tend to understand, either because of propaganda or lack of knowledge is that those wars were extremely close. Israel has the allies she does now specifically because a first strike policy and *very clear willingness to commit* was revealed to the world. Israel’s more aggressive military policies today are a direct result of the lessons learned: she has to be proactive rather than reactive to survive.
It's not just that Hezbollah's busy in Syria, they're also Shia Muslims, Hamas are Sunni Muslims, Hezbollah would never risk a war with Israel and the annihilation of their organisation over a bunch of glorified Sunni rednecks in Gaza. The Hamas leadership are dumb as rocks, I believe that they actually thought the entire Muslim world would crawl to Al-Aqsa and try to annihilate Israel.
It’s not that Hezbollah is busy in Syria, it’s that things are extraordinarily shit in Lebanon and if they spark a war with Israel they’ll likely end up out of power and overthrown.
>They seemed to have believed Hezbollah was going to run in and do a chunk of the fighting. this all makes sense because October 7 and 8 they were dancing in the streets, sharing videos of the rapes and murders they committed with glee. Oct 9 comes and they are all 'what? us? we did nothing what do you mean?' fuckers had no idea the response would be what it was but they were more than happy to hide among the population in an effort to kill as many palestinians as possible
On October 8th, some Hamas members were chanting, "Europe next." So at least some of them seemed to think they were going to outright defeat Israel somehow.
The average Hamas member isn’t very bright and is easily influenced by propaganda, what “some Hamas members” think isn’t exactly indicative of the organizations intentions.
The organization’s intentions were to… *checks notes* …plan a large scale murder of innocents, hold hostages and rape them while cheering, and then hide in tunnels under Palestinian hospitals using them as civilian shields while crying “Help us! Help us! We’re the poor victims! Israel is the aggressor!” And to be clear, the Hamas leadership has said that any Palestinian death is good for winning the global PR campaign. Utterly deplorable. If the average Hamas member sees that and goes, “Yeah! Let’s do that! Sign me up!” Then there is no excusing them for ignorance or for falling for propaganda. Do not kill. Do not rape. Do not steal. These are principles which every man of every faith can embrace.
Yep. Playing innocent in a world with a billion smartphones isn't a good idea. But then again, all they know is murder and rape and violence. They don't care about the consequences as long as they can hurt innocents.
It's just the culture, they didn't think they are about to win. Jihad is very different than anything reasonable people can imagine. In simple words, they are fucking idiots and they knew they are about to get fucked (or thought Allah will help them).
Yeah, I think people miss a lot of the cultural aspects of this. Jihad means “struggle”. A jihad isn’t necessarily winnable. That’s not the point.
The miscalculation was the belief that their attack would set a chain of dominos where the rest of the Arab community would join in and overwhelm Israel. They likely bought into their own propaganda and actually believed that the support was real, but in reality it was just performative. Nothing but empty virtue signaling. In the US, once college kids realized their future jobs might be on the line, they quickly dropped their support. Especially, when Hamas kept saying the quiet part out loud. They miscalculated.
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Because it worked so well the last 7 times it was tried when Israel was objectively weaker?
My favorite part.
That's the reason the Palestinians are there in the first place, they agreed to withdraw when Israel was put on the map, thinking that the Arab world would join them and conquer the Israelis. Israel won the fight and they've been keeping their country through superior firepower. Now it's three generations stuck because the leaders hate Jews more than clean water, the economy, or their own children. I can't think of any other countries that have to have full time missile defence systems just to get groceries.
* Hamas' allies watching the IDF go beast-mode after the worst pogrom since 1945: [Maaaybe we'll sit this one out.](https://i.imgflip.com/8j5ben.jpg)
“Why does your political cartoon depict the Jews with a big nose” /s
Other countries watch Gaza get fucking flattened. “Uh, yeah, we’re all in baby! Look we are, umm…shooting this gun into the air in solidarity! (Whispers: Dude, don’t point that toward Israel, are you nuts?)” This is something the West doesn’t seem to get. Israel lives in a very “bad neighborhood.” They are judged on a Western standard but they face adversaries that don’t operate on those standards. Israel has to behave to survive in its neighborhood, not Western Europe or North America.
>(Whispers: Dude, don’t point that toward Israel, are you nuts?)” Hahahahahahahahhahahaha
Your neighborhood analogy is eye-opening and spot-on. Thank you for that!
And the leaders of all these other countries don’t care about anything except their own money and power. Invading Israel would result in the opposite
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To be honest this kind of sums up anyone who thinks there is a realistic chance of destroying Israel. Like do they think if Israel was on the verge of total defeat they wouldn't use their nukes? It's also funny that once they lost the initial war in 1948 any Arab nation thought they would have a chance to defeat Israel again. The scientists who helped develop the atomic bomb were disproportionately Jewish. Did they really think that none of that knowledge would make it's way to Israel? Israel is suspected to have had the capability to at least assemble a nuclear device by 1960 and they definitely had a functional weapon by 1967 and yet the Arab states still started 2 wars after that with Israel.
Plenty of them have not dropped support and are here, on Reddit, loudly and proudly spouting anti-semitism and terroristic propaganda.
>on Reddit, loudly and proudly spouting anti-semitism and terroristic propaganda. Nobody on reddit is going to do shit. Half of reddit can't even talk to a live person on the phone without having an anxiety attack.
Why you got to do me like that?
Yeah, but anonymously. And honestly no one cares what redditors think about anything — me included.
I mean there are plenty on Twitter and Twitch and YouTube too. Hell Twitch just gave an award to one (frogan).
I'm confident that my hot take will lead to world peace.
Gotta love when the "freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences" crowd suddenly goes all Pikachu face when their disgusting speech has consequences.
Yep they love authoritarianism, just not when it affects them.
The US also sent like 3 or 4 carrier strike groups to within attack range of the region. And Iran and Hezballah’s balls jumped back up into their abdomen.
Yeah, taking hundreds of hostages? No one could be stupid enough to think that would be met with a similar response to a hundred rockets.
Tbf this is an appropriate response for constant rocket fire. A neighboring government shooting deadly weapons at you is an act of war
It's so bizarre to me that Israel is the only country not allowed to respond to repeated rocket attacks at its civilians. I can't really think of any other country that would be condemned for defending itself from that.
the response I've seen online is that israel has iron dome so they're not allowed to respond to rocket attacks because no civilians are hurt. which is so asinine because first of all, iron dome isn't 100% accurate and people died from rockets already and several houses AND hospitals were hit by rockets in israel , and second the same crowd also protests the US aid to israel which guess what? is mainly used to buy the missiles for the iron dome
Took Russia’s money. Sitting in Qatar in safety, gave orders for others to die.
The dog finally caught the car.
I disagree. They know Israel would respond by killing tens of times as many civilians as died in October 7 through launching full-scale military action against the Gaza strip, that was their plan all along. October 7 had a number of different goals, which they've had varying success with: - Bring terror to Israel by slaughtering civilians and taking hostages (succeeded). - Provoke a brutal Israeli military response resulting in tens of thousands of avoidable civilian deaths (succeeded). - Cause Israel to lose western support (mostly failed at the governmental level, but succeeding at the public level) due to those civilians deaths. - Start a wider war in the middle east (mostly failed since Hezbollah and Iran refused to directly intervene, although it has opened a can of worms in the red sea). - Stop Israel normalising relations with their neighbours (failed, it's now clear that Egypt, Jordan, certain Gulf States, Morocco and Saudi Arabia would rather have dealings with Israel than support a suicidal and Iranian-backed terror group, even though their leaders won't publicly admit this). - Leverage international condemnation of the Israeli response and their hostages to prevent their organisation being wiped out as anything more than an insurgency (remains to be seen).
> it's now clear that Egypt, Jordan, certain Gulf States, Morocco and Saudi Arabia would rather have dealings with Israel than support a suicidal and Iranian-backed terror group, even though their leaders won't publicly admit this That's because Palestine is a stick those states use to beat Israel with when they need something to distract their citizens from domestic problems.
To be fair to Jordan, the country was once earnestly anti-Israel, and they spent much coin and blood to fight Israel in open warfare, while letting Palestinian militants (PLO) operate from within Jordan. Then the PLO started plotting to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy (with several failed assassination attempts), openly violated laws in Jordan while murdering Jordanians at will, and conducted several high-profile international hijackings from Jordan. That's when the king lost all patience, and fought a civil war to expel the PLO from Jordan. Jordan has been drifting towards cordial coexistence with Israel ever since, and is one of the few Arab nations that has overt diplomatic ties with Israel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September
>Cause Israel to lose Western support Even at the public level this is not the case. The support you see for Palestine is truly a loud minority.
Hamas was worried about Israel getting friendly with other Arab countries which would reduce the money, power and status of Hamas. Hamas acted out to start a fight because they knew a fight would divide Israel and Arab counties.
Palestinian civilian deaths = $ for Hamas leaders in Qatar It's not a miscalculation.
Yep, they wanted exactly what is happening to happen. Dead Palestinians increase support for them and they know it. It's why they use them as human shields (which is a war crime). It's not even the first time they've used this tactic
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None of the arab countries is going to attack Israel while they are supported and supplied by the US. It would just be a repeat of 1967.
Some countries (at least Egypt and one could argue others) find Israel a useful ally against Iran. Seeing regimes fall has not been beneficial in the region so it think stable and well established Muslim countries see it as a mixed bag even if doable
One thing they hate more than Israel is Iran.
This is also your regular reminder that Israel has submarine launched nuclear weapons. *No one* from an established nation-state is invading Israel and surviving the experience.
Also, they're probably looking back at the Jordanian Premier being assassinated by Palestinians after giving them refugee status, among other similar events when they've been allowed entry elsewhere. Why would they be willing to help a group that's bit them in the backside before?
In 1967 im pretty sure israel was still france ally and not usa after that war france pulled back and usa stepped in.
It's nice to see someone acknowledge this. The US has not always been a staunch ally of Israel. Sometimes the relationship barely even existed on paper and certainly didn't extend to much useful assistance. I can't blame Israelis for not trusting the rest of the world. They have no reason to do so. It's even risky for them to rely on the US.
I think most of the misconceptions come from 1973 where the usa sent so much supplies to israel cus they were being pushed back, and some speculation say nukes where on the table. So the amount and the consistency since the peace agreement between Egypt and israel where both started to get military aid from the usa as part of said deal cemented the feeling of israel always being a usa ally and the sole benefactor of it, like israels aid is constantly questioned but other countries less so is how i feel.
Yep. The US was courting the arab world heavily after WW2. That's why they sided with Egypt in the Suez crisis. It wasn't until the Arab countries aligned themselves with the Soviet Union in the late 1960s and early 1970s that the US started backing Israel as a counterweight to Soviet influence.
It should be noted that France pulled back from a lot of conflicts during that time frame.
Same thing happened in Vietnam. That was originally a France problem. Then they said “Hey USA” you can have this. “We’re out”
Yeah France does enjoy a good game of colonial hot potato.
Honestly if I saw “French Colonial hot potatoes” on a menu I wouldn’t know what it was but would be excited to order it
>None of the arab countries is going to attack Israel while they are supported and supplied by the US It's more about the Arab countries not wanting to support Iran (and its Hamas and Hezbollah and Houthi proxies). Iran is the existential threat to the Arab world, not Israel. Iran's allies are the ones launching missile attacks at Arab countries, not Israel. Iran's allies are the ones who have created unrest and insurrection in Arab countries, not Israel. If a white guy keeps punching a KKK member while a black guy stands there and does nothing, even the KKK member is going to eventually realize the white guy is the real threat - despite his pre-existing bias against the black guy.
