# At what level of pain to Hamas/Palestine will Israel achieve military victory? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 2, 2014, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632 "2014-08-02T10:56:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/41 "2014-08-03T00:36:23Z")
Martin: there is this little thing called East Jerusalem… ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/42 "2014-08-03T00:52:21Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Israel could have peace in exchange for going back to the pre-1967 borders. It would rather have the land than the peace. Since the Palestinians, including such moderate ones as Edward Said and Hany Abu Assad, have said they believe that the state solution is an insult and the only fair solution is the liberation of Palestine “from the river to the sea” and there’s no reason to believe that an independent West Bank and Gaza Strip would be anything but an economically unviable failed state, your optimism strikes me as frightfully naive. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/43 "2014-08-03T00:53:59Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > The Palestinian call in show I watched on C Band seemed to believe that water rights were an important issue that Israel would not give them. I think there are a lot of valid problems with the 2000/2001 discussion and valid beefs the Palestinians had. But I also think that it provided a graduated framework where at least 15 years down the road they’d be fighting diplomatic battles over the shit like that instead of rocket battles. To me that’s better than what’s going on now. The thing is, it’s _immensely better_ for the Palestinians. It’s not _that_ much better for the Israelis. The Israelis have built a very nice country through all this, and the Palestinians live in a hell hole. When you’re negotiating with an 800 pound gorilla sometimes you need to evaluate whether it’s more important to get what you need versus what you’d like to have, especially since the 800 pound gorilla likes to beat the shit out of you otherwise. Not that I think that’s a fair representation of Israel at all, but it’s a representation of the power differential and how Israel doesn’t benefit from peace as much as the Palestinians do. I’m reminded of a story of when a company called American Can, which provided the cans for Budweiser decided to jack up their prices because they felt they had supply power and could utilize leverage against Budweiser. But Budweiser was by far their biggest customer. Budweiser then made their own can factory and dramatically cut their orders of cans from American Can. But American Can had nowhere else to sell these cans, without Budweiser they would go out of business. So Budweiser said, “Sure, we don’t like the can making business, so we’d love to resume ordering all of our cans from you, but first you need to buy this can factory we made because you tried to jack us around, and we’re basically going to make you our bitch and we’ll tell you how much we’re paying for cans from now on.” When you’re weaker, and the other side has far less reason to agree to anything, that sometimes means the _best course of action_ is to take a deal that isn’t fair. [I probably got large portions of the American Can story wrong.] ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/44 "2014-08-03T01:16:59Z")
My opinion is that Israel’s goal is a regime change in Gaza. Hamas is playing a political game. It’s launching attacks against Israel to provoke counter-attacks. These counter-attacks kill Palestinians and that radicalizes the survivors - who then support Hamas. I’m sure Israel is aware of this. In the short term, it’s playing Hamas’ game. But there are limits to how far this strategy can work. At some point the Palestinians are going to realize Hamas is capable of starting a war with Israel but isn’t capable of winning that war. And the Palestinians in Gaza might look over at the Palestinians in the West Bank and decide that you’re better off not fighting a war you can’t win. They’ll throw out Hamas and find some new leaders (perhaps Fatah) who won’t look to provoke unnecessary trouble. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/45 "2014-08-03T01:20:14Z")
@Martin: Sounds more like American Can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/46 "2014-08-03T01:30:02Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > At some point the Palestinians are going to realize Hamas is capable of starting a war with Israel but isn’t capable of winning that war. And the Palestinians in Gaza might look over at the Palestinians in the West Bank and decide that you’re better off not fighting a war you can’t win. They’ll throw out Hamas and find some new leaders (perhaps Fatah) who won’t look to provoke unnecessary trouble. You WAY underestimate the Arab (and Palestinian in particular) self-delusion capability. Their “winning” definition is much closer to Charlie Sheen’s than it is to yours. Hell, Egypt still celebrates, every year, their “winning” the Yom Kippur war. You know, the one where, after the first hard stretch, Israel kicked their asses, advancing on Cairo and encircling the Suez. They think they “won” that war. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/47 "2014-08-03T02:01:57Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > You WAY underestimate the Arab (and Palestinian in particular) self-delusion capability. Their “winning” definition is much closer to Charlie Sheen’s than it is to yours. Hell, Egypt still celebrates, every year, their “winning” the Yom Kippur war. You know, the one where, after the first hard stretch, Israel kicked their asses, advancing on Cairo and encircling the Suez. They think they “won” that war. To a certain extent. But the Yom Kippur War was the first time the Arabs had fought Israel with something close to parity. So while the Arabs lost the war in the end, it was a close defeat and Israel realized that it couldn’t assume victory in future wars. And then Egypt showed the opposite of self-delusion. It would have been easy for the Egyptians to tell themselves that after coming close in this war, they would do even better next time. Instead, Sadat took a realistic look at what had happened and decided Egypt would be better off making peace with Israel rather than fighting another war. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/48 "2014-08-03T19:05:21Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > . . . Egypt still celebrates, every year, their “winning” the Yom Kippur war. You know, the one where, after the first hard stretch, Israel kicked their asses, advancing on Cairo and encircling the Suez. They think they “won” that war. And the Kuwaiti official state history, taught in its schools, is that they kicked the Iraqis out of Kuwait…by themselves. No mention is ever made of a big American/European alliance. These guys are enjoying a power that Aristotle said was denied to God himself: they can change the past. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/49 "2014-08-03T20:08:33Z")
