Not just vengeance, but vengeance in the name of God. Martyrdom is a centuries old religious tradition.
The song verse that’s been going through my head is the last stanza of a Christian hymn.
The peace of God, it is no peace, But strife closed in the sod, Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing– The marvelous peace of God.
The rest of the song is just as chilling, it’s basically about how Jesus’s disciples had simple peaceful lives before they found him, which caused them to meet horrible ends, but that’s the price of being a believer and it was worth it.
I’m getting this sinking feeling because I just can’t see a path through this situation that’s not horrific.
Of course 100% of Palestinians don’t support Hamas. But when has that ever been a criterion? Many Russians don’t support their war either, but that doesn’t stop people from calling for the bombing of Russia. Most of the Russian soldiers are now conscripts who don’t want to be there, but that doesn’t stop the endless stream of gloating and high fives whenever one dies horribly on video.
Nations go to war, and their people suffer the consequences. Not all Germans supported Hitler, but that didn’t stop the allies from firebombing German cities.
Gazans have seen this show before. And they supported Hamas in large numbers right up to the moment Israel retaliated strongly.
You are making a claim of certainty about something you cannot be certain of.
Israel cannot know everything about how where all Hamas senior leadership is; I know that to be a fact, because it’s plainly evident that Israel was badly underprepared for this attack, and so there’s obviously a LOT Israel does not know about Hamas’s activities and whereabouts.
“Arleigh Burke” class, and they’re destroyers.
Arleigh Burke was an admiral in World War II and Korea and beyond, who was usually a commander of destroyer groups.
I actually knew that. Ashley was a brain fart. The USS Cole was one of them, and they were fairly recently in the news (a few years ago) when one collided with another ship due in part to poor performance of the bridge crew.
It is odd how often great big ships run into each other. I mean, you’d assume they see it coming, but history is full of disasters involving big ol’ boats smashing into one another.
The “it” was referring to why Hamas commits unspeakable and senseless acts of terrorism in a struggle where they can seemingly never actually achieve their goals.
Is your point that national security officials should be overly cautious and be on the lookout for being baited by an apparently stupid move by their enemies - sure. As someone just looking on the sidelines it’s not that relevant for me to worry unless it’s about my personal safety, in which case I do have that philosophy.
Why should Palestinians expect that that possibility wouldn’t also suck horribly? After all, the Palestinian residents of the West Bank aren’t under the control of Hamas, and Israel appears to have zero interest in “negotiating” with them in any way. They’re subject to constant land encroachment, dispossession, harassment and violence from extremist Israeli settlers, and Israel doesn’t protect them.
I have nothing to say in favor of Hamas, especially given their propensity for terroristic murder, but I think it’s absurd to suggest that Palestinians could realistically attain a non-“sucky” degree of rights and freedom if only they’d get rid of Hamas. The Israeli government has made it very clear that they have no interest in that potential future, and in fact have expansionist objectives that directly conflict with it.
I am also sure they learned their lesson from Afghanistan/Irak … and refrain from putting boots on the ground in a geography where you ultimately cannot win
A major challenge faced by Israelis (like me) who try to convince other Israelis to support the removal of the settlements is the fact that settlers were forcibly removed by the IDF from Gaza as part of the withdrawl; and the result was Hamas’ takeover.
Now, obviously you can’t just go tit-for-tat they-said-we-said forever. Or rather, you can, but that just leads to eternal bloodshed. At some point, someone has to take the first step towards peace, and that will obviously need to be Israel. But that’s the reason that the idea is treated skeptically by the Israeli public. Like you asked - why should the Israelis trust that Palestinians will react to the removal of the settlements by becoming less hostile this time?
Not likely that there will be boots on the ground but AWACS cover, bombing runs into Lebanon from a carrier, or accidental entry into the conflict through having to defend against some attack… Put a carrier group or two into an active war zone, and you are taking risks of escalation,
I have to say again that I am fully in favor of Israel doing what it has to do to maintain the safety of its people, and of America supporting that effort. I’m probably the most consistent supporter of Israel on this board, and have been since I showed up here 24 years ago.
This isn’t about politics. I’m not ‘just asking questions’ as a way to criticise without criticising. Once war breaks out, it’s time for everyone to put the politics behind and figure out how to win, and more importantly how not to lose.
One of the main ways to do that is to examine what could go wrong and prepare for it, rather than just staying in your happy place waving a flag and calling for victory.
Just out of curiosity, has it ever been proposed (or even discussed) that the settlers in the West Bank no longer have Israeli residence and are thus ineligible to vote in Israeli local elections? What Knesset District represents them?
That would be one way to curtail their power and put a hurting on the hard-right’s standing.
No districts. The whole shebang is elected by proportional representation at-large. That’s how come you have all those little fringe parties that mess up coalition-building.
Sure, I don’t mean to suggest that the tradeoffs in strategic advantage are simple or straightforward on either side. I was just pushing back against What_Exit’s imaginary scenario where real progress for Palestinian rights would somehow realistically follow upon their renouncing Hamas (thus, by implication, making the lack of progress for Palestinian rights the Palestinians’ own fault for not renouncing Hamas).
I’m just not persuaded that any course of action on the Palestinians’ part would realistically result in non-suckiness to the extent of the Israeli leadership’s taking any meaningful steps to recognize rights or sovereignty for Palestinians. Doesn’t matter if they got rid of Hamas, if they all became sworn pacifists, whatever. None of that would change the determination of Israeli expansionists—who, alas, seem to be the ones shaping the major policy decisions—to establish full Israeli sovereignty over all Palestinian territory, with only Israelis having any recognized rights there.
(To be fair, I think it’s also undeniable that there are many militant Palestinian revanchists who would be equally determined to establish full Palestinian sovereignty over Israel/Palestine as a whole, if they could, no matter how conciliatory Israel was being. The chief difference is that Palestinian revanchists have effectively zero chance of implementing their desired program, while Israeli expansionists have been making steady progress with theirs.)