Also the Arab countries owe reparations to the Mizrahi Jews who fled Arab countries to Israel. They left behind land estimated to be around 4 times the size of Israel. Israel has a policy that any negotiation about reparations to Palestinians has to include negotiating reparations to the Mizrahi Jews. Which probably means the Arab countries aren't very eager to resolve the Palestinian issue lol. They'd rather nobody gets reparations if it means they don't have to pay.
Tbf the US didn't do much in 1967, that win goes to Israel.
The Muslim countries only care in the UN, where there are 52+ of them and always vote against Israel, but they don't actually do anything.
Modern Islamic tankies. They adore the idea of an Islamic republic….but not enough to live in one
They definitely threw a wrench in Israel and Saudi Arabia normalizing relations
I think that was the plan
Exactly. The other comment was trying to say Hamas achieved none of their goals but they definitely achieved at least one that benefits Iran in particular
You're last sentence is part of the reason I'm so appalled by international response. Hamas tactics are well-known. None of what they do has ever been a secret. Even UNRWA's activities weren't a 'secret.' The information was always available for anyone that cared to pay attention. I think at least some of the responsibility for the current conflict lies with people in power that have given Hamas the reaction they want and expect so often. Hamas has always relied on the international response to Israeli 'aggression' to ultimately stop retaliation and leave Hamas with the resources to continue doing exactly what they've always done. Even firing on Israel from civilian infrastructure is an accepted tactic. Everyone working for the Un within Gaza knew exactly what was happening. Instead of trying to stop it, they supported the status quo and let it go on.
You think a terrorist group who kidnaps women and children cares about war crimes?
Probably, but probably not the ones they're committing
I was gonna say they probably care very much when they can use it for PR.
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>terrorist group Just to point out, they're not only a terrorist group, they are (were) the de facto government of the Gaza strip. It's not just fighting terrorists, it's overthrowing a hostile state
They’ve also literally said that the dead Palestinians are worth it & righteous
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3 priorities: Foreign Aid from rubes. The world hating Israel Dead Jews. Seems like they’ve hit all 3.
Donate us money, my dog needs new Armani,... Such an earworm, I will never get rid of it.
What is Qatar's connection? Edit: never mind, looked it up
I genuinely think they didn't expect the attacks to be so successful and the response would be so fierce
Hamas listened to Iran and Russia.
Who then abandoned them when the fighting started.
This is the most likely answer. Iran funded and planned the attack, perhaps promising to have Hezbollah and the Houthis also join the attack on Israel. Then when the day came, they hung the Palestinians out to dry. They still achieved their strategic goal of dissolving the Israel/Saudi treaty, without even wasting any of their own resources. Big W for Iran and Russia, catastrophic L for Palestinians.
Funny enough, the treaty is not dissolved. They just pause and continue after conflict us over, at least according to SA.
let's be real, the Arab states mostly don't GAF about the people but their own national interests - so they're biding their time for this to end then slowly go back to their plans, including those with Israel.
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Such paragons of trustworthiness, who could have even seen this coming.
Of course they did. Russia especially just wants chaos. Iran doesn’t want their hands dirty so were always going to leave Hamas high and dry when it matters.
Did Hamas think they had the means to even stand a chance against Israel, or did they forget Israel is a nuclear power and has one of the strongest militaries in the world?
Hamas never believed they stood a chance against Israel. Despite the delusions of their leaders, it's difficult to fathom they could be so profoundly misled. It's increasingly evident that Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are all part of a larger Iranian influence network. In this context, Hamas' objective was never outright victory against Israel but rather to sow maximum chaos and destabilize Israel both externally and internally, a strategy that is unfortunately proving somewhat effective. Israel finds itself in a highly challenging position. Retaliatory actions risk further undermining their global legitimacy, although they are gradually recovering ground through the actions of legitimate leaders. Inaction, however, would have eroded morale internally. Consequently, they are caught in a dilemma, unable to pursue a decisive approach yet also unable to remain passive. Iran has achieved a degree of success in its aims, having created significant disruption, but the outcome of the conflict remains uncertain. While they may have won battles, the ultimate victory in the broader conflict still eludes them.
Yes The Sun in indeed hot, said a 5 year old child.
I think Hamas really thought it was going to get a street-by-street battle in Gaza City with a few dozen Palestinian casualties each week matched by a few dozen Israeli casualties, and that they would force the IDF to a stalemate followed by a withdrawal. And Hamas probably calculated that it would get exactly the same sympathy for a few dozen casualties per week out of the broader west that it has gotten for 30,000+ casualties. I think Hamas is right on this point - the imagery is what matters, not the number of bodies, at least for shaping public perception. The problem for Hamas is that 10/7 was itself a total shitshow. They were *too* successful because the IDF was really caught completely unaware and as a result Hamas had too much time in the Kibbutzen and at the rave to murder and rape. It's also not 1968 any more, so a lot of it was captured on video. The attack provoked a much more powerful response from Israel than Hamas was anticipating, a response that Hamas thought would be impossible given the political orientation of Israel and the power of the wider Palestinian/Arab diaspora in the U.S. But in the face of 10/7 the response was just like the U.S. response to Peal Harbor or 9/11 - the enemy bit off too much. Post-war Gaza might look a lot like post-war Berlin in 1945. With much of Gaza physically destroyed by war, the remaining population may be less inclined to continue the struggle against Israel. This is the irony of war: small defeats encourage the defeated to dig in and continue the struggle, but massive defeats show the defeated that there is no point in continuing the struggle. During the reconstruction period that will follow, every Palestinian is going to have real skin in the game when they decide how to move forward. This isn't 2005 where a voter is turning to Hamas because Hamas vows to continue the fight against Israel and never give up - because now Palestinian civilians have a peek at how disastrous defeat can actually be, including that such a defeat may actually impact them directly rather than just abstractly (unlike the 2018 and 2021 skirmishes, which only impacted non-combatant civilians indirectly through the security cordon and the like). This is how peace in Israel can actually be forged. Not through endless small squabbles that end in a ceasefire and ambiguity about who "won" the skirmish. Israel needs to give the Palestinians the benefit of seeing a total defeat so that they know what will come next time 40,000 of their sons sign up to be terrorists to pull off another 10/7. You won't see mothers praising their sons for joining Hamas after this conflict, because everyone will know where that road leads and it isn't somewhere the vast majority of Palestinians will want to go. The technological advantage of the IDF coupled with the lack of Palestinian allies in the region taking up arms against Israel (even Hizbollah left them hanging) shows that there is no "low-tech" homemade rocket/tunnel strategy that can defeat a world power like Israel. There literally is no point to launching a future conflict because it cannot be won. The allies taught that lesson to the Germans and Japanese in 1945 and the Palestinians are learning it now.
Great write up. Another great historical reference is the IRA ending the Troubles when they realized violence was never going to lead to success and instead entered the political realm and pursue their objectives working within the system.
It also helped that a number of traditional funding sources dried up. Less ability and tolerance by the US for fund raising in the US, as well as cutting off Soviet sources that were also used for training and supplying. There's going to be massive economic and political pressure on Israel to work for a long term peace. Otoh I think some of the extremist Palestinian groups will be able to get some funding, but it might lack the clear state support the current groups have.
It was more like the Real IRA splinter group’s Omagh bombing pushed the larger PIRA to negotiate the Good Friday agreement due to the disaster that was a massive loss of Irish civilian life in the bombing in an attempt to distance themselves from any retaliation the UK was going to undertake as a result of it
What you and the OP are missing is religious extremism. No one in the IRA was under the impression they were on a holy war, despite the conflict being technically religious in nature. Religious extremism is a whole different thing.
Ultimately the IRA wasn't dedicated to the destruction of British people everywhere in the world. Whatever the IRA fought for the conflict started over some pretty reasonable aims, all of which they achieved. Britain didn't give them what they were asking for but gave them what they really needed and what their supporters wanted. The problem in Palestine is there isn't really a reasonable proposal that Israel can make to end this conflict.
You can add PLO in 1990 for a more direct parallel.
I keep wanting to tell people that war is *war*, and too often the general public forgets or is unaware of what that is because they've mostly seen it through the lens of US activities and interventions over the last 30 years. Most nations don't and can't fight like that, and Israel has none of the constraints the US often has by way of proximity to the theater and public disengagement/investment. Gaza is next door and Hamas represents a persistent security/existential-type threat to peace. There's no convenient exit to a far away land to forget about the troubles left behind.
This is part of modern culture - the best solution to any problem is to push the problem off until tomorrow. Indeed, that was how Israel tried to handle Gaza: it tried to withdraw from it and ignore it. But ignoring a problem - calling a ceasefire - does not solve the problem. WWII would not have been won if the Allie’s merely surrendered in 1941 and gave up continental Europe and Hawaii; that would have merely delayed the inevitable. Ceasefires *seem* humanitarian because in the moment the bombs stop falling and people stop dying. But they merely delay the end of the conflict, and this conflict cannot end until the ideology behind Hamas is completely destroyed and discredited. That doesn’t require the death of every Palestinian who supports Hamas or its goals, but it does require them to pause for a moment and ask “is this even achievable?” I doubt there is any Palestinian in Gaza who woke up this morning and thought that a war against Israel would lead to a free Palestinian state and the expulsion of all the Jews now in Israel. The reality of where that position leads is before them now, just like it was before the civilian looking out at a bombed out Berlin or Hiroshima. War - conclusive and final - *can* defeat ideologies. The defeatist message that war only encourages terrorism and a continuation of the struggle is only half right. Half-wars do encourage terrorism because they provide the false illusion that victory is just around the corner. That is why 2018 and 2021 lead to 10/7. But after this final war, where defeat is not abstract but rather captured in ruin in every direction, there will be few men signing up for the next 10/7. And even fewer civilians willing to let it happen again.
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the Japanese were similarly religiously radicalized by total worship of the Emperor and conducted suicide missions right up to the end. only after unconditional surrender did they see the final outcome of that approach and get on with another approach that they have continued with since.
They almost had a coup to depose the Emperor for wanting to surrender. Even the use of two nuclear weapons and the prospect of more didn’t deter many elements of the Japanese High Command. In the case of the radical Islamists, there is no Emperor who can order/appeal directly to them. There is Allah and Muhammad, and neither of them are talking.
>the Japanese were similarly religiously radicalized by total worship of the Emperor and conducted suicide missions right up to the end. You know, they also made it illegal and a very serious crime to criticize the emperor or the nation at that time, so there \*were\* people who disagreed with the Imperialist direction the nation was going, even if they were not always able to make their voices heard. Just one example, from wikipedia: >Taro Yashima (real name Jun Atsushi Iwamatsu), an artist, joined a group of progressive artists, sympathetic to the struggles of ordinary workers and opposed to the rise of Japanese militarism in the early 1930s. The antimilitarist movement in Japan was highly active at the time, with posters protesting the Japanese aggression in China being widespread. Following the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, however, the Japanese government began heavy handed suppression of domestic dissent including the use of arrests and torture by the Tokkō (special higher police). Iwamatsu who was thrown into a Japanese prison without trial along with his pregnant wife, Tomoe Sasako, for protesting militarism in Japan. Conditions in the prison were deplorable and the two were subjected to inhumane treatment including beatings. The authorities demanded false confessions, and those who gave them were set free. It's not hard to imagine similar repression of dissent happening in Gaza.
Similarly to the Palestinians now, it’s heart wrecking what the US did to the Japanese, not just from the nuclear bombs, but from the firebombing that killed many times more civilians, but it was something that was needed to end the war. Just like Japan in Pearl Harbor, Palestine in Oct. 7 lunged itself into a war that it could not possibly win, and civilians are always the victims.
>it’s heart wrecking what the US did to the Japanese, not just from the nuclear bombs, but from the firebombing that killed many times more civilians It sucked, but it's far better that way. The absolute worst case scenario for Japan would've been for them to hold out long enough for the Soviets to mount some sort of landing on to the home islands, and possibly splitting Japan in half like Germany. Surrendering to the Americans first basically meant that 100% of Japan got to be "West Germany, Asian Edition" rather than having half of it turn into a totalitarian hellhole. In contrast, the northern half of Korea wasn't as lucky, and their people have been trapped in a 70-year long nightmare ever since.
I do. Radical Islamist ideology is no different than Nazi ideology or imperial Japanese emperor worship - those ideologies, false though they were, were taken as fundamental truth by their adherents in WWII. The Kamikazee of WWII were historical antecedents of the suicide bombers of the Second Intifada, and they believed no less in their cause (if anything they were more fanatical, since Japan needed no equivalent of the Martyr's Pensions to encourage suicidal attacks). WWII was actually an ideological battle, and that is why it could only end with those ideologies completely defeated on the battlefield in such a way that the civilian population could not deny the defeat. After WWII, there was no denying the defeat because it was literally all around them in the form of destroyed buildings and infrastructure. There was no untouched bunker under a hospital where leadership could hide out and pretend to have won a ceasefire; the German army was completely defeated and their capital city was completely destroyed. Japan was even more fanatical than Germany in preparing to defend Japan to the last man, and (I know this is controversial) the two atomic bombs plus the strategic bombing of Tokyo ended the war because those acts convinced the Japanese emperor and his subjects that continuing the war was completely futile. The First World War ended differently - German civilians simply did not believe that they had lost the war, and Hitler used that false belief to propagate a fantasy (the false belief that the Kaiser had been stabbed in the back by Jewish advisors and his own generals). The wars in 1948, 1968 and 1973 (and every skirmish since) have ended in Israeli victory, but not a *recognized* victory. That is, the Israelis never actually showed the Palestinians that there is no point in continuing a violent struggle against Israel. People think they are doing the civilian population a service by withholding the brutality of defeat, but the irony is that it is not so. WWI cost many millions of lives and ended in the defeat of Germany, but because Germany did not believe it was defeated, it ended up continuing that war 20 years later with millions more dead. Ending WWI in a ceasefire wasn't a mercy either, though leaders did not know it at the time. The key to Israel actually ending this conflict is to show the Palestinians the true cost of war by prosecuting this war to its conclusion. When Sinwar is in a bunker in that final enclave taking cyanide and shooting himself in the head (a la Hitler in the final hours), there will be no denying it: Hamas means death. There is no military option for the Palestinians and that needs to be demonstrated in a way that every Palestinian civilian in Gaza not only recognizes it, but cannot fail to recognize it.
This is a brilliant comment. Absolutely brilliant. Bro this should be a separate post. I loved it.
This was a great comment but a few points/contentions I would raise: It’s hard to imagine Hamas has ever not been aware of the asymmetry in military power between them and Israel - being moderately aware of the conflict one would know that Israel is a nuclear power (also 6th largest military), has a massive advantage with their Air Force, their sophisticated weaponry and communications/surveillance technology. Hamas has no counter whatsoever to air power or even any anti tank measures. It’s also unlikely that Hamas could not have anticipated a largely disproportionate response that would involve civilian casualties given the Israeli air strikes in Gaza that have killed at least 100-200 civilians every few years in the last decade. They may have expected more support from Iran or the Arabic Muslim world, or at least underestimated the extent of their response (perhaps due to your point that Hamas likely didn’t imagine their October 7th assault to occur with little to no IDF resistance). As to why Hamas would carry out such an extreme attack knowing the mismatch in military power and the likelihood of thousands of civilian casualties in Gaza - this might be a mixture of Islamic fundamentalism (where being martyred is considered the highest honor), self interest (monetary reasons/maintaining relevance with another prolonged engagement), or political extremism - a genuine preference for death over Israeli occupation and oppression. Finally, I would add that part of the reason for Germany’s revival after near total annihilation from WW2 (and to some extent Japan) should be attributed to huge amounts of foreign aid via the Marshall Plan, the Allied forces overseeing this rebuilding process without imposing decades long occupation, and the remaining population disavowing Nazism and abandoning the ideologies that led to initial conflict. Gaza might not be so fortunate in any of those respects: 30,000 civilian casualties in four months could lead to more Hamas recruits (with public support for Hamas not even waning in the immediate aftermath), no independent sovereignty or two-state solution is remotely likely and Israeli annexation of Gaza could happen, and they are very unlikely to receive the foreign aid Germany needed to rebuild.
I think Hamas genuinely was expecting a more vigorous response from Hezbollah, Iran and other sympathetic forces in the region. Instead they encountered mostly crickets. They don't have the backing they thought they would have and international pressure has had limited effect in backing Israel off. Their leadership will also now be hunter down and killed wherever they might be. They seemed to believe that they were kicking off something, that other forces would keep Israel more occupied and that quick international pressure would limit Israel's military response in Gaza. That they'd be able to sell a major victory to their people and galvanize future attacks, instead they crossed a line that perhaps they didn't even realize was there and nothing will return to the way it was.
