I am suggesting that when your educational and employment options are limited enough, casting TNT into shells by hand in a poorly ventilated basement becomes, not an attractive option, but let’s say conceivable. Plus you are working for the resistance or whatever you want to tell yourself.
NB working against Hamas is not really an option, either— it’s not exactly a democracy.
I’m not so sure that current Israeli leadership or most voters have been willing to accept that in recent years. And never that it was an overwhelming majority.
On the Palestinian leadership side I suspect most leadership in the West Bank would be willing to accept a negotiated settlement but have had no partner willing to negotiate in good faith in the Bibi era.
And grievance plays well politically everywhere.
It’s possible they anticipated a proportional response.
It’s possible they were incorrect.
What is “proportional” to what Hamas did the other day?
An attack that causes significantly similar damage, maybe?
I don’t think there’s a lot of musical festivals in Gaza the IDF can shoot up.
I feel that it would be better to attack the leaders who ordered an attack against Israeli civilians rather than proportionally attacking an equivalent number of Palestinian civilians.
I’m not recommending it as a course of action; I’m wondering if it’s what they might have expected.
I’m taking a long-term “where do you see yourself in fifty years?” perspective. I feel that a majority of Israelis would be willing to accept a permanent peace based on the peaceful co-existence of an independent Israel and an independent Palestine if they felt that such an agreement was achievable. But I don’t feel that there has been a majority of Palestinians would would be willing to accept that as the basis of a permanent peace settlement. I feel that Palestinian negotiations have been based on the idea that any peace settlement should be seen as just a temporary agreement before going back to the long term goal of eliminating Israel. And if the Palestinians are not willing to agree to a permanent peace settlement, it’s not surprising Israelis are not willing to enter negotiations for one.
If this distinction is unclear, let me use an example form another region: China. There are two sides, the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People’s Republic of China (mainland China) which are each claiming the territory of the other. But I do not feel the two sides are really equivalent. I feel that Taiwan would be willing to negotiate a permanent settlement in which they gave up all claims to the mainland while the mainland gave up all claims to Taiwan. But I do not feel mainland China would be willing to accept this as a permanent settlement. So because mainland China is not willing to accept this settlement, there is no significant support in Taiwan for seeking such a settlement. But if China changed its position, a majority in Taiwan would arise to support negotiation.
I feel the same is true in the Middle East. Palestine is the party blocking a permanent peace settlement. They have to be the side to change positions. But when and if they do so, Israel will meet with them. But Israel, like Taiwan, cannot move forward until the other side shifts its position.
I feel that the Hamas leadership probably expected that they would be Israel’s first choice of a counter-attack. But they probably expected that they could conceal themselves and prevent Israel from retaliating against them. Then Israel would retaliate against other targets, like the Gazan general population.
With my usual caveat of “I’m really not sure,” I’m wondering to what degree vengeance is the strategic aim here. There’s a lot of talk about Hamas’s long-term aims–but are we sure that’s what it’s about? Is it possible that, having been so ineffective for so long, their goal is less the establishment of a two-state solution (or even the annihilation of Israel) than it is a general blood-for-blood desire?
There’s an old folk song, “The Wind That Shakes the Barley,” about an Irish man whose sweetheart was killed by British soldiers. The song has some chilling stanzas near the end:
And I wonder whether there’s some of this impulse among Hamas fighters: a knowledge that their cause is doomed, but a willingness to die for nothing greater than vengeance.
That’s the gist of the average Hamas fighter’s motivation, I think. Strike Israel and kill Israelis. Then retreat and wait for the opportunity to kill invading and/or occupying Israeli soldiers. If they are killed in the process, they have died for a cause. If they survive, it just means God wants them to kill more Israelis before granting them relief from the misery of life in an open air prison.
I think we can more or less take Hamas at its word that they genuinely believe that ultimately the violence they carry out, that any normal person regonizes as senseless and sadomasochistic, will someday be vindicated by god allowing them to wipe Israel off the map and turning Palestine into an entirely Muslim nation.
Does it need to be more complex than that?
We should all be wary of making category errors. There are many players in the middle east, and they all have agendas.
In the past, the formula for justifying Palestinian attacks was to trigger an Israeli response that would be condemned around the world, leading to Israel’s loss of standing on the world stage and more aid money to the Palestinians, along with political benefit to despotic regimes which used hatred of Israel to justify their own despotic actions.
To this pont, the Palestinians have always been pawns. Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and others are very happy to have the Palestinians right where they are, and actuallynhave no interest in any sort of ‘peace’ between the Palestinians and Israelis unless that peace comes at significant cost to Israel.
Today, we should be concerned that what is happening is an intentional opening of a second front in a larger global war. If Hezbollah and Iranian-linked Shiites from Iraq get involved, it will likely draw the U.S. into the conflict, IMO.
Maybe this isn’t part of the plan, but we should wargame that possibility. I’m sure the U.S. military is already looking at it.
Because Israel was occupied by Nazis?
The palestinians have voted Hamas in.
Pretty much Taiwan has dropped that idea. Its still in their Constitution, sure, but the leaders no longer claim that.
Again, this is the fallacy of composition. “The Palestinians” didn’t vote Hamas in. 44% of Palestinians of voting age who cast votes in 2006 voted for Hamas. There have been no elections since. Those Palestinians who voted for Hamas are all at least 35 years old now, and have not voted in any Gaza elections since then. Almost 2/3 of Gaza residents are under the age of 25. The next age group is 25-54; if we figure that the population is evenly distributed over this group (it probably isn’t it’s probably weight toward the young side, but this is a conservative estimate), that brings us to 75% of the population who’ve never been old enough to vote.
I can’t find numbers for the percentage of Palestinians who voted in 2006. But mathematically, fewer than 15% of current Gaza residents could possibly have cast votes for Hamas; and we’re probably talking about somewhere closer to 5-10%.
It’s not just voting that can give us a clue. After the 2021 Hamas attack, 53% of Palestinians expressed support for Hamas, vs only 14% for Fatah:
Which was enough to give them control. And like you said- no elections since, so, absent any other number, that stands.
But if we want newer info, we have this- Oct 2023.
https://coopwb.in/info/how-many-palestinians-support-hamas/#:~:text=The%20latest%20conflict%20erupted%20in,the%20West%20Bank%20support%20Hamas.
As of now, a recent survey indicates that 58% of the population in the Gaza Strip stands with Hamas.
Thus Hamas still enjoys wide support.
Is that really surprising, though? Hamas gives them jobs and a common enemy. What has Fatah given them? What has Israel?
It’s easy to make people vote against their best interest. Just convince them that you have their back and their problems are all due to “others”. I bet you could even find examples of this in American politics.
Sure. And I don’t mean to dismiss the idea that Hamas has very significant support in Gaza. But as long as it’s less than 100%, we need to beware the fallacy of composition. And the claim that “The Palestianians” voted in Hamas is ludicrous on its face.
Go to the source. https://pcpsr.org/en/node/955
When you do, you’ll find some more really interesting bits:
Again, I’m in no way suggesting that there’s not significant, possibly even majority, support among Gaza residents for these attacks. But I am suggesting that it’s not universal, and any discussion that conflates the Hamas government with the people as a whole is fatally inaccurate.
Two things came up, new to me, while I was reading: