I’m hoping for a friendly discussion, and no attacks of posters.
I’m okay with some digressions.
But I’d like to stick to the general idea of what Israel is hoping to get if it wins the war it is currently engaged in. This is not the thread to discuss genocide, how evil either side is, or the history of the middle east. Nor is it the thread to document ongoing actions of the war, nor to argue whether they are atrocities, justified, or both. We have other threads for that. This is a thread for the future, and for hopes and ambitions.
I think that, ultimately, the enemy that Israel needs to defeat isn’t Hamas; it’s Iran. Even if Hamas is defeated (whatever the hell that would look like), Iran will just find some other pawn to use to attack Israel (in fact, they already have multiple other pawns attacking Israel). On the other hand, if Iran is defeated, then Hamas, whatever is left of it, suddenly at least becomes a much less severe problem.
Which is not, of course, to say that defeating Iran is going to be easy, either.
An Israeli “win” is defeating/dismantling Hamas. That’s it.
But, there is almost no way to do that short of pushing Palestinians out of Gaza completely. Even now, as bad as it is in Gaza, Hamas is still operating.
If Israel stopped right now, it’d be the status quo that existed a year ago in no time. Rinse-and-repeat.
Iran severed diplomatic ties with Israel many decades ago and does not recognize Israel as a state. Peace between Israel/Iran is not foreseeable at all. We could conjure up any magic possibility of peace between the two but it is not on any horizon.
Iran seems to very much oppose peace in the middle-East. Their regime depends on it (in part). Short of regime change that policy will continue. And regime change is either a revolution or war.
What does that look like? Serious question. So long as there are embittered Palestinians, some will try to attack Israel. So is it no Palestinians? No organized communication among Palestinians? No one who wears a “go Hamas” t-shirt? Lots of embittered Palestinians but operating under a new name?
I think it would have to be that (for Israeli success per the OP). As long as Gaza exists as a Palestinian enclave Iran will reinvigorate Hamas and start the whole thing all over again.
So, the real fix is to get Iran to not do that. I see no route for that to happen short of regime change in Iran which, as I said before, would be a revolution or war with Iran.
It is an impossible situation for all involved. I see no good outcomes. It is a colossal mess all around.
I think that it’s, at least at first, Palestinians who are still embittered, but who are no longer being supplied with weapons. Once they have that, then they can work on getting the Palestinians un-embittered.
Israel, or at least the conservative hardline Zionist elements that control the government, doesn’t want “Palestinians un-embittered”; they want them to be unpeople; if not actually eradicated then so dispossessed of any political power or sympathy in the international community that they can be displaced and dispatched with no real consequences. Which is essentially what they had prior to being provoked into a response by the 7 October mass terror attack which has disproportionately harmed noncombatants (largely children who have no say in Hamas or Palestinian governance) and brought wide attention the the plight of the residents of Gaza which Israel—despite attempts to shut down journalist access and communication—has not. been able to suppress.
As for Iran and its support for Hamas, yes, it is doing so in pursuit of becoming the regional hegemony and bringing other nations in the Middle East to pay deference if not tribute. Funding terror and provoking aggression and violence is an effective means to that end. I wonder where they learned those tactics from?
I think it may be like an Andy Weir book like The Martian or Project Hail Mary. You may not see all the steps yet but you can see what needs to be done immediately. Getting rid of the terrorist organisation on your doorstep is step 1. Step 2 onwards will need to be done after that is completed but you don’t have a full game plan.
First, it is true that Iran is the puppet master behind Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc; and that peace in the Middle East (for Israel and for other countries) will remain elusive so long as they are stirring those pots. But there is a vast difference between Iran launching attacks into Israel from places that are outside of either Israel or Palestine, and operating from Gaza or the West Bank directly.
Israeli success would mean replacing Hamas as the controlling body of Gaza with a group that is not hell bent on terrorism. They don’t have to be friends of Israel; they just have to understand that letting Hamas take over again would be a disaster for the Palestinians. Whether that’s a Palestinian government, a coalition of Arab countries, a coalition of non-Arab countries, or (the worst option) Israeli control - removing Hamas from power is necessary, and because geopolitics abhors a vacuum, it is also necessary to replace their control with someone else’s.
If that can be accomplished, then the fact that Hamas affiliated assholes will undoubtedly continue to commit terroristic acts will definitely suck, will definitely be a problem; but it won’t be an insurmountable obstacle to peace. For example, it will be possible to deliver aid to Gaza without Hamas siezing it all and selling it to finance their terrorism further.
Any victory achieved in this way would be temporary, but it would also open the door to a two state solution. So to secure a lasting success, Israel will need to build on mulitary victory by first replacing Netanyahu and removing his far right religious whackjob puppets; and then moving decisively to negotiate a two state solution.
You aren’t wrong about Bibi and his hardliner supporters, but Netanyahu’s opposition, including the socialist Labor party and every far Left Israeli politician with a chance of opposing Bibi is also a Zionist. Using Zionist as a slur strengthens Netanyahu’s claim that the world is hostile to Israel as a concept and only someone as strong and decisive as him can keep Israel safe despite this. He is laughably wrong, as demonstrated on Oct 7, but using the term Zionist in this way throws fuel on the fire that Netanyahu is trying to stoke.
People like Merav Michaeli or Yair Golan are also avowed Zionists.
Getting bad guys (i.e., the current government) out of power is certainly a necessary condition for Israeli success. Whether the replacement, assuming there is a real alternative which is never a given, wants to label themselves as Zionist or some other buzzword is less important than their actual radically creative constructive policies.