The underlying assumption here is that the conflict was not fair to one side. Could you please explain what necessity or reason there might be as to why it should have been “more fair?” Do you think Hamas started firing rockets into Israel without realizing they were at an extreme military disadvantage? Do you think Palestinians who continue to support Hamas as their leaders - despite the death and devastation Hamas’ actions have wrecked in Gaza, multiple times – should escape responsibility or consequences of that support? Do you think leaders who act with unmitigated stupidity by getting into a military confrontation with a vastly superior force deserve to be given technology that might enable them to better defend themselves while leaving them free to continue pursing unmitigatedly stupid policies (to say nothing of possible war crimes)? Is your concern with the fairness of the conflict related to some BS sense of “fair play” that does not in any meaningful way reflect the reality of how wars are waged in the Mideast and most other parts of the world? Finally, do you really think the Palestinians want to leave and try and make it in some other part of the world when they are dying to remain in the one they’re in?
What gave you the impression that Israel is opposed to the Palestinians leaving? Israel would love it if every single Palestinian left the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It would solve all its problems. As far as Israel is concerned, they should be free to cross over to Egypt or Jordan whenever they want.
Iraq was invaded under false pretenses built up by lies by the US, which means the whole thing was needless bloodshed and the fault of the US. I opposed the invasion then, and I still oppose it.
Afghanistan was harboring a group of people who planned and carried out an attack on the US that leveled 16 blocks in the largest city in the US, knocked a hole in the Pentagon, and left a smoking crater in a field that might have much worse in other circumstances. That was never going to be left unanswered because no country is going to tolerate being attacked. The fact that there was a huge asymmetry in the military capability of those two nations sucked for Afghanistan, but the US has the right to defend itself, just like anyone else. The Taliban was asked to hand over bin Laden before the US showed up on their doorstep and they refused. Again, the whole mess was terribly unfair to all civilians caught in the crossfire.
When an aggressive party launches an offensive against a foe that has a superior military the aggressor generally suffers more losses than the party being attacked. This is why it’s generally a bad idea for a bald ape to poke an adult tiger with a pointy stick. Now, there might occasions where starting a fight with a militarily superior foe is seen as a necessity, but it’s going to come at a steep cost justified or not.
Of those alternatives, “let them leave and try to make it somewhere else in the world” is probably the least bad alternative, but also the one other nations seem least inclined to attempt. The residents of Gaza are stuck, but other Palestinians languish in refugee camps that have now become multi-generational. THAT particular path requires the cooperation of other nations, which seems to be lacking.
The other choices, while they seem very sensible, are nonetheless problematic. Part of the problem with Gaza resources is that you not only have a spot of land that is one of the mostly densely populated on Earth, it also has an extremely high birth rate. Not only does it require resources, it requires an ever-increasing amount.
Part of the problem with rebuilding is that in the past terrorist groups have used construction sites as places from which to launch missiles. Rebuilding requires that the people doing the building be allowed to build without having resources diverted to continuing conflict. Part of the problem with rebuilding is that even when the Gaza strip HAS been given resources they’ve been diverted to people intent on continuing the conflict rather than using them to benefit the people living there.
Then there is Hamas - the first thing Hamas did on being elected was engage in a mini-civil war with Fatah to eliminate the competition in Gaza, then re-assert that one of their core principals was the utter elimination of Israel. Since then, they have refused to hold elections because they are now an autocratic government more focused on the conflict of Israel than governing Gaza. So yeah, that’s going to end well…
If Israel gave Gaza all the power, water, food, and medical aid it could ever want or need you’d still have Hamas in power, diverting resources to carrying on a fight with its neighbor in a vain attempt to destroy it. While I agree that there are a lot of things Israel could and should do to improve the situation within Gaza even if they were all done we’d still have Hamas at the end of the day eager to keep fighting and destroying.
Contrast Gaza with the West Bank. The West Bank still has enormous problems, and is still under the Israeli thumb, but it’s not in the same state of continuous boil that Gaza is, and as economically depressed as the West Bank is it is not as bad off as Gaza, yet both are predominantly Palestinian and under the administration to some degree of Palestinians. I’m not saying the West Bank is a paradise - it’s not, there are a crapload of problems there with an icing of repression, and it has its own problems with terrorism - but it’s doing better than Gaza.
If Gaza didn’t have a bunch of terrorists salivating over forever war, had its birth rate under control, and a population that was sufficiently tired of tolerating terrorists provoking their neighbor and enemy the situation would definitely improve and the world could get on with pressing Israel to admit to its own wrong-doing in this bullshit and rolling back the illegal settlements and oppression.
A big slice of the current problem - not the only slice, just a large one of many - is that Hamas has zero interest in peace. It wants Israel destroyed. Despite it’s 1994 declaration that it wants free elections in Palestinian territories it has not held any elections since gaining power in 2007. Hey - they have political control of Gaza, there is nothing stopping them holding elections there. Yet they haven’t done it and in fact have physically attacked opposition parties. As stated, it wants the complete elimination of Israel and the founding of an Islamic state in its place. Based on its actions, this would be an autocratic state where dissent is not tolerated. Yes, Hamas does provide many social services to areas under its control and that is laudable… but building a mosque then storing military weaponsin it (as an example) sort of undermines the whole “social services” aspect because it transforms anyone who uses a Hamas provided mosque, school, or hospital into a human shield (which, as has been noted numerous times in this thread, is a war crime). Gee, great bargain - the Gazans can have food, shelter, education, and place to worship, but only at the price of Hamas using it as a staging ground to attack Israel and putting all those civilians at risk of maiming or death to further Hamas’ aims of portraying Israel as The Bad Guy.
