Hamas just fired rockets on Ashkelon (okay, it's war, that part I get), calling it a colonial city. And that's what I mean when I complain that Hamas has not articulated any war aim short of "ethnically cleanse the Jews out of Israel." It recently shot down talk of negotiations for a prisoner exchange. It downplays its own casualties, where usually it announces them in order to point out Israel is the stronger side as the occupier. Its intent, evinced in both words and actions, is genocidal.
@Globaltom They think they're winning, but "polity has bad intel" and "polity vastly overestimates its own positions" both happen a lot. After all, I live in a country that started two wars that led to the dissolution of the state. The more we're seeing of Hamas in the last few days, the more they look like Bin Laden-era Al-Qaida or mid-2010s ISIS, both of which brought ruin upon themselves with their attacks.
@Alon The question is: what happens to the 2 million people living in the Gaza Strip?
Does the govt. of Israel really want Gaza to become a normal part of Israel, with all the obligations to provide water, sewage, electricity, roads, education, healthcare, justice, policing, etc. that entails?
(The UK has had a very tough time transition Northern Ireland to 'normality', and that's starting from a smaller difference with the majority of residents on-board.)
@Globaltom I presume it's treated like the West Bank Area A or B. Israel would have obligations to it, but to an extent it already does - 75% of Gaza's electricity comes from Israel, that's why it's so easy for Israel to cut it off during war. This also means transitioning from the disengagement model to the COIN model of the West Bank, updated to avoid counterproductive bullshit like publicly shitting on the Palestinian Authority.
@Alon True - but currently, Israel treats those residents fundamentally differently from other residents of Israel. It sounds like you think Israel doesn't want to change that.
Or to put in another way: Israel's govt seems happy to maintain a system that created the current situation. And that's bad for everyone.
@Globaltom ...yes? Legally it's a military occupation. The only people calling for annexation are a bunch of unhinged extremists on the Israeli side (as in, people who sympathize with Yigal Amir) plus some people who are from neither Israel nor Palestine who concocted the one-state solution and never bothered to check if literally anyone in either country wants it (hint: no).
@seachanger Everyone? What do you mean? The standard pro-Palestinian line right now is "by all means necessary." Hamas just conducted the two biggest massacres of the Arab-Israeli conflict ever and the population of Gaza cheers and so do their supporters abroad. Instead of condemning massacres that happened, the reaction of the international left is to condemn massacres that haven't happened and treat the ones that have as legitimate resistance.
@seachanger The number "40" at the beginning is a big clue. This is an article from very early in the war, before the scale of the massacres became clear. On current numbers, it's close to 1,000 dead Israelis, nearly all civilian, nearly all targeted deliberately rather than as collateral damage (one example of the latter: Hamas abducted a civilian with the same name as an IDF general; bad intel is not a war crime). More Israeli than Palestinian civilians have been killed so far.
@Alon@seachanger and in the wake of an attack against civilians of this scale, it really doesn't matter if Hamas has the practical means to carry out their ultimate goals.
It's possible to believe that the violence is an outcome of apartheid policies while also believing they are not in any way justified by the existence of those policies.
@matunos@seachanger Even the line that the violence stems from apartheid is cope. The Palestinians who are most exposed to apartheid, those of the West Bank, haven't done this. Hamas did, exposed to a different form of repression - except that it's repression that exists elsewhere in the world (at refugee camps, like the one at Cox's Bazar or in Lebanon and Syria) and somehow doesn't generate such massacres. It's extremist ideology plus theory of victory generating massacres.
@Alon@seachanger Hamas has their own incentives for violence that's out of alignment with the goal of actual liberation and improvement for Palestinians… (better aligning with the Israeli far right's political interests). That said, Hamas being in charge of Gaza, with no practical opposition, and this in a position to do this seems a result of apartheid.
@seachanger@Alon
Sadly, not everyone. There are demonstrations across the world cheering Hamas' attack, supposedly I guess they are cheering rape and beheaded babies.
Israel has the right (backed by international leaders), the obligation (to citizens' future) and the strategic inevitability (lest hizballa attacks as well) to strike back at Hamas.
Note what I wrote: not the entire Arab world, not Palestinians in the west bank, just Hamas and at the moment just in Gaza.
@seachanger@Alon
Can we do it without hitting civilians? I wish we could, but Hamas is hiding in and under schools, residential neighborhoods and even hospitals. If anyone in the western world knows how to solve this in a clean, ethical, effective way, do share.
@seachanger@Alon
I'm a humanist, and of course I believe the Palestinians deserve a state. Sadly this opinion is held by less than 40% of the Israelis, at times it feels like 10%. I have a full belly on the netanyahu policies and indeed most governments' policies on the matter for the last 50+ years, but I am in the minority left.
@seachanger@Alon However if the choice is between that state being lead by Hamas or the PA, I'll go with the PA every time. Yes, the PLO was a secular/socialist terror group in the beginning, but they developed governing bodies and an assembly and tried to run an election (mixed results), and I can see them running a country.
@seachanger@Alon Hamas had a bloody coup in 2006, killed thousands of PA civil servants and ruled Gaza by terror ever since, they are the enemies of Israel and the PA thus enemies of the Palestinian future state. Their violence caused the siege and their violence is hurting the Palestinian cause. Their behavior is so abhorrent that the Arab world don't like helping Gaza as much as the PA and the West Bank, that they had to cooperate with Oran, no less.
@seachanger@Alon now if you know anything about the Islamic world, there is no bigger hate than between Sounies and Shiites, but for the goal of killing Jews they did the impossible. That's how hate driven they are.
It's not a freedom fight, it's a genocidal cult and it's hurting the Palestinian cause.
@seachanger@ia42 In Vietnam, 10% of the population died. In Palestine, the equivalent figure since 2000 has been 0.3%.
And re "we don't 'eliminate' terrorists": there's a successful COIN doctrine. It looks nothing like the Gaza blockade - it needs to be a lot more hands-on - but it's also not telling terrorists that they're valid. It's more like the occupation of the West Bank, minus the settlements, which serve negative military and geopolitical purpose (so of course Ben Gvir likes them).
@seachanger@ia42 The international consensus is also that Hamas is a terrorist organization. At this point, military destruction of Hamas's leadership furthers two states because Hamas rejects that solution and its current rhetoric dials up the rejection ("Ashkelon is a colonial settlement").
@Alon@seachanger@ia42 Is it actually likely that the IDF is going to overthrow Hamas and install some better government in Gaza? IDF has no appetite to police and govern inside Gaza. It seems like they're just going to bomb a lot of people and shoot a lot of people, including some Hamas members, wreck the infrastructure, maybe find some hostages, and eventually pull out and declare victory. Then whatever Hamas leaders are left will pop back up and reassert control. We'll see I guess.
@charlesgastil@seachanger@ia42 Gallant just said that they could have done it in 2008 but political pressure prevented it; no word from him on why it didn't happen from 2009 to 2021 when Netanyahu was in power.
No, Israel won't be installing democracies, we've learned from US mistakes and there are really no interest in that from our extremist right wing coalition. The best we can hope for is helping the PA regain control, and even then there will be huge trust issues to bridge because nobody is talking realpolitik, it's all a bunch of macho egos and historical pathos.
@seachanger@ia42 The Jewish diaspora in the United States has been mostly useless in the last four days; the Palestinian diaspora focused its efforts on boycotting an American hummus brand that pretends to be Israeli. People can be intelligent but still treat their co-ethnics in poorer countries as pawns in their own identity politics. This isn't about the diaspora; it's about people in these regions and maybe people from there.
@seachanger@Alon
That's a tall order from a people that is barely cohesive around a joint ethos or even clear choice of a democracy at all. It's a bloody tribal society, and it will likely fall apart and let Hamas into power like the us got in Afghanistan.
And no, I don't pretend I have a solution either. Leaving it to the pa will fail and leaving it to Hamas will be much worse.
Oh dear. You got me there. I am prejudiced towards democracy and love and yet I was born in this shithole surrounded by racists and religious fundamentalists. You have no clue how things are really working do you?
You must think all the people understand or want democracy, they all understand and want to be civilized "like the west", and if you only moved a bump or two from the road, peace and democracy will pop out of thin air?
@seachanger@Alon
Ok, the word tribal has a different meaning to you, I could have chosen better words. Still I stand by my assessment. Nothing racial, just sociologic facts and recent history. Muslim culture and native American culture are very very different.
The Palestinian should and will have a state, but they have to stabilize from a society of gangs and militias to be trusted with control of the land, or they will be a threat to us and themselves.
@seachanger@ia42 Scholarship that, like literally everyone else in the world, missed what Hamas was. Everyone believed they were a Muslim Brotherhood-type movement, with a streak of pragmatism. They turn out to be ISIS, complete with on-camera executions of hostages. Eliminate them, then talk about recognizing Palestinian independence.
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