Prior to the invasion in 2014, Hamas rockets had killed one Thai guest worker and one Arab Israeli citizen - no Jews. In response Israel has now killed 1712 Palestinians, further destroyed Gaza infrastructure and tightened the blockade. Is this a reasonable proportionality. Is Gaza allowed to defend itself. Crane ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/50 "2014-08-03T20:15:41Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > Prior to the invasion in 2014, Hamas rockets had killed one Thai guest worker and one Arab Israeli citizen - no Jews. > > In response Israel has now killed 1712 Palestinians, further destroyed Gaza infrastructure and tightened the blockade. > > Is this a reasonable proportionality. Hamas sent 3200 unguided, untargeted rockets into Israel. Would you agree to Israel, in response, sending 3200 unguided, untargeted rockets into Gaza? Would that be “reasonable proportionality”? ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/51 "2014-08-03T21:05:54Z")
Ah, but you left out the fact that Israel totally controls the economy and miserable quality of life in Gaza through it’s blockade. So, the appropriate question is: If Israel were under a similar blockade would it be reasonable for Israel to launch 3200 largely harmless rockets in response. Crane ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/52 "2014-08-03T21:10:47Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > Ah, but you left out the fact that Israel totally controls the economy and miserable quality of life in Gaza through it’s blockade. > > So, the appropriate question is: > > If Israel were under a similar blockade would it be reasonable for Israel to launch 3200 largely harmless rockets in response. > > Crane How is “economy” etc. relevant? Is it your position that if your life is “miserable quality”, you can send 3200 unguided, untargeted rockets into the cities of your neighbor and the neighbor is not allowed to send rockets at you? So - question, again. Hamas sent 3200 unguided, untargeted rockets into Israel. Would you agree to Israel, in response, sending 3200 unguided, untargeted rockets into Gaza? Would that be “reasonable proportionality”? You didn’t answer it. You should at least try to. Like “yes”. Or “no, because…”. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/53 "2014-08-03T21:11:24Z")
They eased the blockade in 2010, allowing essentially unrestricted shipments of civilian goods through the border with Egypt. Sometimes the Israelis or the Egyptians have randomly blocked specific attempts to cross over for various (and often unclear/unknown reasons), but in general the blockade has not been as you describe since 2010. I’m assuming they’ve clamped it back on in this recent fighting, though. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/54 "2014-08-03T21:12:10Z")
Not if the effect is that the blockade gets tightened and the other side retaliates by bombing you. It seems like the reasonable thing to do, assuming you’re not strong enough to stop it and don’t have allies who’ll stop it for you, would be to avoid pissing off the blockading power, and figuring out what sort of things you need to get them to lift the blockade. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/55 "2014-08-03T21:18:28Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > Prior to the invasion in 2014, Hamas rockets had killed one Thai guest worker and one Arab Israeli citizen - no Jews. > > In response Israel has now killed 1712 Palestinians, further destroyed Gaza infrastructure and tightened the blockade. Thus demonstrating why you should never start a war with somebody who has better aim than you do. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/56 "2014-08-03T21:19:27Z")
The border with Egypt is not the main supply line. Israel uses the blockade to totally control the Gaza economy. In 2014 no Jew was killed by the rockets. They were fired in protest of the blockade. In response Israel has killed 1712 Gaza citizens, destroyed the infrastructure and still maintains the blockade. Proportionality? Crane ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/57 "2014-08-03T21:21:55Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > The border with Egypt is not the main supply line. Israel uses the blockade to totally control the Gaza economy. > > In 2014 no Jew was killed by the rockets. They were fired in protest of the blockade. In response Israel has killed 1712 Gaza citizens, destroyed the infrastructure and still maintains the blockade. > > Proportionality? Hamas sent 3200 unguided, untargeted rockets into Israel. Would you agree to Israel, in response, sending 3200 unguided, untargeted rockets into Gaza? Would that be “reasonable proportionality”? Still no answer? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/58 "2014-08-03T21:21:56Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > The border with Egypt is not the main supply line. Israel uses the blockade to totally control the Gaza economy. As I said–they’ve eased the blockade. You’re obviously not informed on this. > [@](#): > > In 2014 no Jew was killed by the rockets. They were fired in protest of the blockade. In response Israel has killed 1712 Gaza citizens, destroyed the infrastructure and still maintains the blockade. > > Proportionality? > > Crane They maintain some level of blockade primarily because Gaza has maintained some level of unwillingness to stop attacking Israel. This isn’t the first dust-up since the blockade was eased. Why would Israel ease the blockade any further? Especially since they’ve already tried basically letting in all civilian goods. What they block now are dual-use goods and strictly military goods. If I’m Israel, and as you say, the Palestinians are struggling to kill any of us, we’ve tried easing the blockade, they keep launching rockets at us, what’s my incentive to ease the blockade further? So maybe they can get better rockets? ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/59 "2014-08-03T21:26:10Z")
Terr, No - Israel has no ‘right’ to send rockets into Gaza. Israel has no right to maintain an illegal blockade around Gaza. Crane ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632/60 "2014-08-03T21:30:13Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > Terr, > > No - Israel has no ‘right’ to send rockets into Gaza. Note that I didn’t ask you if it has a ‘right’. I asked you if, in response to Hamas sending 3200 unguided, untargeted rockets into Israel, Israel sending 3200 unguided, untargeted rockets into Gaza would be a “proportional” response. You’re still evading answering that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-of-pain-to-hamas-palestine-will-israel-achieve-military-victory/694632.md?page=4)