Netanyahu tells Israel ‘We are at war’ after Hamas launches an unprecedented attack, killing at leas

hamas isn’t going anywhere. Why are people blind to this? I’m all for hitting them back but wtf where do we draw the line? How many civilians do they get a free pass to massacre?

 

So your answer is to give up. Live with the fact the hostages won't be returned and that Hamas will take all the aid and either sell it or not give it to the civilians and then start a new plan to attack Israel again. Yeah, that won't work for Israel. And why won't any other country take the Palestinians in the Middle East? Why isn't the US and it's allies putting political pressure on those countries?

 

LOL.. we are night and day on Ukraine, but you stole the words from my fingertips on this one. I suspect there are literally more Hamas in Gaza today than on Oct 7th. Israel have managed to turn half of the West Bank into Hamas supporters. They are going to get it from both sides after this is over. And no, I'm not cheering for that, but you reap what you sow. I think Israel is sort of blind to this reality. But we can see it clear as day on the outside looking in.

 

you keep putting words in my mouth and speaking in absolutes and binaries. But How many people should die for the remaining 120 hostages? Israel has already lost 270 soldiers. How many of them deserve to die? Palestinians dead and injured is over 100k. How many is acceptable? I mean it just doesn’t make sense to sacrifice thousands for a hundred. Even Israel has admitted Rafah is going to be a bloody mess.

at some point the solution has got to be something other than war if you ever want the cycle to end.

 

That's what the Biden administration has done .... so I expect it's a democrat "thang". What's a few hostages to this administration? Anyway ... somehow the democrats and their media toadies will blame it all on Trump.

 

I don’t think it’s crazy to ask someone who has condemned Israeli strategic actions in pretty harsh terms to have an alternative proposal. Responding quickly to your first paragraph,I trust you’re aware that Hamas has at least doubled the civilian casualty reports.
UN cuts estimates of women, children deaths in Gaza in half
Don’t get me wrong- even one dead innocent is too much, but there is a War, and there are tragic casualties.

Additionally, as for the workers, I trust you’re also aware of the arrests of “ambulance drivers” who happened to be couriering terrorists under cover of medical protection.


Sometimes, the real bad guys, like Hamas, cause tragedies through their behavior.

The 2 State solution? Count me in. But you now who’s against it? Hamas and the Palestinians. They don’t want 2 states, they demand one (and it’s not Israel). They’ve been offered and refused that 2 state solution multiple times.

Your comment that the making of money would be the catalyst to prevent the terror attacks? That was debunked on October 7. Before that day, Israel was employing Gazans, who freely went to work in Israel (Egypt, the other border state, was nit employing Gazans). It was because of this, and the investment in infrastructure, that Israel thought there was no real likelihood of an attack by Hamas. And Israel was wrong there - Hamas said so after they attacked. They bragged how they fooled the Israelies thinking they were content with economic improvements —- but they want the elimination of Israel, nothing else.

Israel has two unwavering goals in this War - the return of hostages, and the unconditional surrender of Hamas. How do they achieve those goals? Why should they change their goals given the absolute truth that Hamas will continue to attack Israel, and given Hamas’ charter, its singular goal is the eradication of Israel?

 

The blame for the hostage situation falls on Netanyahu and his far right cabinet not Joe Biden or Donald Trump and thousands of Israelis seem to agree.
Thousands protest in Israel amid anger at Netanyahu over hostages held in Gaza

 

Ok, so I have read that Israel has killed 2 of the 5 brigade commanders, 19 of the 24 Hamas Battalion commanders, killed roughly 13,000 of 30,000 fighters, and destroyed between 20-40% of the tunnels.
They have done that at the cost of about 300 soldiers, about 20k civilians killed, 78k injured, and much of the infrastructure of Gaza left in ruins. However, they have not killed any of the senior leadership. All they are doing is mowing weeds - they plants will grow back. And even with that progress, the battle in Rafah is going to be probably worse than what we have seen so far.

The only solution with this kind of strategy is perpetual occupation, which will drain Israel of manpower, equipment, and wealth - while simultaneously making life even more miserable for many of the surviving 2 million Palestinians that have no where to go. The war will not stop, it will go on and on.

So do you propose killing them all?

 

Virtually nobody is suggesting that Israel concede to Hamas. The alternatives are either attempting to destroy Hamas by obliterating Raffah and killing thousands more Palestinian Arabs in the process and even then success isn't assured or focusing using special operations. There are still hundreds of miles of tunnels in Gaza for Yahya Sinwar and his inner circle of advisors to hide and so far Israel hasn't succeeded in killing them despite already reducing Khan Younis and Gaza City to rubble and the chances are that they won't much more successful if they attack Raffah.

