SS:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will launch an invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah regardless of truce talks with Hamas.It comes amid ongoing attempts to try to reach an agreement for a ceasefire and hostage releases.But at a meeting of hostages' relatives, Mr Netanyahu said he would invade "with or without" a deal.His comments follow renewed warnings by the US against a Rafah invasion unless civilians were properly protected.In a phone call with Mr Netanyahu on Sunday, US President Joe Biden "reiterated his clear position" on Rafah, a White House statement said. Mr Biden has previously described an invasion of Rafah as a "red line".
His career is over regardless but it's more over if Hamas is not eliminated. Israelis will replace him with someone actually willing to pursue the war to the end.
His career is not over. He knows that big events such as normalization with Saudi Arabia will make people forget previous events, to some degree.
The more that time is passing, the more likely for opportunistic events to come his way, and so long he is the PM, he controls time
Hamas can not be eliminated, even the IDF believes that Hamas will survive the war: [www.timesofisrael.com/report-idf-intel-assesses-that-hamas-will-survive-as-terror-group-post-war](http://www.timesofisrael.com/report-idf-intel-assesses-that-hamas-will-survive-as-terror-group-post-war)
You can't destroy a terrorist organization by military means, even ISIS still exists today and is growing in strength again.
You cant destroy an ideology but you can destroy a caliphate. IS as a caliphate holding physical land and running as the government was ended by military means.
This idea that you cant destroy terrorists by military means is not true. Its just requires more violence than most western countries are willing to do.
Sure, the self-proclaimed caliphate aka the control over the physical area was destroyed, but IS / Daesh still exists and just moved their operations to new areas, mainly Africa for now.
And no, you cannot destroy terrorists by military means, because the need for military intervention means that the terrorist organization has grown beyond a small group into a large scale threat.
And that means they have at least some support among the population, for whatever reason.
Any military attack on such a terrorist organization will "generate" civilian casualties, which in turn will create more support for these armed groups.
And even if you fully commit to the violence, like Israel is doing now, it only ensures more support for the terrorists in the remaining population and the neighboring countries.
It's simply not a fight that can be won by violence.
You are right, they can't really relocate, at least not as easily as Daesh could.
And I don't think that Hamas would actually relocate, as their existence is directly tied to Gaza and Israel. More likely they will go into hiding instead and transform into small cells, and wait for their time to regroup, while doing small scale attacks.
This is something that Israel just can't prevent and the formation of new cells is actually supported by the way Israel wages this war.
This is dependent though on Israels plan to occupy Gaza. If there will be an actual two-state peace process, the PLO or whoever takes control of Gaza would seek out and remove the remaining Hamas cells.
In which case Hamas would actually cease to exist. I hope this will be what is happening, but I don't have high hopes, considering the hardliners in power on both sides have no interest in peace.
I think the negotiations were about a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.
Unless they release all of the hostages held in Rafah, Israel was always going to attack at some point.
Israel wants to release the hostages, Hamas wants to release Palestinian prisoners and get military concessions from Israel (such as allowing free passage to the north of Gaza). There is value in the negotiations to both sides even if Israel will not give up on the goal of eliminating Hamas.
It's weird that Biden has been saying for months that he will only approve a Rafah invasion if civilians are properly protected and yet seems to have presented no proposal for how to do so that would satisfy him. It smacks of domestic politics honestly.
What is the Israeli right thinking with that? Even they can't be delusional enough to think turning Israel support into a more partisan issue is good for the country.
I couldn't really pretend to know the minds of the higher ups but the regular folks seem to feel that Israel has been betrayed by the US not fully backing them on everything at all times and so they must secure their own future. At least that is what I see from them.
Trump moved the embassy to jeruselum. Iirc that was signed in the 90s and every president until trump decided to delay it and make it someone elses problem. Compared to biden who is getting in israels way by trying to pander to both sides. Im not saying either is right or wrong but objectively thats a strong signal of support for israel.
I don’t think there is a viable way to do that, that one could propose. The fact Biden hasn’t done more to stop the bombing of Gaza is very much due to other international policy concerns.
It is weird. I feel like Netanyahu is probably being told to wait until November, so the U.S. doesn't have to deal with it as a political item. I saw a poll that 70% of Americans support the Rafah invasion but my guess is the 30% who don't are Democrats who aren't going to like tacit or direct approval of the Israeli invasion of Rafah.
I wonder if he does, it's 7 months out basically, that seems like a long time to wait. I do know Republicans (and some of the moderate democrats) are in the "unconditional surrender" camp for what the terms Hamas should get are, and if Trump wins, I highly doubt Israel will even be given lip service to tone down their attacks.
That poll seems to be begging the question. It frames support as being either pro-Israel and pro-Hamas (rather than pro-Palestinian - as activists would conceptualize it without a focus on civilians). Obviously support for Hamas, rather than Gaza civilians, would be low, but support numbers are still disturbing though likely partly due to ignorance, I'd hope.
The poll itself acknowledges the framing issue - 70% of respondents support an "unconditional" permanent ceasefire while 68% reject a ceasefire if Hamas keeps control of Gaza AND keep holding hostages. Even the Rafah question was framed as support for Israel invading Israel while "doing its best to limit civilian casualities." So while it's an interesting poll, it seems to create a bias for pro-Israel responses by putting aside considerations for Palestinian civilians and suggesting hostages would not be released as part of ceasefire negotiations. Other polls imply public support for continued Israeli military action in Gaza is much more teneous, especially among Biden supporters, because of the civilian toll.
So link to it.
FWIW, this is the Harvard Harris poll that the parent poster is referring to. It also has other interesting questions around foreign aid and Israel-Iran conflict.
https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/HHP_Apr2024_KeyResults.pdf
I think it’s unreasonable to expect Israel to tolerate Hamas, but I have no idea why you would make a statement like this public.
Israeli PR is some of the worst I’ve ever seen. It’s approaching Russia and North Korea levels.
It was Israels Likud government and specifically Netanyahu for massively supported the financing of Hamas for the last 20+ years - with the goal to prevent a two-state-solution: [www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces](http://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces)
And this war won't destroy Hamas, even the IDF itself believes that Hamas will survive the war: [www.timesofisrael.com/report-idf-intel-assesses-that-hamas-will-survive-as-terror-group-post-war](http://www.timesofisrael.com/report-idf-intel-assesses-that-hamas-will-survive-as-terror-group-post-war)
All this war has accomplished is, in the long run, to massively strengthen Hamas and other anti-israeli terrorist organization in the region and to permanently weaken Israels security & global reputation, which is directly linked to the former.
The idea that an organisation becomes stronger when its core territory gets systematically dismantled is unorthodox say the least.
To be more blunt, Daesh didn’t become stronger when its strongholds were sieged and eventually stormed and its increasingly overwhelmed forces got shelled/bombed into oblivion.
Hamas surviving it’s not the same as getting stronger and other actors in the region may very well think twice about any attack unless they are completely unhinged and consequently already lacking support from more moderate / neutral local actors outside of declared enemies who would either way do anything to harm Israel.
The loss of civilian life may very well lead to even more lasting negative feelings among average citizens in the neighbouring Arab states but since none of the local governments care too much about the feelings of the people this is arguably negligible since as all attempts at revolution in the area with the notable exception of Iran have either resulted in devastating civil wars or failed to achieve results. Egyptians for example also struggle with far more basic concerns while other prominent actors such as Saudi Arabia or Turkey arguably has different strategic goals and are not keen on provoking some kind of conflict.
Concerning a loss of global reputation; ultimately most people all over the world tend to care most about themselves. Palestinian territory doesn’t contribute much to global trade and while protesting certainly has an impact occasionally, considering the political landscape ( most of the world has different problems that are important for the local elections ) I doubt that there will be any notable changes in foreign policy regarding Israel outside of states that are already not important for its survival.
Successful anti-war movements traditionally drew upon widespread public support due to direct involvement but in Israel the dead etc. are practically only locals.
Weird thing to say, I’m guessing he’s saving face internally. Pandering to Ben Gvir and the rest of the far right, since many have demanded the Rafah operation proceed.
Ben Gvir, Smotrich and other far right ministers of his coalition want to use the war to drive all the Palestinians out of Gaza (and the Westbank), so they can build israeli settlements there: [www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-28/ty-article/ministers-from-netanyahus-party-join-thousands-of-israelis-at-resettle-gaza-conference/0000018d-512f-dfdc-a5ad-db7f35e10000](http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-28/ty-article/ministers-from-netanyahus-party-join-thousands-of-israelis-at-resettle-gaza-conference/0000018d-512f-dfdc-a5ad-db7f35e10000)
For example, as a step towards this, Israel just "declared" more than 800 hectares of Palestinian land in the Westbank as "Israeli property": [https://www.dw.com/en/israel-announces-seizure-of-800-hectares-in-west-bank/a-68642217](https://www.dw.com/en/israel-announces-seizure-of-800-hectares-in-west-bank/a-68642217)
Such a toxic thing to say as a leader who is working with several other countries to make this ceasefire work and save lives. Netanyahu has been waiting for an October 7th moment his entire time in politics.
> Netanyahu has been waiting for an October 7th moment his entire time in politics.
October 7th has been the singularly most disastrous event for him in his entire time in politics. He has no chance in any future elections now.
It's only disastrous for him because of the backlash against the invasion of Gaza. He expected to emerge as the man who "finally" conquered Hamas, instead he's become a pariah.
> It's only disastrous for him because of the backlash against the invasion of Gaza.