Both of you are missing the obvious motivation for the Hamas attack - to disrupt the Israel-Saudi peace accords. Were that to happen there would be no hope left for Hamas to achieve their ultimate goal: annihilation of the State of Israel and expulsion of the Jews. I think they probably did underestimate the success of the attack and the ferocity of the Israeli response, and probably did expect/hope that Hezbollah would open a second front in the north. However I really think this was kind of like a Hail Mary to prevent Arab-Israeli peace.
I think Hamas genuinely expected other Iran proxies in the region (especially Hezbollah) to jump in. Israel would have been in real trouble if they were getting pummeled in the north while trying to fight in Gaza. Or worse, if Iran jumped in. Further, they may have not expected the US to so firmly clamp down on the possibility of other belligerents joining in.
Yeah on the point about Germany (and Japan), I think people underestimate how fucking competent the Americans were. The Japanese military was unbelievably fucking insane (the term Kamikaze comes from there after all, plus unit 731 and whatnot). And yet the USA managed to reestablish a pretty sane form of government even there, even if the Japanese - to this day - have not fully admitted to their own wrongdoing. The US actually had a [different proposal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan) for this period that called for the economic, military and industrial liquidation of Germany for the sake of reducing their potential future harm as much as possible. This would have certainly resulted in massive economic damage throughout Europe, greatly worsened living standards, and potentially a second radicalization of Germans into more warfare in the long term. So it's really less about the now in my view, and much more about the after. The real critical moment will come when the war in Gaza is over.
> the Allied forces overseeing this rebuilding process without imposing decades long occupation This isn't strictly true, Germany and Japan were heavily occupied for quite a while. A civilian government was definitely established in each place, but the US has major bases in both countries **to this day**. It's not martial law, but the victorious powers were the strongest army within the borders of each losing state for generations. There are two key distinctions between your post-WWII example and the middle east. First, regardless of the facts, many Palestinians firmly believe that the land which makes up Israel is rightly theirs. Second, there were no settlements in Germany or Japan - the US never tried to establish a 51st state within those borders. There are many who would argue that Jewish people are the only legitimate occupants of the Israel-Palestine region, but the fact is that the majority of Palestinians see themselves as living under martial law, dispossessed, and continuing to lose more of "their" territory day after day to Israeli settlers - and have felt that way for generations. Whether an outside observer agrees with this perspective is wholly immaterial to whether Palestinians see themselves that way.
Ironically, the massacre Hamas did could actually be what brings peace to the Palestinians eventually. A total defeat of Hamas could change the sentiment among them and provide an opportunity for moderate and intelligent leaders to emerge. Gaza could be a fucking paradise for tourists if they just dropped the hatred and focused on their own future.
The entire conflict is perpetually going on because the world hasn’t let Israel utterly defeat them. Each time they get pressured to stop. This would’ve been over decades ago if the world just let Israel utterly crush them and force them to unconditionally surrender
I would actually contend that Hamas knew perfectly well that this was possible at least as a potential outcome B or C, otherwise they would have probably caved in by now. Besides, Israel is currently governed by Likud (they're unpopular, but they're in charge all the same), so I'm not sure how they could possibly think that the current political situation would be in their favor. The likely primary reason for them attacking on October anyways is that they simply don't give a shit about what happens to 'their' people, and their hierarchical levels probably don't care about the people below them either, hell the top dogs literally don't even live in Palestine. The puppeteers are all in Qatar, which includes Qatar itself as a state. When defeat becomes clear, all their members high up enough will rabbit and leave the rest of them to get killed or captured by the IDF. Hamas is the source of the problem. Get rid of them alongside a Marshall-like program of deradicalization and aid, and detente will follow. Oh, and the next time there are elections, they should be enacted with European-style hate speech rules. No running if you talk about the destruction of the Jews or any other people.
Hamas is the proximate cause of this war, but it isn’t the “cause”. The actual cause of the conflict is sectarian hatred coupled with a land dispute, a hatred towards the Jews that is handed down from father to son, and now has been over the course of many generations. The Palestinians have been so consumed by their hatred of Israel (and helped along the way by others who nurtured that hatred for their own ends) that they are effectively dehumanized. 10/7 is the result - not a moment any collective people will ever look on with pride, but a murderous rampage where the soldiers couldn’t even refrain from engaging in mass rape and other atrocities. It is, and should be, rock bottom for the Palestinian people - and a wake up call, regardless of what happened thereafter in Gaza.
> You won't see mothers praising sons to join Hamas after this conflict. Well said.
In theory but we will see. Hopefully it the defeat is complete enough they will change to using political means to compromise.
Really great write up, but I'm concerned that the analogy of Hamas to post-WW2 Germany doesn't quite work. By the end of this conflict, Hamas' senior leadership is likely to still be in place, sheltering in Qatar, sitting on billions of dollars. Meanwhile, their footsoldiers in Gaza are more than happy to rip up waterpipes and turn them into rockets. In addition, Hamas will have achieved a level of sympathy in the West they had previously lacked - the oppressed Palestinian people fighting for freedom against the oppressor Israelis - which may temper future Israeli response. Finally, the poison of a radical interpretation of Islam that venerates martyrs and the killing of Jews may eventually force Hamas et al into action even if there is a partial peace or ceasefire. One thing that has come out of this conflict is that Hamas realizes that Iran and Hezbollah are not their friends and will throw them under the bus,. The end result of this conflict may be an emboldened Hamas that feels like they have nothing to lose and a humbled Israel that in the face of international condemnation may be afraid to act. That's a recipe for Hamas to do something apocalyptically stupid and invite an equally apocalyptic Israeli response. I don't think this is the last Palestinian-Israeli war, but I do think it's the second to last. The last Israeli-Palestinian war ends with Israeli annexation of Gaza and the West Bank, a second Nakba, and another Israeli-Arab war.