As far as refugees are concerned personally, I think that Egypt should accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza. The concern of the Egyptian government is that it could be saddled with having to support over million refugees on a permanent rather than temporary basis and keep in mind that Egypt already has its own economic problems. I agree with Tom Friedman that the only long-term solution is two states. Unfortunately both Hamas and the Israeli far right support one state "from the river to the sea". In the case of Hamas it would mean the eradication of Israel and its replacement by a Palestinian Islamic theocracy and in the case of the Israeli extreme right it would mean an apartheid state in Gaza and the West Bank with Palestinian residents of those areas having no rights. It should be noted the Arab citizens of Israel within its original borders have essentially the same rights as Israel's Jewish citizens. They can vote and hold seats in the Knesset in contrast to South Africa under apartheid in which the Black majority had virtually no right of representation.

 

I think it is also important to mention that Israel is doing exactly what Hamas wants them to do.

Consider that in war, you should NEVER do what your enemy WANTS YOU TO DO.

Hamas has intentionally set up their operations under critical infrastructure to make the war as painful as possible on Palestinian civilians so that when Israel predictively rained fire, it would turn the world against them. And guess what!? Israel is actually losing the war of optics against a terrorist organization. Which is NUTS - but that's because Israel is doing exactly what Hamas thought they would do.

Israel has stepped into a trap. There is no long term victory here, and all it is doing is eroding their standing in the global community - which is a bad thing for their long term survival.

In war - you usually want to do what your enemy LEAST wants you to do. Maybe that means negotiating with neighboring countries to accept Palestinian civilians - the less people that live there the better. Maybe that means highly organized and dynamic counterinsurgency tactics that win the hearts and minds of the people.

I guess you could go the other way and just salt the earth - like Israel is already doing - (see the tunnel flooding and other stuff killing the groundwater). But are we really supposed to support that?

 

Everybody knows where Hamas' leadership is. Heck, they are sitting down with them at times. The US has been one of several countries leading talks on returning hostages. Question: how do the Israeli protests about how the government there should be reaching agreements for the hostages return instead of invading Rafah play into your solution? Also, how do you think your plan results in the release of hostages? Wouldn't that just encourage Hamas to move them around forever until they decide to kill them?

 

Some people just want to blame Israel. They don't care about Israel at all. All they care about is that Jewish people are defending themselves against terrorists and they want the terrorists to win.

 

So it's Netanyahu's fault, not the terrorists fault for the hostages? Wow.

 

Israel is fine with a 2 state solution as long as it's not Hamas. Think that is reasonable considering what Hamas just did to Israel.

 

ok. Let’s use your numbers. Have you seen anything that reports civilians are being killed at 25x the number of Hamas ? If so please send me the link.

knowing Civilians die in urban combat, what number is YOUR red line ? 10x. 5x. 15x?? Or do you believe IDF should have 0 civilians killed when going after Hamas ?

 

I actually agree with you. In retrospect it was a terrible decision. Saddam was very concerned about these non state autonomous terrorist types and for the most part kept a lid on them.

 

Not really true, since opponents were calling even a ceasefire a "concession" to Hamas. For the Israeli government, essentially any cessation of hostilities would be a concession in their mind. Its why they keep dropping bombs even without clear aims or objectives. Their only strategy seems to be to keep the war going so there is no reckoning for Bibi.

 

This is literally false, Netenyahu has always been opposed to two state solution and as his governing coalition has shifted more far-right I can only assume that “position” is locked in even further.

Even if Netentahu were removed from the equation, the popular opinion (in Israel) is also not in favor of the two state solution. This article discusses the shift in Israeli thinking just *BEFORE* the Oct 7 attack.

Israelis have grown more skeptical of a two-state solution.

I would say much of the blame for that falls on the Palestinian failure of leadership 20+ years ago, it’s not surprising the avg Israeli wouldn’t want to negotiate a two state solution with bad faith actors (or in the case of Hamas, actually with terrorists). But it cannot be ignored there are hardliners in the Netanyahu govt that are essentially the flip side of Hamas.

 

The World Central Kitchen attack gets the most attention, but it wasn't an isolated incident.

At least eight Israeli strikes on Gaza aid groups since October, says report

Israeli forces have carried out at least eight strikes on humanitarian convoys and their facilities in Gaza since October, even after aid organisations provided their coordinates to the Israeli authorities, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

HRW said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did not issue warnings to the aid organisations before the strikes, which killed or injured at least 31 people.

...

The report comes as a UN vehicle on Monday came under fire in Rafah, resulting in the death of a member of the organisation’s Department of Safety and Security and the injury of another as they were travelling to the European hospital in the embattled city.

...

HRW said that in every case in the report aid groups had provided their coordinates to the Israeli authorities .