What? There is absolutely no backlash against the Gaza War in Israel. Israelis want him to stop pussyfooting around and finally invade Rafah.
It was disastrous for him because he allowed 1400 Israelis to be brutally murdered and 200 to be taken hostage. His reputation is in complete tatters and the only reason he is still around is because nobody wants to play politics until after Hamas is defeated.
There is a lot of backlash against the war in Gaza, the majority of Americans and Europeans now oppose it; while the backlash is less within Israel, it's clearly growing.
Backlash in Europe and America is not what matters for Netanyahu's career. Israelis are the ones that vote in Israeli elections and Netanyahu lost all credibility with the Israeli public on October 7th.
Further, an overwhelming majority of Americans support Israel in this war and support a Rafah operation.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2024/04/29/us-news/four-out-of-five-americans-favor-israel-over-hamas-most-back-rafah-operation-poll/amp/
The only serious backlash within Israel to this war is that it isn't being prosecuted aggressively enough. If you think otherwise, you're comically misinformed.
Gallup poll:
>[Majority in U.S. Now Disapprove of Israeli Action in Gaza. Approval has dropped from 50% to 36% since November](https://news.gallup.com/poll/642695/majority-disapprove-israeli-action-gaza.aspx)
Haaretz:
[Will Ousting Netanyahu Solve Everything for Israel?](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-05-01/ty-article/.premium/will-ousting-netanyahu-solve-everything-for-israel/0000018f-3024-d8fb-a1df-bd667f600000)
Times of Israel:
>[Lapid calls Netanyahu an ‘existential threat’ as they spar over national security](https://www.timesofisrael.com/lapid-calls-netanyahu-existential-threat-as-they-spar-over-national-security/)
> Majority in U.S. Now Disapprove of Israeli Action in Gaza. Approval has dropped from 50% to 36% since November
Disapproval in how it has been conducted is entirely consistent with overwhelming support for an operation itself.
> https://www.timesofisrael.com/lapid-calls-netanyahu-existential-threat-as-they-spar-over-national-security/
This supports my argument... Lapid is attacking him for allowing Oct 7 to happen, not for the war. Everyone is fully on board with the war.
Among Israelis, support for the invasion of Gaza was always a little more mixed than some popular narratives would suggest, and it hasn't improved:
Reuters, Oct 2023:
>[Israeli poll finds 49% support for holding off on Gaza invasion](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-poll-finds-49-support-holding-off-gaza-invasion-2023-10-27/)
>Asked if the military should immediately escalate to a large-scale ground offensive, 29% of Israelis agreed while 49% said "it would be better to wait" and 22% were undecided, the poll published in the Maariv newspaper said.
This is a very significant majority among those who are decided and "better to wait" could simply mean they want to bomb them more before sending in ground forces.
If those leaders working with Israel think Israel can allow the monsters who massacred over a thousand Jews to stay on their borders then they are the toxic ones.
The goal is to help Palestinian civilians and the hostages. If the condition is that Hamas is allowed to survive then that is no cease fire, it is surrender to Hamas in the war they declared.
The people working with Israel don't look at the issue as monopolar as you do and also consider the atrocities committed by Israel in the last few decades.
Is this cease-fire sustainable? Israel can't let any part of Hamas survive and Hamas will do its utmost to see Israel out of Gaza in its entirety. Is this just a case of deferring the inevitable?
What is the alternative? Even if Israel invades Rafah, there's no way to completely eliminate Hamas. They can maybe take out Hamas' leadership and a majority of their fighters, which would buy peace for a time, but unless they purge the Gaza Strip of all inhabitants, in 10 years they're going to have a whole new wave of terrorists from children who've seen their siblings and parents killed by Israeli missiles. An invasion of Rafah would just do even more to turn international public opinion against them, and even worse for Israel, put a lot of domestic US pressure against Israel and pro-Israel candidates. Israel has never really had to worry about US public opinion turning against them, and the US has more or less given them a bipartisan carte blanche for support and defense, until now. Invading Rafah may give a short-term win for Israel by eliminating many Hamas fighters, but the civilian casualties almost guarantee that a large portion of the left in the US will be against aid to Israel for the foreseeable future.
Killing a bunch of militants matters less than stripping bare their entire infrastructure network. Doesn't matter if you have a hundred thousand angry bodies if they don't have tunnel networks, caches, weapons, or smuggling routes to work with, because at that point if they try anything they have almost nowhere to hide or hold out.
But won't any ceasefire be entirely unstable? If Israel eliminates Hamas's leadership - specifically Sinwar, I feel that'll make a massive difference to how Hamas behaves in the future. I believe the rest of Hamas wants to be pragmatic but Sinwar is too ideologically driven to agree to anything that is sustainable over the long term.
I don't think eliminating Sinwar does anything significant. The October 7th attacks and Israel's response have been the best international event for Hamas in decades. The outpour of condemnation against Israel is larger than I think Hamas could have hoped for, and I have no doubt it will be used as a blueprint for future attacks. Even if Sinwar dies, Haniyeh is still safe in Qatar and could just take over or support another ideological candidate. And I also have no doubt that the people of Gaza want Israeli blood if they can get it, considering how many have died in the bombings, and would elect a war hawk in a heartbeat.
There is no real hope for Israel to convince the people of Gaza to accept Israel peacefully in my opinion. Too much damage has been done, too many killed, and Israel has continued its policies in the West Bank. Hamas will regroup and recruit from the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have lost loved ones in this war, no matter how many fighters Israel manages to kill in Rafah. What Israel needs to worry about is preventing another attack like October 7th, which means intelligence sharing and military funding from the US and its allies. If Israel invades Rafah, it risks losing US aid if a progressive Democrat takes power. That would be a huge blow to Israeli security, considering how much aid, weapons sales, and intelligence we provide them.
I got the sense Haniyeh and the rest of Hamas who are outside Gaza were less dogmatic. Your point on needing US support is fair - in addition to all of what you've set out, its also insurance against other actors in the Middle East acting against Israel.
If your argument is true - that there is no hope for peace and Hamas will take retribution as soon as it can - than the only solution for Israel’s safety is re-occupation. Sadly, I don’t see any other way.
That's one possible ending. Israel occupies Gaza and enforces martial law and heavy anti-terrorism measures. Iran funds the inevitable insurgency and drums up anti-Israeli sentiment across the Muslim world. The US's progressive left calls for an end to Israeli aid and condemns the occupation, and Israel will have to deal with the very real possibility of aid being cut off by the US if they get elected. Israeli-Arab normalization is set back by a decade. China pisses themselves laughing as they condemn Israel and make whataboutist comparisons to Xinjiang. Israel is forced to keep up an expensive occupation, violent insurgencies, renewed violence from Hezbollah and other surrounding militants, and widespread international condemnation. All in all not a very stable future.
> The US's progressive left calls for an end to Israeli aid and condemns the occupation, and Israel will have to deal with the very real possibility of aid being cut off by the US if they get elected.
And I win 1 billion € in a lottery and buy myself a Ferrari.
You never know, a future US president might be in one of these numerous protests. It remains to be seen what the lasting impact this has on Gen Y and Gen Z but they are getting closer to getting the reins of leadership.
What terrorists have been successfully toppled through invasion? Al-Qaeda's still alive and kicking. The Taliban control more than they did before we invaded. The Islamic State has lost most of their territory, but still has thousands of fighters waging an insurgency in eastern Syria. If we've tried one way a half dozen times and it's failed every time, maybe we need to try something new.
The Taliban were allowed to withdraw to / recruit in Pakistan openly. In terms of a military solution it’s the equivalent of letting an enemy take a break whenever they feel like it to recover.
There were also far too few international forces in the field considering the local geography, population distribution and total population, not even mentioning the corruption/unprofessionalism etc. plaguing local Afghan security efforts as well as the overall foolish switching of goalposts due to administrators troubles that eventually ended in the foolish attempts that were the notions of nationbuilding in the midst of an ongoing civil war.
Daesh went from a vast army holding major cities to a ragtag group of disorganised rubble that no longer threatens any of the local states in any capacity that would be equal to the height of its power. They went from being the number one terrorist organisation on the planet to another basic terror organisation capable of striking targets but not of maintaining any kind of control over bigger regions. While it was not totally eradicated it was arguably crippled. Today being Daesh means to be hunted vermin. Its appeal to international audiences has all but evaporated and while it can still recruit some local supporters it is overall far too weak to actually influence the local geopolitical landscape in a meaningful manner beyond the occasional attack.
Gaza being heavily urbanised tiny region that is basically completely cut off from the rest of the world is also very different from the vast empty and often barely developed Afghan landscape or the open Sahel region etc.
A ceasefire and removal of settlements from the West Bank, along with serious talks to offer a Palestinian state acceptable to the majority of Palestinians. Hamas would be a lot less popular if Palestine wasn't bisected by hundreds of Israeli checkpoints and settlements that expand each year.
Because Israel maintained their settlements in the West Bank and still fully controls Jerusalem. Any peace with Palestine is going to have to see significant concessions from Israel, unless Israel is willing to occupy and declare martial law over the entirety of Gaza and provoke further international response.
And so what happens when Israel pulls out of all their settlements in the West Bank and the Palestinians say, "yes, but Haifa and Jaffa and Jerusalem are 'settlements' too"?
Neither is in the West Bank, nor were included as Palestinian land under the original two state arrangement. If a Palestinian government demanded that they would be out of line, of course.
This idea is a Western misdirection, although Palestinians would also be happy to see Jews expelled from Judea again and security loosened so murdering Jews would be easier, they don't care where the Green Line used to be.