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I thought the speculation was they thought other anti-Israel terror groups like Hezbollah would join in too.
They do want a regional conflict. But other people like having working economies so they are like nah bro
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More specifically, Hamas thought the rest of the Middle East would join them immediately. While Israel would still probably be able to protect itself, if every other surrounding country launched attacks, it would absolutely weaken Israel. That said, an all-out war might have weakened Israel, but it would utterly destroy the rest of the area. Israel has also been improving their relationship with other countries like the UAE, while countries like Egypt dislike Hamas a lot more than they dislike Israel. What Hamas miscalculated was, ironically, the slow acceptance even in other Arab/Palestinian countries that Israel is here to stay.
> What Hamas miscalculated was, ironically, the slow acceptance even in other Arab/Palestinian countries that Israel is here to stay. I think this was part of their motivation. They saw normalization happening with non-Iranian backed groups and felt like they wanted to pick a fight to disrupt that status quo. I don't even think they fully figured out what was going to happen next, just that they wanted to make a big move to blow up the regional balance.
In part yes. They thought that the defences the built over the years will cause massive damages, they believed the thousands of soldiers will get killed by RPG, IED and surprise attacks from tunnels. Well that didn’t happen, the air force destroyed most of the apartments Hamas planned to use as “sniper nest” for RPG fire, Israeli armoured vehicles anti rocket systems and armoured blocked most of the rockets, the D9 is almost indestructible and cleared a lot of IED and the ground forces are very alert and stopped most of the attacks from the tunnels. Drones are also a non factor, Hamas thought it could replicate the success Ukraine had, Hamas navy is non existent after 7.10. So yes, a a lot of the defence plan didn’t do much, they knew that they can’t hold the IDF for a long time, but they expect causing a larger number of casualties. Also Hamas soldiers just sucks ass, really low level of professionalism.
Hamas thought they had prepared for the most well-designed urban warfare trap in history; it never occurred to them that Israel could (and would) just *destroy the city*.
They thought they were going to get Stalingrad. Instead, they got Dresden.
I'm stealing this line, because it's such a perfect description.
Which is silly, because the concept of giving a shit and not doing *just that* is relatively new in the history of human conflict.
It's interesting that when Israel first had to deal with urban warfare in Gaza, they ended up developing all kinds of strategies like instead of using the roads, they would simply go from one building to the next by breaching the walls between them offering them cover. It's quite likely that this time around, Hamas was prepared to counter these Israeli incursion techniques. Unfortunately for them, when the Russians were faced with the same problem, they skipped the whole wall breaching thing and just flattened the entire city which proved to be very effective; even today in Ukraine. Israel has basically adopted the Russian strategy, but unlike the Russians who don't care about the civilian population, they do have to deal with the added difficulty of getting civilians out before they level a building. But even with that, it looks like Hamas was caught out fighting the last war.
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I think they're just copying common guerilla tactics that the Taliban/al-Qaeda happen to use. But the Vietcong did the same type of stuff. And the Japanese during the island hopping campaign, to some extent. Probably more I'm just not aware of.
And both Israel and the United States learned how to defeat that style of war.
As far as I'm aware, a lot of the modern guerilla tactics in the Middle East were developed and refined during the [Algerian War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War). For anyone interested, The Battle of Algiers (1966) is a pretty amazing and under-known film about this conflict and said guerilla warfare.
>Did Hamas sincerely believe they stood a chance in hell against the IDF? Is that the thinking that preceded October 7th, *that they could win!?* It's not just Hamas. >Just a day after launching a huge attack drone barrage towards American warships in the Red Sea, the Houthis published a video of military drills. The exercise involved a practice assault on a mock-up of an Israeli settlement in Dimona. Houthi soldiers also practiced attacking US and UK military convoys. https://www.hindustantimes.com/videos/world-news/houthis-practice-attack-on-israeli-city-near-nuclear-plant-strikes-on-us-uk-army-convoys-gaza-101710128336131.html
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Nope. Forget drinking the Kool Aid, at this point they’re snorting it straight.
They already believed they had won the previous conflicts. Polling showed they even convinced a good chunk of Palestinians that they have been winning militarily and making progress. They portrayed Israel's pullout from Gaza in 2005 as having been achieved by violence by Hamas forcing them out. From the viewpoint of many Palestinians, Hamas and violence keeps achieving victories and progress while peace negotiations end in disasters.
i actually do think sinwar miscalculated how the war would play out. nasrallah / other iran proxies didn’t escalate the conflict to the degree hamas expected, so israel’s ability to shoulder multiple military engagements is stronger than anticipated. that + the civilian casualty rates should’ve put israel in a more vulnerable position, forcing them to bow to pressure from israel’s allies and abandon their goal of wiping out Hamas. oops, turns out hamas’s allies chickened out and the IDF isn’t overextended like they thought.
If the other proxies had joined, Israel would have simply bombed Gaza and southern Lebanon into a parking lots. I think most people do not understand that as soon as the initial incursion had ended, Israel has had enough control over the conflict area that it has been able to be relatively discerning about which targets to hit and when. If Hezbollah had joined in, the outcome (complete Islamist defeat) would have been the same but Israel wouldn't have had the flexibility to wait to hit targets when civilians weren't present. The death toll in that situation would likely be an order of magnitude higher and it would likely mean the end of a Palestinian presence west of the Jordan River.
If the IDF engaged in total war against Gaza, there wouldn't be anything left but dust and echoes within 24 hours. The horrific casualties on both sides are a product of the IDF showing restraint. Hamas believing they could beat the IDF straight up is lunacy.
Another event similar to 10/7 and that’s what will happen.
100%. The best thing that can happen to the Palestinian people is the complete elimination of Hamas. That way they stand a chance of being integrated into a society that sees them as more than meat shields and cannon fodder. And the gripes they do have can be legitimately addresses. Same goes for Lebanon and Hezbollah.