Yes, I think anyone in Gazan who wants to leave to try and start over elsewhere should not only be given assistance to do so, but full citizenship in a new country so they can really start over.
War usually does.
Removing hamas and establishing a real government would be a repeat of WW-II.
If that’s true then they are equally responsible for harboring hamas. Either way their continued war on Israel shows no sign of letting up.
I would think the recent diplomatic connections made between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco suggest the region is getting tired of hamas.
Absolutely.
Let Ohioans get away with that shit, and next thing you know, they’re firing rockets at the Florence water tower.
This article makes a good point.
But plenty of credible observers wonder if a turning point was reached this last fortnight in the way the Israel/Palestine conflict is seen around the world and especially in the west. For a loud and influential segment of opinion, it is being reframed not as a national conflict of competing claims, but as a straightforward matter of racial justice.
Problem is that the Palestinians are not getting tired of Hamas. If the Israelis invaded and removed that govenment, it would only be a matter of time before whatever regime they installed would be overthrown and replaced by Hamas or something like Hamas.
The US had better prospects of overthrowing the Taliban in Afghanistan and they couldn’t get it done long term.
More so, the fact that the Palestinians couldn’t muster a majority of the Arab League to vote to condemn the Abraham Accords. If not for Biden’s election, the Palestinians might very well have found themselves friendless in the region.
How do you know this?
For the same reason that Israelis are not getting tired of the Messianic Jews constantly instigating problems in the West Bank. Every once in a while they’ll reprimand them, but net/net many right wing Israelis have common cause with them. Radicals always extort what they want from those who depend on their support.
How is this comparable? And how is this proof one way or the other? I’m not saying Gazans necessarily hate Hamas – I’m saying that maybe a majority of them would prefer different leadership, and we might not know if this is so. Because Hamas doesn’t face periodic elections, and I’m unaware of an accurate set of polling of Gazans, and similar reasons.
The US couldn’t get rid of the Taliban because it could not solve the roots of the conflicts in that area.
Unless the underlying grievances of the Palestinians are addressed there will be no peace in Gaza, Israel, or the West Bank.
Among the (IMHO) indisputable grievances held by the Palestinians are:
- The land settled by the Zionists to form Israel was not empty - there are millions of dispossessed people who are still pissed off about losing their lands and possessions.
- Repeated breaking of treaties and agreements on both sides but MOSTLY Israel.
- Basically, being treated like shit for the past 60+ years by multiple parties.
The problem with expecting the US to pressure Israel to get their act together over this is that it has VERY uncomfortable parallels with how the US acquired its territories
I also have an issue with this being called a racial issue. It is, in fact, a religious issue. The Arabs and the Jews are much more closely related genetically than either side wants to admit. Maybe if they could admit it they would see each other more as fellow human beings than adversaries. Or maybe I’m just a silly optimist or something.
“plenty of credible observers”
Most importantly, the Guardian editorial board. 
It is comparable in the way that I provided comparison. Both populations are victims and accomplices to an extent of the two respective groups of extortionists. And if, “Gazans don’t necessarily hate Hamas”, then you must accept the premise as I’ve provided. Now, it may very well be the case that Gazans want democratic elections and to remove themselves from the authoritarian yoke of Hamas and those who support them (Iran, etc.), but they cannot because Hamas controls everything, including elections (or lack there of).
As has been pointed out before, the destitution that Palestine lives with makes Hamas more attractive than they should be to Palestinians. Israel will always have a fair number of detractors due to the history that people today live with and also because, well, religion. But I think there are steps Israel can take to lessen the intensity of the hatred against them. Israel is not the only country living with terrorism; it is, though, a very small country that cannot afford to be seen as weak - I get that. But there has to be more than just a hammer in the tool box.
The systems are so different that they’re not remotely comparable. And you appear to admit this in your post. So I’m not sure what your point is – it appears that you agree that we can’t know with any certainty at all whether or not Gazans approve of Hamas.
Systems of government are obviously different. To Gazans, the alternative to Hamas is Israel. People are governed by the same drivers of fear and desire to keep things from what they view as being worse. In that sense, they are comparable. But we don’t need to agree; Likely won’t.
From what I can tell, you don’t disagree with what I said. If you do, you haven’t made it clear at all.
In other words, I can’t tell what you’re trying to say, and I can’t tell what I said that you disagree with.
Problem - even beyond “appearing weak”, which is a separate issue of its own - is that many of those same measures would also increase the ability of Hamas (& related entities) to harm them. So it’s a big gamble, at best.
I think we disagree about, ‘whether or not we can know with any certainty if Gazans like Hamas or not’. I think we have enough information to know that it’s complicated. More than that, we know why it’s complicated. So it’s isn’t reasonable to claim we don’t know for certain when we have a damn good idea. Anyway, what should be Israel’s response if it knew for certain that Gazan’s hate Hamas? Is it reasonable to assume that majority of Gazans like Israel more than Hamas?