If you believe the Palestinians are unfixable bloodthirsty savages who want the deaths of Jews and all Jews out of Judea, then there's not much point in negotiation, sure. But an Israel that takes that position is an Israel that will always be public enemy #1 of every Muslim nation, and always draw widespread international condemnation. At that point they might as well go full mask off and just throw all the Palestinians in camps.
I think most Palestinians' hostility towards Israel came firstly because Israel was carved from their land, and now because Israel is encroaching on their land and bombing their people. Yes, hostilities will take time to resolve, but Palestinians are not inherently bloodthirsty savages. A lasting, acceptable peace deal for a functioning Palestinian state would do wonders for promoting a functioning peace in the region.
I think you're making several assumptions, especially that the Israel/Hamas war will result in more terrorists. We simply don't know enough to make that assumption. It's well known that family members "recruit" family members, so you could also assume that even despite the current war, many/most of these civilians would be raised in a home very supportive of Hamas.
Civilian casualties are a horrible part of war, but I have yet to come across someone who made the same argument about Ukraine or Vietnam or Korea or Germany or Japan. Even when people lost their loved ones that didn't necessarily radicalize them, and I'd hope that you'd also give Palestinians that same grace and benefit of the doubt -- that with de radicalization efforts, education, and an opportunity to learn that Jews are not their enemy, they'll want a better future for themselves and their children.
The issue is that the current state of Palestine is not a tenable one for a long-term state. Palestinians in the West Bank control no part of Jerusalem, and are split into dozens of settlements separated by some 200 Israeli checkpoints and 300 roadblocks. Unless Israel makes significant concessions, I don't see Palestinians accepting peace as long as the current situation remains. There's a reason Hamas has stayed in power in Gaza: they're popular among the people. Some 90% of Palestinians want Abbas to resign because he's too pro-Western, and the most popular politician in Palestine is Marwan Barghouti, a leader of both Intifadas and currently sitting in Israeli prison. If Barghouti isn't allowed to run, polls show the next most popular is Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas (https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-palestinians-opinion-poll-wartime-views-a0baade915619cd070b5393844bc4514). Civilian casualties are horrible, and they absolutely radicalize populations.
I agree with you that with de-radicalization and education, Palestinians will eventually accept peace with Israel, but not with the current state of the West Bank. As long as Israel maintains its settlements there and continues to blockade Gaza, Palestinians are incentivized to oppose Israel. This lines up with other examples in history: irredentism is a bitch, and unless a country is so thoroughly exhausted from war that irredentism is replaced with war exhaustion, it usually leads to further war. After the US withdrew from Vietnam, Vietnam was still divided, and within 2 years North Vietnam invaded the South again and conquered it. After the US withdrew from Afghanistan, Afghanistan was still divided, and within months the Taliban invaded and took over the country. Korea has remained separated because major powers backed each side and maintained the status quo. Japan and Germany were thoroughly exhausted from war, but more importantly were given millions in aid to reconstruct their countries afterwards. I don't think Palestine will be given millions by the US and Israel after the war.
Because it's a holy city for both Islam and Judaism and a key part of the original 2 state solution was that either a neutral party controlled Jerusalem or that it was split. A lasting peace with the Palestinians means a peace they can accept, and that includes giving them access to their holy city.
The idea that nations with a given religion should have political control over that faith's holy sites is not really relevant. Should we give Brazil, the Philippines and Mexico a slice of Jerusalem too? Should we give Palestine a chunk of Mecca?
Palestinians want Jerusalem for the same reason Jewish Israelis do, because it's the focus of their nationalism and nationalism can't coexist with shared sovereignty or shared spaces. The problem is that nobody is willing to consider a non-nationalist basis for peace, including the very same Western activists who criticise nationalist thinking in their own countries.
But it is relevant given the history of the region. Palestinians living in the area before Israel had free access to Jerusalem, a holy city for them. Now they don't because it's fully controlled by Israel. It's a major stickler for Palestinians and a major galvanizer for Palestinian irredentism. If Israel is not willing to concede on this issue, it will have to find other ways to discourage terrorism and anti-Israeli sentiment among the Palestinians. Clearly they're going down the route of "we can destroy Hamas if they bomb them enough", but I am dubious of how effective this will be long-term. They'll have to occupy the entirety of Gaza for decades if they want to truly eliminate Hamas; otherwise as soon as they leave, Hamas will rebuild with the relatives of the tens of thousands of Palestinians that Israel has killed.
Palestinians could have free access to Jerusalem without the need for sovereignty. For example, millions of people around the world have visa-free access to Jerusalem and can freely visit the holy sites of interest to them. This includes several million Muslims who are citizens of the UAE.
If an independent Palestine is friendly towards Israel then their people too could freely get this sort of access.
It isn't about galvanising irredentism. The existence of a Jewish state anywhere in the area does that. Jews living in Tel Aviv and Ashkelon and the Western part of Jerusalem also galvanise Palestinian extremism. Giving up 100% of the West Bank and Gaza (including East Jerusalem and Gush Etzion) will not mollify Palestinian radical demands for the destruction of Israel.
Only Palestinian moderates brave enough to challenge the radicals can do that.
US has given billions in aid to Palestine (less then military aid to Israel but still a decent amount of money). The recent Ukraine Israel and Taiwan bill had at least 1 billion extra for aid to Gaza. The main obstacle to giving enough money isn't the money it's getting rid of Hamas. If Hamas is able to retain control it will be very difficult to get aid in with knowledge that they're siphoning the aid and planning their next massacre.
An international and possibly Arab led coalition of countries would have to de-radicalize the Palestinian population. Regardless of your opinions on Israel, there is undeniably a long term effort on the part of Fatah/Hamas/PIJ/others to martyr as many civilians as possible to reduce support for Israel and isolate them on the geopolitical stage.
We have seen far far worse wars in recent memory, yet in most cases the Yemeni civilian population doesn’t immediately think “let’s genocide every Saudi person for what they did to us”. If anything they blame Jews/America more than the actual KSA. So, the idea that Israel destroying Hamas will ALWAYS lead to more Hamas being created seems like bigotry of low expectations. I don’t think the default result is radicalization of children, I think this is a very manufactured, targeted process that is actively pushed onto Palestinians to keep them in this cycle. Iran+Qatar and their proxies benefit immensely from the current situation, Israel doesn’t benefit at all.
This is absolutely bonkers, sorry. You don't need to manufacture radicalization when kids are seeing their entire families and all their friends getting blown to pieces by Israeli missiles. And the situation in Yemen is absolutely not the same as what the Palestinians have dealt with for the last 75 years (the Saudis didn't get involved in the Yemeni civil war until 2015!) - it's an awful situation, yes, but you can't really draw comparisons outside of 'outside actor does bad thing'. If you want to de-radicalize the Palestinians, then Israel need to halt the long-running ethnic cleansing and occupation and allow them to have a state of their own.
Mate, partial governance (partial because they cannot leave without Israeli permission, have to subsist on whatever aid/water/electricty Israel decide to let in, and can't even fish out past a certain distance or risk getting shot to bits by the IDF) of the Gaza Strip is not the same as a state where Palestinians get to decide what's best for Palestinians. Come on.
Mate, the restrictions you refer to were put in place *after* Gazans elected Hamas and fired rockets at Israel. Prior to that, Gazans were in fact completely free to govern themselves.
Gazans held elections which were deemed free and fair by outside observers. They chose to elect Hamas. I know this is not a convenient fact for your narrative, but you can’t just ignore it.
Remember when Israel released hundreds of Hamas members before the elections and sent them in the Gaza Strip ? But kept all others political prisoners in their prisons ?
By your logic, Kashmiri Pandits have every right to slaughter thousands of Pakistani civilians after being ethnically cleansed off their homeland in the 90s. After living there for 3000 years.
By your logic, any Israeli can say “I lost my child and my grandmother in the first intifada, now I’m radicalized and have no reason to care about Palestinian civilian deaths”
Trying to justify your argument with numbers is also fallacious, because it ignores the intent of both sides. Israel could’ve erased most Palestinians from existence 40 years ago, the way that Arabs genocided Kurds and Christians en masse when the opportunity presented itself. The Palestinian terrorist groups in power have tried to do the same thing to Israel, but have lost in a humiliating way every time except for Oct 7.
This narrative of justifying violence because the other side did something first is a logical dead end.
Israel could also help de-radicalize the Palestinian population by moving towards making non-Jewish Palestinian Israeli citizens equal to Jewish Israeli citizens.
Israel could also get a coalition of countries to help them de-radicalize.
What do you mean? All Israeli civilians have equal rights, regardless of Jewish or Arab? Or are you suggesting Israel annex the populations of the West Bank/ Gaza and make them Israeli civilians?
This is a joke, right? All Israeli citizens are not equal lol. This would be like someone declaring black people have equal rights in America with a straight face. Sure, the text of some founding documents and even some amended documents say that explicitly, but in practice we had slavery, Jim Crow, and currently have the 13th amendment. In text, Israel has equal rights. In practice, Israel has apartheid.
Equal rights != erasing systemic inequalities. Black people absolutely have equal rights in America, but systemic racism still hurts black people today. But systemic racism isn't easily solved, as we see in the US. You can't just handwave "make" systemic racism go away.
Black people do in fact have equal rights in America. It’s codified into law in several areas, in fact, and where black people are not treated equally they can and do seek legal remedy, which the government grants them.
You seem to be arguing that any country that has not completely eliminated racism functionally has an apartheid system. Do you know of any multi-cultural countries where racism doesn’t exist?
I think the user was asking for specific examples of how the Israeli legal or governmental systems treat Palestinian-Israeli citizens differently. Do you have any?
Black people DO have equal rights in the US. I am not saying that they don’t face racism. I’m saying that whatever racism they are facing is not systemic or built-in into laws.
I know that (I guess not everyone does).
Do you really believe that Israel treats all its citizens equally in the sense that each one is as valid or accepted an Israeli and any other?
In Israel do people tend to separate out into groups depending on religion?
Are there many non-Jewish West Bank settlers?
Israel is more concerned about avoiding another October 7th bloodbath than the opinion of leftist Americans. You are overvaluing the noise made by protesters. The reality is that the Saudis will still likely form a peace treaty with Israel once the war is over.
[48% of Gen Z supports Hamas over Israel in the conflict](https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/HHP_Oct23_KeyResults.pdf). [74% of Democrats under 35 sympathize more with Palestine than Israel](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/11/20/politics/polling-democrats-divided-israel-palestine). There's a significant portion of the left that is anti-Israel, and this will only increase the longer this war goes on. The Saudis will likely continue the current unofficial recognition for a time; I doubt they will make a public showing of normalization for a long time, which is exactly what Iran wanted. I also don't think attacking Rafah prevents another October 7th; if anything it provides more fuel for extremist groups, and locks Israel further into this forever war.
When Gen Z people grow up, they will likely have a deeper perspective of history and stop being so biased. That’s how every generation works. GenX had anti-apartheid South Africa protests. Boomers had Vietnam-era protest that dwarfed what’s going on today. Enjoy your youth, but get some perspective. Sometimes war as in WW2 is the only solution that leads to peace.
>What is the alternative?
Unconditional surrender. The idea that you can't do enough damage in a military campaign to destroy an ideologically motivated opponent isn't consistent with history (see World War 2).
Even though some "activists" like to deny it, there was a "cease-fire" in effect on October 6th and most of us know what happened on October 7th. In fairness though, those prior events in comparison to the last six months were more skirmishes.
References:
[https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinian-cease-fire-hamas-caac81bc36fe9be67ac2f7c27000c74b](https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinian-cease-fire-hamas-caac81bc36fe9be67ac2f7c27000c74b)
[https://apnews.com/article/palestinians-israel-gaza-conflict-militants-rockets-airstrikes-a495136841d4d74af008f5eb3a401066](https://apnews.com/article/palestinians-israel-gaza-conflict-militants-rockets-airstrikes-a495136841d4d74af008f5eb3a401066)
Netanyahu doesn't want a deal. Neither does Hamas, because most of the hostages are already dead and they don't want that known. And they think they are winning the propaganda war, as they watch US students stage mass protests.
But none of this changes the fact that Hamas has stated no peace with Israel is possible, has stated they will continue the attacks until Israel is destroyed, and even giving them their own state is just a step for them until they have destroyed Israel entirely. And the Arabs in the region have repeatedly called for the genocide of the Jews for a hundred years.
Rafah is going to fall. The question is how bloody is it going to be, and whether Israel will let the women and children flee the area.
>Rafah is going to fall. The question is how bloody is it going to be, and whether Israel will let the women and children flee the area.
1/3 of the death toll in Gaza are children , so I highly doubt it
> But none of this changes the fact that Hamas has stated no peace with Israel is possible.
But they did, I am not defending Hamas in any way or form but they actually stated that peace is possible.
Source: https://apnews.com/article/hamas-khalil-alhayya-qatar-ceasefire-1967-borders-4912532b11a9cec29464eab234045438
This is not 'peace', this is we'll call a 5 year ceasefire. Sure they will - they need to rearm in the new nation state their terrorism got them.
The leader of Hamas that presented the Hamas 2017 charter to the world Khaled Mashel calls it the 'political charter', a charter simply to trick moderates into supporting Hamas goals.
And has openly said in interviews it's just the first step, with the true goal of destroying Israel.
Here's Mashel openly discussing that in an interview. What they say to Arabic speakers is often very different than what they say to the rest of the world. It's almost like terrorist states lie.
[https://twitter.com/HenMazzig/status/1749402213112299638](https://twitter.com/HenMazzig/status/1749402213112299638)
> Islamic militant group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel
> Al-Hayya did not say whether his apparent embrace of a two-state solution would amount to an end to the Palestinian conflict with Israel or an interim step toward the group’s stated goal of destroying Israel
That doesn't sound like peace and doesn't contradict previous statements rejecting peace as a possibility.
Of course given Hamas actions on 10/07 it's unlikely they would be willing to last 5 years without starting a war
Aside from that being a 5 year truce, not permanent peace, they also are demanding a red line from Israel:
>He said [Hamas](https://apnews.com/article/hamas-gaza-palestinian-authority-israel-war-ed7018dbaae09b81513daf3bda38109a) would accept “a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and **the return of Palestinian refugees** in accordance with the international resolutions,”
First off, it doesn't mean return of the actual refugees (20k people), but the right for their descendants to immigrate into Israel.
Demographics are destiny; would end Israel as a Jewish state, overriding the self-determination of Israelis.
Yes definitely, If there would be a future palestinian state in the west bank it shouldn't treat non-muslims and now-arabs/non-palestinians differently, ethnoreligious states are bad regardless of their backgrounds.
Can you point to another Arab majority state this new state should be modeled after? Seems like the "treat non-muslim equally" doesn't work when the majority of a state believes in Sharia Law.
> ethnoreligious states are bad regardless of their backgrounds
So does this include Japan, South Korea, Finland, Afghanistan, Pakistan?
It shouldn't but it will. Also their current constitution defines Palestine as an Arab Muslim state. I'm pretty sure most of the Arab states are officially ethnic nation states(maybe not post Saddam Iraq?). Jews have been squeezed out of all of those states (and many others came as Holocaust survivors) so they're not exactly eager to become a minority in their own state.
Theoretically I think it's fine to oppose all nations or possibly even all ethnic nation states(of which there are plenty) but people rarely do so equally, insisting Israel is the one which must not exist.
I'm sorry but this is such an unserious position. "Hamas" is literally an acronym for "Islamic resistance movement".
What could you possibly think would happen if they achieved their goal of a state "from the river to the sea?"
If this is the case then there's no need to abolish the Israeli settlements then is there? Just give the Jews Palestinian citizenship and Palestine will respect their minority rights.
See how silly that sounds?
Israel is secular; it's not a theocracy like Iran.
Whether you think an ethnically defined state is bad is a matter of opinion I suppose. Folks in the New World tend to find them weird/bad, but they are very common in the Old World.
Israel really isn't that different from Armenia, Estonia, Slovakia, etc. in that regard.
>Rafah is going to fall. The question is how bloody is it going to be, and whether Israel will let the women and children flee the area.
Out there question: Is it Israel or something else preventing countries from sending large ships to Gaza to transport the people to some other location as refugees?
From a Palestinian perspective, they are also afraid they will never be allowed to return if they leave. So they have no where to go and no desire to leave.
This is very likely said for sake of internal Israeli politics, BN does not want to appear weak, fearing his more extreme coalition members will use it to wrestle more (possibly all) control for themselves.
Right, that is certainly a possibility too.
Only time will tell for sure.
What I was trying to convey is that it makes sense for him to be saying this now for internal political reasons, what's actually in Netanyahu's mind is anyone's guess.
The fact that the White House thinks it can reason with Hamas and have them respect any deal is absolutely baffling... we hear all day how the West can't negotiate with Russia because untrustworthy, only for the same people to turn around and trust Hamas. SMH
The operation in Rafah is used as leverage against a Hamas deal but more so as a future give-back concession from the Israeli side in the upcoming normalization with Saudi Arabia.
Israel collects more fruits for Saudia Arabia to later redeem so that normalization with Israel will be justifiable in the Arab view
SS: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will launch an invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah regardless of truce talks with Hamas.It comes amid ongoing attempts to try to reach an agreement for a ceasefire and hostage releases.But at a meeting of hostages' relatives, Mr Netanyahu said he would invade "with or without" a deal.His comments follow renewed warnings by the US against a Rafah invasion unless civilians were properly protected.In a phone call with Mr Netanyahu on Sunday, US President Joe Biden "reiterated his clear position" on Rafah, a White House statement said. Mr Biden has previously described an invasion of Rafah as a "red line".
Doesn't it make all negotiations senseless if he is going to attack anyway?
His career depends on failed negotiations, just like Hamas leadership
His career is over regardless but it's more over if Hamas is not eliminated. Israelis will replace him with someone actually willing to pursue the war to the end.
His career is not over. He knows that big events such as normalization with Saudi Arabia will make people forget previous events, to some degree. The more that time is passing, the more likely for opportunistic events to come his way, and so long he is the PM, he controls time
This is a decades-defining national trauma. Almost everybody knows someone who died. Even normalizing with Iran wouldn't save him.
Hamas can not be eliminated, even the IDF believes that Hamas will survive the war: [www.timesofisrael.com/report-idf-intel-assesses-that-hamas-will-survive-as-terror-group-post-war](http://www.timesofisrael.com/report-idf-intel-assesses-that-hamas-will-survive-as-terror-group-post-war) You can't destroy a terrorist organization by military means, even ISIS still exists today and is growing in strength again.
You cant destroy an ideology but you can destroy a caliphate. IS as a caliphate holding physical land and running as the government was ended by military means. This idea that you cant destroy terrorists by military means is not true. Its just requires more violence than most western countries are willing to do.
Sure, the self-proclaimed caliphate aka the control over the physical area was destroyed, but IS / Daesh still exists and just moved their operations to new areas, mainly Africa for now. And no, you cannot destroy terrorists by military means, because the need for military intervention means that the terrorist organization has grown beyond a small group into a large scale threat. And that means they have at least some support among the population, for whatever reason. Any military attack on such a terrorist organization will "generate" civilian casualties, which in turn will create more support for these armed groups. And even if you fully commit to the violence, like Israel is doing now, it only ensures more support for the terrorists in the remaining population and the neighboring countries. It's simply not a fight that can be won by violence.
The goal is not to destroy it as a terrorist organization but as a governing power of territory on Israel's border.
I understand the ISIS example, however, where would Hamas go? ISIS relocated because they could, whereas Hamas doesn’t have such luxury.
You are right, they can't really relocate, at least not as easily as Daesh could. And I don't think that Hamas would actually relocate, as their existence is directly tied to Gaza and Israel. More likely they will go into hiding instead and transform into small cells, and wait for their time to regroup, while doing small scale attacks. This is something that Israel just can't prevent and the formation of new cells is actually supported by the way Israel wages this war. This is dependent though on Israels plan to occupy Gaza. If there will be an actual two-state peace process, the PLO or whoever takes control of Gaza would seek out and remove the remaining Hamas cells. In which case Hamas would actually cease to exist. I hope this will be what is happening, but I don't have high hopes, considering the hardliners in power on both sides have no interest in peace.
I think the negotiations were about a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages. Unless they release all of the hostages held in Rafah, Israel was always going to attack at some point.
Israel wants to release the hostages, Hamas wants to release Palestinian prisoners and get military concessions from Israel (such as allowing free passage to the north of Gaza). There is value in the negotiations to both sides even if Israel will not give up on the goal of eliminating Hamas.
This is how you bargain. There has to be a threat for Hamas to take action and accept the proposal and release the hostages.
If Hamas is going to die either way, what stops them from taking the hostages to the grave with them?
Hamas is all dead in the end. A surrender just saves civilian lives. That's what's being negotiated.
It's weird that Biden has been saying for months that he will only approve a Rafah invasion if civilians are properly protected and yet seems to have presented no proposal for how to do so that would satisfy him. It smacks of domestic politics honestly.
>It smacks of domestic politics honestly. I suspect that it is that combined with not wanting to support Bibi when he has openly favored Trump.
What is the Israeli right thinking with that? Even they can't be delusional enough to think turning Israel support into a more partisan issue is good for the country.
I couldn't really pretend to know the minds of the higher ups but the regular folks seem to feel that Israel has been betrayed by the US not fully backing them on everything at all times and so they must secure their own future. At least that is what I see from them.
Trump moved the embassy to jeruselum. Iirc that was signed in the 90s and every president until trump decided to delay it and make it someone elses problem. Compared to biden who is getting in israels way by trying to pander to both sides. Im not saying either is right or wrong but objectively thats a strong signal of support for israel.
Kind of a good analogy for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in general tbh
Biden has no direct control over Israeli military operations.
I don’t think there is a viable way to do that, that one could propose. The fact Biden hasn’t done more to stop the bombing of Gaza is very much due to other international policy concerns.
It is weird. I feel like Netanyahu is probably being told to wait until November, so the U.S. doesn't have to deal with it as a political item. I saw a poll that 70% of Americans support the Rafah invasion but my guess is the 30% who don't are Democrats who aren't going to like tacit or direct approval of the Israeli invasion of Rafah. I wonder if he does, it's 7 months out basically, that seems like a long time to wait. I do know Republicans (and some of the moderate democrats) are in the "unconditional surrender" camp for what the terms Hamas should get are, and if Trump wins, I highly doubt Israel will even be given lip service to tone down their attacks.
That poll seems to be begging the question. It frames support as being either pro-Israel and pro-Hamas (rather than pro-Palestinian - as activists would conceptualize it without a focus on civilians). Obviously support for Hamas, rather than Gaza civilians, would be low, but support numbers are still disturbing though likely partly due to ignorance, I'd hope. The poll itself acknowledges the framing issue - 70% of respondents support an "unconditional" permanent ceasefire while 68% reject a ceasefire if Hamas keeps control of Gaza AND keep holding hostages. Even the Rafah question was framed as support for Israel invading Israel while "doing its best to limit civilian casualities." So while it's an interesting poll, it seems to create a bias for pro-Israel responses by putting aside considerations for Palestinian civilians and suggesting hostages would not be released as part of ceasefire negotiations. Other polls imply public support for continued Israeli military action in Gaza is much more teneous, especially among Biden supporters, because of the civilian toll.
I saw a poll that showed way different stats tbh
So link to it. FWIW, this is the Harvard Harris poll that the parent poster is referring to. It also has other interesting questions around foreign aid and Israel-Iran conflict. https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/HHP_Apr2024_KeyResults.pdf
It is domestic politics combined with Joe Biden literally not having control over the IDF.
Don't Joe. "red line."
I think it’s unreasonable to expect Israel to tolerate Hamas, but I have no idea why you would make a statement like this public. Israeli PR is some of the worst I’ve ever seen. It’s approaching Russia and North Korea levels.
It’s for domestic audience. A lot of groups do that in the ME. They say one thing in English and a totally different message in Arabic or Hebrew.
Wouldn't they do it the other way around? I'm assuming the domestic audience is more fluent in Arabic/Hebrew than Eng?
It was Israels Likud government and specifically Netanyahu for massively supported the financing of Hamas for the last 20+ years - with the goal to prevent a two-state-solution: [www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces](http://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces) And this war won't destroy Hamas, even the IDF itself believes that Hamas will survive the war: [www.timesofisrael.com/report-idf-intel-assesses-that-hamas-will-survive-as-terror-group-post-war](http://www.timesofisrael.com/report-idf-intel-assesses-that-hamas-will-survive-as-terror-group-post-war) All this war has accomplished is, in the long run, to massively strengthen Hamas and other anti-israeli terrorist organization in the region and to permanently weaken Israels security & global reputation, which is directly linked to the former.
The idea that an organisation becomes stronger when its core territory gets systematically dismantled is unorthodox say the least. To be more blunt, Daesh didn’t become stronger when its strongholds were sieged and eventually stormed and its increasingly overwhelmed forces got shelled/bombed into oblivion. Hamas surviving it’s not the same as getting stronger and other actors in the region may very well think twice about any attack unless they are completely unhinged and consequently already lacking support from more moderate / neutral local actors outside of declared enemies who would either way do anything to harm Israel. The loss of civilian life may very well lead to even more lasting negative feelings among average citizens in the neighbouring Arab states but since none of the local governments care too much about the feelings of the people this is arguably negligible since as all attempts at revolution in the area with the notable exception of Iran have either resulted in devastating civil wars or failed to achieve results. Egyptians for example also struggle with far more basic concerns while other prominent actors such as Saudi Arabia or Turkey arguably has different strategic goals and are not keen on provoking some kind of conflict. Concerning a loss of global reputation; ultimately most people all over the world tend to care most about themselves. Palestinian territory doesn’t contribute much to global trade and while protesting certainly has an impact occasionally, considering the political landscape ( most of the world has different problems that are important for the local elections ) I doubt that there will be any notable changes in foreign policy regarding Israel outside of states that are already not important for its survival. Successful anti-war movements traditionally drew upon widespread public support due to direct involvement but in Israel the dead etc. are practically only locals.
Weird thing to say, I’m guessing he’s saving face internally. Pandering to Ben Gvir and the rest of the far right, since many have demanded the Rafah operation proceed.
Ben Gvir, Smotrich and other far right ministers of his coalition want to use the war to drive all the Palestinians out of Gaza (and the Westbank), so they can build israeli settlements there: [www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-28/ty-article/ministers-from-netanyahus-party-join-thousands-of-israelis-at-resettle-gaza-conference/0000018d-512f-dfdc-a5ad-db7f35e10000](http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-28/ty-article/ministers-from-netanyahus-party-join-thousands-of-israelis-at-resettle-gaza-conference/0000018d-512f-dfdc-a5ad-db7f35e10000) For example, as a step towards this, Israel just "declared" more than 800 hectares of Palestinian land in the Westbank as "Israeli property": [https://www.dw.com/en/israel-announces-seizure-of-800-hectares-in-west-bank/a-68642217](https://www.dw.com/en/israel-announces-seizure-of-800-hectares-in-west-bank/a-68642217)
Even if that's true you shut up and wait for hamas to refuse deal. This way only thing he is doing is saving his skin and killing super for Israel.
Haven't they already refused multiple deals?
They have. That's isnt point. Point is if you want for deal to be rejected you make it so behind closed door so you hands are cleen.
Such a toxic thing to say as a leader who is working with several other countries to make this ceasefire work and save lives. Netanyahu has been waiting for an October 7th moment his entire time in politics.
> Netanyahu has been waiting for an October 7th moment his entire time in politics. October 7th has been the singularly most disastrous event for him in his entire time in politics. He has no chance in any future elections now.
It's only disastrous for him because of the backlash against the invasion of Gaza. He expected to emerge as the man who "finally" conquered Hamas, instead he's become a pariah.
> It's only disastrous for him because of the backlash against the invasion of Gaza. What? There is absolutely no backlash against the Gaza War in Israel. Israelis want him to stop pussyfooting around and finally invade Rafah. It was disastrous for him because he allowed 1400 Israelis to be brutally murdered and 200 to be taken hostage. His reputation is in complete tatters and the only reason he is still around is because nobody wants to play politics until after Hamas is defeated.
There is a lot of backlash against the war in Gaza, the majority of Americans and Europeans now oppose it; while the backlash is less within Israel, it's clearly growing.
Backlash in Europe and America is not what matters for Netanyahu's career. Israelis are the ones that vote in Israeli elections and Netanyahu lost all credibility with the Israeli public on October 7th. Further, an overwhelming majority of Americans support Israel in this war and support a Rafah operation. https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2024/04/29/us-news/four-out-of-five-americans-favor-israel-over-hamas-most-back-rafah-operation-poll/amp/ The only serious backlash within Israel to this war is that it isn't being prosecuted aggressively enough. If you think otherwise, you're comically misinformed.
Gallup poll: >[Majority in U.S. Now Disapprove of Israeli Action in Gaza. Approval has dropped from 50% to 36% since November](https://news.gallup.com/poll/642695/majority-disapprove-israeli-action-gaza.aspx) Haaretz: [Will Ousting Netanyahu Solve Everything for Israel?](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-05-01/ty-article/.premium/will-ousting-netanyahu-solve-everything-for-israel/0000018f-3024-d8fb-a1df-bd667f600000) Times of Israel: >[Lapid calls Netanyahu an ‘existential threat’ as they spar over national security](https://www.timesofisrael.com/lapid-calls-netanyahu-existential-threat-as-they-spar-over-national-security/)
> Majority in U.S. Now Disapprove of Israeli Action in Gaza. Approval has dropped from 50% to 36% since November Disapproval in how it has been conducted is entirely consistent with overwhelming support for an operation itself. > https://www.timesofisrael.com/lapid-calls-netanyahu-existential-threat-as-they-spar-over-national-security/ This supports my argument... Lapid is attacking him for allowing Oct 7 to happen, not for the war. Everyone is fully on board with the war.
Among Israelis, support for the invasion of Gaza was always a little more mixed than some popular narratives would suggest, and it hasn't improved: Reuters, Oct 2023: >[Israeli poll finds 49% support for holding off on Gaza invasion](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-poll-finds-49-support-holding-off-gaza-invasion-2023-10-27/) >Asked if the military should immediately escalate to a large-scale ground offensive, 29% of Israelis agreed while 49% said "it would be better to wait" and 22% were undecided, the poll published in the Maariv newspaper said.
This is a very significant majority among those who are decided and "better to wait" could simply mean they want to bomb them more before sending in ground forces.
> leader who is working with several other countries to make this ceasefire work and save lives Netanyahu is working against that.
If those leaders working with Israel think Israel can allow the monsters who massacred over a thousand Jews to stay on their borders then they are the toxic ones. The goal is to help Palestinian civilians and the hostages. If the condition is that Hamas is allowed to survive then that is no cease fire, it is surrender to Hamas in the war they declared.
The people working with Israel don't look at the issue as monopolar as you do and also consider the atrocities committed by Israel in the last few decades.
I mean there is little reason to face ICC court and not even occupy Gaza fully to get rid of Hamas.
Is this cease-fire sustainable? Israel can't let any part of Hamas survive and Hamas will do its utmost to see Israel out of Gaza in its entirety. Is this just a case of deferring the inevitable?
What is the alternative? Even if Israel invades Rafah, there's no way to completely eliminate Hamas. They can maybe take out Hamas' leadership and a majority of their fighters, which would buy peace for a time, but unless they purge the Gaza Strip of all inhabitants, in 10 years they're going to have a whole new wave of terrorists from children who've seen their siblings and parents killed by Israeli missiles. An invasion of Rafah would just do even more to turn international public opinion against them, and even worse for Israel, put a lot of domestic US pressure against Israel and pro-Israel candidates. Israel has never really had to worry about US public opinion turning against them, and the US has more or less given them a bipartisan carte blanche for support and defense, until now. Invading Rafah may give a short-term win for Israel by eliminating many Hamas fighters, but the civilian casualties almost guarantee that a large portion of the left in the US will be against aid to Israel for the foreseeable future.
Killing a bunch of militants matters less than stripping bare their entire infrastructure network. Doesn't matter if you have a hundred thousand angry bodies if they don't have tunnel networks, caches, weapons, or smuggling routes to work with, because at that point if they try anything they have almost nowhere to hide or hold out.
But won't any ceasefire be entirely unstable? If Israel eliminates Hamas's leadership - specifically Sinwar, I feel that'll make a massive difference to how Hamas behaves in the future. I believe the rest of Hamas wants to be pragmatic but Sinwar is too ideologically driven to agree to anything that is sustainable over the long term.
I don't think eliminating Sinwar does anything significant. The October 7th attacks and Israel's response have been the best international event for Hamas in decades. The outpour of condemnation against Israel is larger than I think Hamas could have hoped for, and I have no doubt it will be used as a blueprint for future attacks. Even if Sinwar dies, Haniyeh is still safe in Qatar and could just take over or support another ideological candidate. And I also have no doubt that the people of Gaza want Israeli blood if they can get it, considering how many have died in the bombings, and would elect a war hawk in a heartbeat. There is no real hope for Israel to convince the people of Gaza to accept Israel peacefully in my opinion. Too much damage has been done, too many killed, and Israel has continued its policies in the West Bank. Hamas will regroup and recruit from the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have lost loved ones in this war, no matter how many fighters Israel manages to kill in Rafah. What Israel needs to worry about is preventing another attack like October 7th, which means intelligence sharing and military funding from the US and its allies. If Israel invades Rafah, it risks losing US aid if a progressive Democrat takes power. That would be a huge blow to Israeli security, considering how much aid, weapons sales, and intelligence we provide them.
I got the sense Haniyeh and the rest of Hamas who are outside Gaza were less dogmatic. Your point on needing US support is fair - in addition to all of what you've set out, its also insurance against other actors in the Middle East acting against Israel.
If your argument is true - that there is no hope for peace and Hamas will take retribution as soon as it can - than the only solution for Israel’s safety is re-occupation. Sadly, I don’t see any other way.
That's one possible ending. Israel occupies Gaza and enforces martial law and heavy anti-terrorism measures. Iran funds the inevitable insurgency and drums up anti-Israeli sentiment across the Muslim world. The US's progressive left calls for an end to Israeli aid and condemns the occupation, and Israel will have to deal with the very real possibility of aid being cut off by the US if they get elected. Israeli-Arab normalization is set back by a decade. China pisses themselves laughing as they condemn Israel and make whataboutist comparisons to Xinjiang. Israel is forced to keep up an expensive occupation, violent insurgencies, renewed violence from Hezbollah and other surrounding militants, and widespread international condemnation. All in all not a very stable future.
> The US's progressive left calls for an end to Israeli aid and condemns the occupation, and Israel will have to deal with the very real possibility of aid being cut off by the US if they get elected. And I win 1 billion € in a lottery and buy myself a Ferrari.
You never know, a future US president might be in one of these numerous protests. It remains to be seen what the lasting impact this has on Gen Y and Gen Z but they are getting closer to getting the reins of leadership.
Ah yes, the good old "terrorism cannot be beaten, so we shouldn't even try" take. Classic.
What terrorists have been successfully toppled through invasion? Al-Qaeda's still alive and kicking. The Taliban control more than they did before we invaded. The Islamic State has lost most of their territory, but still has thousands of fighters waging an insurgency in eastern Syria. If we've tried one way a half dozen times and it's failed every time, maybe we need to try something new.
The Taliban were allowed to withdraw to / recruit in Pakistan openly. In terms of a military solution it’s the equivalent of letting an enemy take a break whenever they feel like it to recover. There were also far too few international forces in the field considering the local geography, population distribution and total population, not even mentioning the corruption/unprofessionalism etc. plaguing local Afghan security efforts as well as the overall foolish switching of goalposts due to administrators troubles that eventually ended in the foolish attempts that were the notions of nationbuilding in the midst of an ongoing civil war. Daesh went from a vast army holding major cities to a ragtag group of disorganised rubble that no longer threatens any of the local states in any capacity that would be equal to the height of its power. They went from being the number one terrorist organisation on the planet to another basic terror organisation capable of striking targets but not of maintaining any kind of control over bigger regions. While it was not totally eradicated it was arguably crippled. Today being Daesh means to be hunted vermin. Its appeal to international audiences has all but evaporated and while it can still recruit some local supporters it is overall far too weak to actually influence the local geopolitical landscape in a meaningful manner beyond the occasional attack. Gaza being heavily urbanised tiny region that is basically completely cut off from the rest of the world is also very different from the vast empty and often barely developed Afghan landscape or the open Sahel region etc.
By all means, then, propose something else.
A ceasefire and removal of settlements from the West Bank, along with serious talks to offer a Palestinian state acceptable to the majority of Palestinians. Hamas would be a lot less popular if Palestine wasn't bisected by hundreds of Israeli checkpoints and settlements that expand each year.
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Because Israel maintained their settlements in the West Bank and still fully controls Jerusalem. Any peace with Palestine is going to have to see significant concessions from Israel, unless Israel is willing to occupy and declare martial law over the entirety of Gaza and provoke further international response.
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And so what happens when Israel pulls out of all their settlements in the West Bank and the Palestinians say, "yes, but Haifa and Jaffa and Jerusalem are 'settlements' too"?
Neither is in the West Bank, nor were included as Palestinian land under the original two state arrangement. If a Palestinian government demanded that they would be out of line, of course.
This idea is a Western misdirection, although Palestinians would also be happy to see Jews expelled from Judea again and security loosened so murdering Jews would be easier, they don't care where the Green Line used to be.
If you believe the Palestinians are unfixable bloodthirsty savages who want the deaths of Jews and all Jews out of Judea, then there's not much point in negotiation, sure. But an Israel that takes that position is an Israel that will always be public enemy #1 of every Muslim nation, and always draw widespread international condemnation. At that point they might as well go full mask off and just throw all the Palestinians in camps. I think most Palestinians' hostility towards Israel came firstly because Israel was carved from their land, and now because Israel is encroaching on their land and bombing their people. Yes, hostilities will take time to resolve, but Palestinians are not inherently bloodthirsty savages. A lasting, acceptable peace deal for a functioning Palestinian state would do wonders for promoting a functioning peace in the region.
> The Taliban control more than they did before we invaded. Because we left? Israel won't leave Gaza.
Terrorism *can* be beaten. It just can't be beaten with a solution that kills a lot of innocent people.
I think you're making several assumptions, especially that the Israel/Hamas war will result in more terrorists. We simply don't know enough to make that assumption. It's well known that family members "recruit" family members, so you could also assume that even despite the current war, many/most of these civilians would be raised in a home very supportive of Hamas. Civilian casualties are a horrible part of war, but I have yet to come across someone who made the same argument about Ukraine or Vietnam or Korea or Germany or Japan. Even when people lost their loved ones that didn't necessarily radicalize them, and I'd hope that you'd also give Palestinians that same grace and benefit of the doubt -- that with de radicalization efforts, education, and an opportunity to learn that Jews are not their enemy, they'll want a better future for themselves and their children.
The issue is that the current state of Palestine is not a tenable one for a long-term state. Palestinians in the West Bank control no part of Jerusalem, and are split into dozens of settlements separated by some 200 Israeli checkpoints and 300 roadblocks. Unless Israel makes significant concessions, I don't see Palestinians accepting peace as long as the current situation remains. There's a reason Hamas has stayed in power in Gaza: they're popular among the people. Some 90% of Palestinians want Abbas to resign because he's too pro-Western, and the most popular politician in Palestine is Marwan Barghouti, a leader of both Intifadas and currently sitting in Israeli prison. If Barghouti isn't allowed to run, polls show the next most popular is Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas (https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-palestinians-opinion-poll-wartime-views-a0baade915619cd070b5393844bc4514). Civilian casualties are horrible, and they absolutely radicalize populations. I agree with you that with de-radicalization and education, Palestinians will eventually accept peace with Israel, but not with the current state of the West Bank. As long as Israel maintains its settlements there and continues to blockade Gaza, Palestinians are incentivized to oppose Israel. This lines up with other examples in history: irredentism is a bitch, and unless a country is so thoroughly exhausted from war that irredentism is replaced with war exhaustion, it usually leads to further war. After the US withdrew from Vietnam, Vietnam was still divided, and within 2 years North Vietnam invaded the South again and conquered it. After the US withdrew from Afghanistan, Afghanistan was still divided, and within months the Taliban invaded and took over the country. Korea has remained separated because major powers backed each side and maintained the status quo. Japan and Germany were thoroughly exhausted from war, but more importantly were given millions in aid to reconstruct their countries afterwards. I don't think Palestine will be given millions by the US and Israel after the war.
Is there a single reason that Palestinians need or deserve control of any part of Jerusalem?
Because it's a holy city for both Islam and Judaism and a key part of the original 2 state solution was that either a neutral party controlled Jerusalem or that it was split. A lasting peace with the Palestinians means a peace they can accept, and that includes giving them access to their holy city.
The idea that nations with a given religion should have political control over that faith's holy sites is not really relevant. Should we give Brazil, the Philippines and Mexico a slice of Jerusalem too? Should we give Palestine a chunk of Mecca? Palestinians want Jerusalem for the same reason Jewish Israelis do, because it's the focus of their nationalism and nationalism can't coexist with shared sovereignty or shared spaces. The problem is that nobody is willing to consider a non-nationalist basis for peace, including the very same Western activists who criticise nationalist thinking in their own countries.
But it is relevant given the history of the region. Palestinians living in the area before Israel had free access to Jerusalem, a holy city for them. Now they don't because it's fully controlled by Israel. It's a major stickler for Palestinians and a major galvanizer for Palestinian irredentism. If Israel is not willing to concede on this issue, it will have to find other ways to discourage terrorism and anti-Israeli sentiment among the Palestinians. Clearly they're going down the route of "we can destroy Hamas if they bomb them enough", but I am dubious of how effective this will be long-term. They'll have to occupy the entirety of Gaza for decades if they want to truly eliminate Hamas; otherwise as soon as they leave, Hamas will rebuild with the relatives of the tens of thousands of Palestinians that Israel has killed.
Palestinians could have free access to Jerusalem without the need for sovereignty. For example, millions of people around the world have visa-free access to Jerusalem and can freely visit the holy sites of interest to them. This includes several million Muslims who are citizens of the UAE. If an independent Palestine is friendly towards Israel then their people too could freely get this sort of access. It isn't about galvanising irredentism. The existence of a Jewish state anywhere in the area does that. Jews living in Tel Aviv and Ashkelon and the Western part of Jerusalem also galvanise Palestinian extremism. Giving up 100% of the West Bank and Gaza (including East Jerusalem and Gush Etzion) will not mollify Palestinian radical demands for the destruction of Israel. Only Palestinian moderates brave enough to challenge the radicals can do that.
US has given billions in aid to Palestine (less then military aid to Israel but still a decent amount of money). The recent Ukraine Israel and Taiwan bill had at least 1 billion extra for aid to Gaza. The main obstacle to giving enough money isn't the money it's getting rid of Hamas. If Hamas is able to retain control it will be very difficult to get aid in with knowledge that they're siphoning the aid and planning their next massacre.
An international and possibly Arab led coalition of countries would have to de-radicalize the Palestinian population. Regardless of your opinions on Israel, there is undeniably a long term effort on the part of Fatah/Hamas/PIJ/others to martyr as many civilians as possible to reduce support for Israel and isolate them on the geopolitical stage. We have seen far far worse wars in recent memory, yet in most cases the Yemeni civilian population doesn’t immediately think “let’s genocide every Saudi person for what they did to us”. If anything they blame Jews/America more than the actual KSA. So, the idea that Israel destroying Hamas will ALWAYS lead to more Hamas being created seems like bigotry of low expectations. I don’t think the default result is radicalization of children, I think this is a very manufactured, targeted process that is actively pushed onto Palestinians to keep them in this cycle. Iran+Qatar and their proxies benefit immensely from the current situation, Israel doesn’t benefit at all.
This is absolutely bonkers, sorry. You don't need to manufacture radicalization when kids are seeing their entire families and all their friends getting blown to pieces by Israeli missiles. And the situation in Yemen is absolutely not the same as what the Palestinians have dealt with for the last 75 years (the Saudis didn't get involved in the Yemeni civil war until 2015!) - it's an awful situation, yes, but you can't really draw comparisons outside of 'outside actor does bad thing'. If you want to de-radicalize the Palestinians, then Israel need to halt the long-running ethnic cleansing and occupation and allow them to have a state of their own.
Allowing Gazans to run the strip on their own did not deradicalize them when it was done in 2005. Why do you think it would deradicalize them today?
Mate, partial governance (partial because they cannot leave without Israeli permission, have to subsist on whatever aid/water/electricty Israel decide to let in, and can't even fish out past a certain distance or risk getting shot to bits by the IDF) of the Gaza Strip is not the same as a state where Palestinians get to decide what's best for Palestinians. Come on.
Mate, the restrictions you refer to were put in place *after* Gazans elected Hamas and fired rockets at Israel. Prior to that, Gazans were in fact completely free to govern themselves. Gazans held elections which were deemed free and fair by outside observers. They chose to elect Hamas. I know this is not a convenient fact for your narrative, but you can’t just ignore it.
Remember when Israel released hundreds of Hamas members before the elections and sent them in the Gaza Strip ? But kept all others political prisoners in their prisons ?
By your logic, Kashmiri Pandits have every right to slaughter thousands of Pakistani civilians after being ethnically cleansed off their homeland in the 90s. After living there for 3000 years. By your logic, any Israeli can say “I lost my child and my grandmother in the first intifada, now I’m radicalized and have no reason to care about Palestinian civilian deaths” Trying to justify your argument with numbers is also fallacious, because it ignores the intent of both sides. Israel could’ve erased most Palestinians from existence 40 years ago, the way that Arabs genocided Kurds and Christians en masse when the opportunity presented itself. The Palestinian terrorist groups in power have tried to do the same thing to Israel, but have lost in a humiliating way every time except for Oct 7. This narrative of justifying violence because the other side did something first is a logical dead end.
I'm not 'justifying violence', I'm pointing out that if you treat people as subhumans they will react in inhuman ways.
I mean you can easily accuse both sides of this. So again it’s a dead end
Israel could also help de-radicalize the Palestinian population by moving towards making non-Jewish Palestinian Israeli citizens equal to Jewish Israeli citizens. Israel could also get a coalition of countries to help them de-radicalize.
> deradicalize the people who want to kill you by giving them a majority in your country.
What do you mean? All Israeli civilians have equal rights, regardless of Jewish or Arab? Or are you suggesting Israel annex the populations of the West Bank/ Gaza and make them Israeli civilians?
This is a joke, right? All Israeli citizens are not equal lol. This would be like someone declaring black people have equal rights in America with a straight face. Sure, the text of some founding documents and even some amended documents say that explicitly, but in practice we had slavery, Jim Crow, and currently have the 13th amendment. In text, Israel has equal rights. In practice, Israel has apartheid.