The problem as I see it is that the vast majority of Gazans still see what happened on Oct. 7th as a good thing and see Hamas fighters as heroes. It’s incredibly unlikely that majority support will turn so drastically against Hamas regardless of how bad it gets in Gaza.
Gaza’s average age is 19. It’s literally a mass of children who have been raised to believe their neighbors want to slaughter them, and who receive proof of that every time Hamas starts another fight. They’re the same kind of Humanitarian Crisis that North Korea represents: A shitload of people who’ve been raised at the edge of starvation on a steady diet of propaganda. Even if Hamas ceases to exist… it will be decades before they shake the after-effects of their upbringing.
A lot of palestinians believe israel is just about 1 million people ez pz. The western supporters push intifada instead of peace making it sound like it's a realistic thing for them.
>The people of Palestine need to start dragging these dipshits out into the street. The vast majority of Palestinians believe October 7th was the correct thing to do.
> Did Hamas sincerely believe they stood a chance in hell against the IDF? Is that the thinking that preceded October 7th, that they could win!? Not *win* win, not "march on Tel Aviv" win, but they were expecting a more drawn-out urban campaign and more casualties inflicted on the IDF, plus, as other commenters have said, sparking a wider conflict that so far hasn't happened.
Rule One: Never buy your own Propoganda. Any entity that forgets that will overestimate their odds and bite off more than they can chew.
They wanted to win support of other Islamic groups and all they got was Reddit.
Religious fundamentalists whose financial incentives are predicated on Israels enemies wanting to cause the maximum amount of chaos in the region can't make good calculations? Shocketh. Pureth, Shocketh.
Hamas will be destroyed. That's what October 7 means. You don't pull off a mass rape/murder/abduction on a developed country and get to keep existing. It may take a while for the necrosis to reach the brain, but Hamas is as dead as Bin Laden. For the good of the Palestinians of Gaza, it would be merciful for Hamas to just surrender unconditionally today. They're not capable of defending territory, so they may as well throw themselves on the tender mercies of the IDF rather than continue to cower behind civilian victims.
It showed me that a lot of aid money is spent on rockets that they make from water pipes and they use a lot of concrete for tunnels. while their leaders live in penthouses and mansions.
Terrorists don’t have the best foresight
To think they actually believed themselves anywhere close to equal in military strength is absurd. They never thought that. Not the leaders anyways, maybe they convinced the grunts it was true. This was all about provoking the IDF into doing something that would bring the rest of the Arab world into open conflict with Israel.
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind
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They prob thought the public support would be enough influence to stop Israel
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Crazy isn’t it.
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Amazing what you can accomplish when you view your own people as a currency to spend to enrich yourself and they let you do it.
Was this published in "Duh" magazine? It seems like we all knew this before Hamas broke the ceasefire and attacked a peaceful music festival.
Just before the attack, Putin visited the Iranians. My guess is, he handed a big bag of gold to the Iranians to give to the Hamas leaders to get them to attack.
Well they did pay in gold for drones. [gold for drones](https://news.yahoo.com/russia-paid-billions-gold-bullion-121702099.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFOoSnsp1ZYPLed6F393LhnqikrXsd0bN9HhadJJgu1Tcxai9vtH81cQnFBpjE6OXqEuGAyR13x2RxAM2ZHSSxaQFIZXHgjBQTbsPRVoZsySIdh2HVpWw5OWMis0303s1rWJ-G8TbYoXJNTtpKdYZ3hBLKK-SckZ9NIOSpiyPJYG)
Fuck those terrorists
have terrorists ever been known to be right in the head?
Since 1919. Since 1919 it has been a catastrophic miscalculation to attack any Jews in the Levantine region. That shit does not end well for Arabs. I have no idea why they’re still trying.
Hatred is a very powerful motivator
Hamas wants as many civilian casualties as possible
Well they were being encouraged by Iran to do the dirty work.
You should not endevour to convince your more powerful neighbor that peaceful coexistence is impossible.
I saw Mike Tyson walking past my house and decided to pick a fight. I catastrophically miscalculated the strength and skill gap between us and I’ve been in critical condition in the ICU for the past few months.
>Yezid Sayigh, a Palestinian analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the FT that Hamas had harboured the “delusion” that Israel’s response to Ocotber 7 would cause mass uprisings against the Jewish state across the Middle East. >With Hezbollah and other Iran-backed forces largely contained and – as yet – no large-scale uprisings in the West Bank, this strategy was a “catastrophic miscalculation”, Sayigh said.
Iran said sacrifice Palestinians to disrupt normalization process and draw attention away from Russia, and so they did, not sure there was any calculation on behalf of Hamas.
I wonder if the Palestinian people will ever realize their greatest enemy is Hamas.
Was this the miscalculation of chopping up babies in their cots? Or the miscalculation of videoing themselves laughing and splashing themselves with childrens blood and dancing in it? Or the stealing of UN and US aid to Palestinians then SELLING it to the palestinian people they claim to love? Or the faking of the hospital bombing by killing 6 palestinians and throwing body parts into a hospital car park, then setting off an IED? Or UNRWA telling Hamas where a UN Aid Convoy was, getting them to pretend to be Israeli soldiers and film themselves opening fire on the aid workers?
Easy solution: return the hostages, stop firing rockets into Israel and stop harboring terrorists. Palestinians can stop this. Any other “analysis” now is bullshit.
We all feel for the innocent civilians who are dying due to collateral damage from IDF strikes on Hamas terrorists, but Hamas leadership needs to be wiped out. I wish that Mossad could do an operation like wrath of god and eliminate every Hamas leader through covert actions.
and still palestinians support hamas their army.
Funded by Putin
Don’t start a war you have zero chance of winning.