I’m only going to answer your last question, but please appreciate that I’m not supporting this conclusion, just reporting it.
There are billions of people in the world who don’t give a crap about Israel. I don’t mean they are anti-Semitic, or anti-Zionist, they don’t even give that much of a crap. They have their own lives to deal with, perhaps even their own active war to survive, and Israel is just another random, faraway line on the map.
So when they see that nation A is killing lots of civilians in nation B, they turn against nation A. Because that is what lots of people do when there is yet another war in some meaningless backwater - they pick a side and root.
Urban warfare is fucking hideous, especially in a place as densely populated as Gaza and against as opponent as willing to spend the lives of its own civilian population as Hamas.
There is absolutely no question that any war to eliminate Gaza would take an enormous toll. In the past, I opposed a ground invasion of Gaza for that very reason.
But what Oct 7 put into clear focus is the fact that the status quo was unsustainable. The hope that if we just keep our involvement in Gaza minimal Hamas would mellow out and accept a two state solution was revealed to be a particularly unfunny joke. And the fact that most of the cost of the status quo cycle was born by the Palestinians, not by Israel, also became very clear.
I’m no military tactician, but I cannot imagine a scenario where defeating Hamas would require that; so no, obviously not that.
If that’s what a military campaign required for success, then I would consider those goals impossible to accomplish. But again, that’s pretty cartoonishly ridiculous.
I’ll turn that question around on you. How many more years of Hamas rule and continous terrorism-counterstrike violence do you want the people of Gaza to bear so that your evening news stops being so unpleasant?
I want the ethnic cleansing to stop now and I want Netanyahu’s support of Hamas to be investigated and punished. So, I want an immediate end to it. Hamas and Netanyahu serve each other.
If I may, part of the difficulty in answering your question is that one has to believe that this is the round of violence that will finally end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If you could guarantee me that an Israeli victory would bring actual, lasting peace I might be able to come up with a number.
I certainly understand that concern, and I share it myself. Obviously there are no guarantees in war, and it’s crucial that we continue our internal fight against fringe elements with the cancerous Settler ideology.
I’ll tell you one thing, though - if we do not destroy Hamas, the chance of a lasting peace is 0%.
The value of Palestinian children is set by Hamas. The parents of those children put Hamas in power.
This is an important point to repeat because their peaceful and prosperous future lies mainly within their society. They have to want it. Nobody can force them to succeed or prevent them from failure.
If the value of Palestinian children was set by Hamas, we know what that value would be - nothing (unless they can be used against Israel, in which case - whatever military benefit they bring).
But humans are humans no matter what regime rules over them. Palestinian children are human beings and their lives are equally valuable to the lives of any other humans.
83 West Bank Palestinian children have been killed in the last twelve weeks.
If tit-for-tat is what’s behind the attack on Gaza then shouldn’t that satisfy the blood lust. That’s over 2 to 1 and the Bible allows only an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
Apply that logic to WW-II and see how it plays out. All the innocent children slaughtered because war is a traveling roadshow of hell. Entire cities were leveled.
The children in Gaza are not the target. Hamas is the target.