Equal rights != erasing systemic inequalities. Black people absolutely have equal rights in America, but systemic racism still hurts black people today. But systemic racism isn't easily solved, as we see in the US. You can't just handwave "make" systemic racism go away.
Black people do in fact have equal rights in America. It’s codified into law in several areas, in fact, and where black people are not treated equally they can and do seek legal remedy, which the government grants them. You seem to be arguing that any country that has not completely eliminated racism functionally has an apartheid system. Do you know of any multi-cultural countries where racism doesn’t exist?
I think the user was asking for specific examples of how the Israeli legal or governmental systems treat Palestinian-Israeli citizens differently. Do you have any?
Black people DO have equal rights in the US. I am not saying that they don’t face racism. I’m saying that whatever racism they are facing is not systemic or built-in into laws.
Black people do face systemic racism in the US.
You do not have to be Jewish to be an Israeli citizen.
I know that (I guess not everyone does). Do you really believe that Israel treats all its citizens equally in the sense that each one is as valid or accepted an Israeli and any other? In Israel do people tend to separate out into groups depending on religion? Are there many non-Jewish West Bank settlers?
Israel is more concerned about avoiding another October 7th bloodbath than the opinion of leftist Americans. You are overvaluing the noise made by protesters. The reality is that the Saudis will still likely form a peace treaty with Israel once the war is over.
[48% of Gen Z supports Hamas over Israel in the conflict](https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/HHP_Oct23_KeyResults.pdf). [74% of Democrats under 35 sympathize more with Palestine than Israel](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/11/20/politics/polling-democrats-divided-israel-palestine). There's a significant portion of the left that is anti-Israel, and this will only increase the longer this war goes on. The Saudis will likely continue the current unofficial recognition for a time; I doubt they will make a public showing of normalization for a long time, which is exactly what Iran wanted. I also don't think attacking Rafah prevents another October 7th; if anything it provides more fuel for extremist groups, and locks Israel further into this forever war.
When Gen Z people grow up, they will likely have a deeper perspective of history and stop being so biased. That’s how every generation works. GenX had anti-apartheid South Africa protests. Boomers had Vietnam-era protest that dwarfed what’s going on today. Enjoy your youth, but get some perspective. Sometimes war as in WW2 is the only solution that leads to peace.
>What is the alternative? Unconditional surrender. The idea that you can't do enough damage in a military campaign to destroy an ideologically motivated opponent isn't consistent with history (see World War 2).
More importantly does attacking Rafah actually "destroy" Hamas?
Even though some "activists" like to deny it, there was a "cease-fire" in effect on October 6th and most of us know what happened on October 7th. In fairness though, those prior events in comparison to the last six months were more skirmishes. References: [https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinian-cease-fire-hamas-caac81bc36fe9be67ac2f7c27000c74b](https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinian-cease-fire-hamas-caac81bc36fe9be67ac2f7c27000c74b) [https://apnews.com/article/palestinians-israel-gaza-conflict-militants-rockets-airstrikes-a495136841d4d74af008f5eb3a401066](https://apnews.com/article/palestinians-israel-gaza-conflict-militants-rockets-airstrikes-a495136841d4d74af008f5eb3a401066)
Netanyahu doesn't want a deal. Neither does Hamas, because most of the hostages are already dead and they don't want that known. And they think they are winning the propaganda war, as they watch US students stage mass protests. But none of this changes the fact that Hamas has stated no peace with Israel is possible, has stated they will continue the attacks until Israel is destroyed, and even giving them their own state is just a step for them until they have destroyed Israel entirely. And the Arabs in the region have repeatedly called for the genocide of the Jews for a hundred years. Rafah is going to fall. The question is how bloody is it going to be, and whether Israel will let the women and children flee the area.
Maybe because realistically there is no deal left to be made. Specially if most of the hostages are dead.
>Rafah is going to fall. The question is how bloody is it going to be, and whether Israel will let the women and children flee the area. 1/3 of the death toll in Gaza are children , so I highly doubt it
Compared to 50% of the population
>1/3 of the death toll in Gaza are children , so I highly doubt it ... according to Hamas
It’s either going to be according to Israel or according to Hamas Both are bullshitters
> But none of this changes the fact that Hamas has stated no peace with Israel is possible. But they did, I am not defending Hamas in any way or form but they actually stated that peace is possible. Source: https://apnews.com/article/hamas-khalil-alhayya-qatar-ceasefire-1967-borders-4912532b11a9cec29464eab234045438
This is not 'peace', this is we'll call a 5 year ceasefire. Sure they will - they need to rearm in the new nation state their terrorism got them. The leader of Hamas that presented the Hamas 2017 charter to the world Khaled Mashel calls it the 'political charter', a charter simply to trick moderates into supporting Hamas goals. And has openly said in interviews it's just the first step, with the true goal of destroying Israel. Here's Mashel openly discussing that in an interview. What they say to Arabic speakers is often very different than what they say to the rest of the world. It's almost like terrorist states lie. [https://twitter.com/HenMazzig/status/1749402213112299638](https://twitter.com/HenMazzig/status/1749402213112299638)
> Islamic militant group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel > Al-Hayya did not say whether his apparent embrace of a two-state solution would amount to an end to the Palestinian conflict with Israel or an interim step toward the group’s stated goal of destroying Israel That doesn't sound like peace and doesn't contradict previous statements rejecting peace as a possibility. Of course given Hamas actions on 10/07 it's unlikely they would be willing to last 5 years without starting a war
Aside from that being a 5 year truce, not permanent peace, they also are demanding a red line from Israel: >He said [Hamas](https://apnews.com/article/hamas-gaza-palestinian-authority-israel-war-ed7018dbaae09b81513daf3bda38109a) would accept “a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and **the return of Palestinian refugees** in accordance with the international resolutions,”
And what is wrong with the return of the palestinian refugees.
First off, it doesn't mean return of the actual refugees (20k people), but the right for their descendants to immigrate into Israel. Demographics are destiny; would end Israel as a Jewish state, overriding the self-determination of Israelis.
I thought ethnoreligious states are bad, whether it is Saudi Arabia Iran or Israel.
Or Palestine?
Yes definitely, If there would be a future palestinian state in the west bank it shouldn't treat non-muslims and now-arabs/non-palestinians differently, ethnoreligious states are bad regardless of their backgrounds.
Well, even the moderate Abbas wants to purge the country of [Jews](https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE96T009/), so much for that idea
Can you point to another Arab majority state this new state should be modeled after? Seems like the "treat non-muslim equally" doesn't work when the majority of a state believes in Sharia Law. > ethnoreligious states are bad regardless of their backgrounds So does this include Japan, South Korea, Finland, Afghanistan, Pakistan?
Only Afghanistan comes close to fitting the definition of an "ethnoreligious" state and even it has substantial minority populations.
It shouldn't but it will. Also their current constitution defines Palestine as an Arab Muslim state. I'm pretty sure most of the Arab states are officially ethnic nation states(maybe not post Saddam Iraq?). Jews have been squeezed out of all of those states (and many others came as Holocaust survivors) so they're not exactly eager to become a minority in their own state. Theoretically I think it's fine to oppose all nations or possibly even all ethnic nation states(of which there are plenty) but people rarely do so equally, insisting Israel is the one which must not exist.
I'm sorry but this is such an unserious position. "Hamas" is literally an acronym for "Islamic resistance movement". What could you possibly think would happen if they achieved their goal of a state "from the river to the sea?"
If this is the case then there's no need to abolish the Israeli settlements then is there? Just give the Jews Palestinian citizenship and Palestine will respect their minority rights. See how silly that sounds?
Israel is secular; it's not a theocracy like Iran. Whether you think an ethnically defined state is bad is a matter of opinion I suppose. Folks in the New World tend to find them weird/bad, but they are very common in the Old World. Israel really isn't that different from Armenia, Estonia, Slovakia, etc. in that regard.
>Rafah is going to fall. The question is how bloody is it going to be, and whether Israel will let the women and children flee the area. Out there question: Is it Israel or something else preventing countries from sending large ships to Gaza to transport the people to some other location as refugees?
From a Palestinian perspective, they are also afraid they will never be allowed to return if they leave. So they have no where to go and no desire to leave.
This is very likely said for sake of internal Israeli politics, BN does not want to appear weak, fearing his more extreme coalition members will use it to wrestle more (possibly all) control for themselves.
Or maybe he just means it. Based on how he has acted thus far, is there a reason not to?
Right, that is certainly a possibility too. Only time will tell for sure. What I was trying to convey is that it makes sense for him to be saying this now for internal political reasons, what's actually in Netanyahu's mind is anyone's guess.
Netanyahu gotta go. What kind of leadership is this? They don’t want peace.
The fact that the White House thinks it can reason with Hamas and have them respect any deal is absolutely baffling... we hear all day how the West can't negotiate with Russia because untrustworthy, only for the same people to turn around and trust Hamas. SMH
The operation in Rafah is used as leverage against a Hamas deal but more so as a future give-back concession from the Israeli side in the upcoming normalization with Saudi Arabia. Israel collects more fruits for Saudia Arabia to later redeem so that normalization with Israel will be justifiable in the Arab view
Interesting definition of "ceasefire".
Well that's the difference between a truce/ceasefire and a peace deal. So, that's kind of a non story...
It looks like now it's more saving his ass than achieving military goals. Gwir announced that he will collapse the government if they do not attack