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NM.
Thoughts on the middle east conflicts.
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This was from back in March, when I was getting flak for not believing Hamas provided numbers. The UN just updated their figures on May 8 from data through April 30, and Hamas Ministry of Health is still their source.
7,797 children killed
Still more than anyone wants, but that was a 50% exaggeration. And Hamas doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.
https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hos...8*MTcxNTQzNjg5NS4yLjEuMTcxNTQzNzU5Ny4zNi4wLjA.
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Reports are that Hamas is popping up and skirmishing with IDF again in the north of Gaza - where they had supposedly been eradicated? After 7 months of war and running low on reservists, that must be annoying to Bibi.
A 50 percent exaggeration, and Hamas uses child soldiers so that confuses the numbers even further.
"Running low on reservists"? Every citizen of Israel is a reservist. I doubt that they're "running low" on anything. It's likely just a matter of budgeting or redefining troop rotations (as we did with our reservists during Gulf II).
The point is, they do not appear to be winning the war.
And it was entirely predictable.
That's because it can't be won. Except by making a carefully tailored definition of victory.
As I understand it, the Israeli definition of victory is complete and permanent elimination of Hamas. This does not seem to permit of compromise on their part.
The bit at the bottom......
Disclaimer: The UN has so far not been able to produce independent, comprehensive, and verified casualty figures; the current numbers have been provided by the Ministry of Health or the Government Media Office in Gaza and the Israeli authorities and await further verification. Other yet-to-be verified figures are also sourced.
AND... counting a child as a combatant and therefore removing them from the child count has so many moral connotations that I'm not going there.
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boatgeek
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Who knew that if you take territory and don't either keep troops there or set up some sort of government when the troops leave, insurgents will come back in and fill the gaps? Answer: every army that has occupied territory.
Truth.
I'm curious how many major strategic hits Israel is going to be willing to take to get some tactical results in Rafah.
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And Hamas' definition of victory, and stated goal, is the complete eradication of the Jewish race.
What compromise would you make with people whose stated intention, including their written constitution, includes the death of you, your children, and your nation?
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Hard to say. We don't really know what the Israeli objectives are. We know what media has provided and what others have inferred from reports or speculation by pundits. There is also the idea that somehow worldview matters to them in a "survival" situation. It doesn't.
The reality is we are all just peering over the fence from the outside. Some are not even doing that but having to look between the fence board cracks. What will happen (and has always happened in Israeli conflicts) is the Israelis will tell us when they are done. They will tell us they have met their objectives. Who are we to say otherwise. All we get to do is analyze the fight and comment based on what may or may not matter.
What we do know is at least 2 generations of Arabs in Gaza will now know the impacts of the war. It has been long enough time since the last real fight that the losses sustained by palestinians may have faded. Unfortunately, this is not the end. It is only a delay. This fight will happen again but maybe at a slightly less intensity the next time.
boatgeek
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The problem is that a significant fraction of the Israeli right wing already made a deal with Hamas. Sure, it was pre-10/7, but it's not like Hamas has changed its stripes recently. It was still well after Hamas had declared war on Israel, and lobbed missiles and physical attacks over the border. The deal was that Hamas got to receive cash and other support through the Israeli borders and in return Hamas would kneecap a two-state solution. And the worst part is that the deal has worked. Israeli public opinion is now solidly against a two-state solution. All it took was 1200 or so dead Israelis. Realpolitik at its finest.
I agree that we don't really know what Israel's strategic objectives are. And according to this piece, Netanyahu doesn't either, or at least he hasn't shared it with the head of the IDF or Shin Bet. Now granted, that's a media report, so it's filtered by whatever slant the Times of Israel has. But at least they're in country and appear at least to have been more on Netanyahu's side than, say, Haaretz.
However, I can't imagine that torching relationships with the US President is high on the list of objectives. Sure, Netanyahu has had lousy relationships with US presidents in the past, and sure, the administration may change in November*. But burning allies can't be a good plan, either. And having several thousand bombs held in the US is at least some level of setback. Adverse rulings from the ICC and/or ICJ don't help Israel's Good Guy image either.
It remains to be seen how badly the Good Guy image gets tarnished. I don't think that Israel will end up in the same category of Iran or Russia in the near future. They probably won't get economic sanctions unless things get a lot worse. But Israel could in theory lose a lot of the preferential treatment it's gotten over its lifetime, including receiving massive force multipliers like F-35s. And the US and UK have run a lot of interference for Israel at the UN. Losing that would be a major strategic loss.
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I would be interested in seeing the evidence for this laid out in some detail.
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That would certainly be intriguing if that were true. However, I don't buy it. At this point I think some/all/majority of the hostages are dead so there is very little leverage left. The US administration demanding the return of nothing is a tactic to keep Israel in the fight. They know the terrorist won't/can't return what they don't have so it's a backdoor way to keep the fight going. The US is playing politics and Israel is playing for real. Just like the delay in the ammo is not to force Israel into a ceasefire, it's to try and save some of the so-called "protest votes" in Nov. Of course these are all just "conspiracy theories"...
boatgeek
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There's a bunch more detail here, published 10/8/23. I've posted the info several times in this thread, so maybe @Bravo52 won't believe it this time either.
Among other pieces of evidence is the current Finance Minister (and current leader of the Religious Zionism party) saying in 2015 "The Palestinian Authority is a liability, Hamas is an asset." (Non-neutral source reporting that contemporaneously in 2015 is here) While Netanyahu himself hasn't said that publicly, there are numerous reports that he said similar things in party conferences, and that messaging was also out in the right-wing political parties' media surrogates.
More or less the way it worked was that Israel gave enough work visas (for Gazans to work in Israel and bring money home) and allowed enough cash into the territory to keep the Hamas government operational. If they had cracked down, Hamas would have collapsed due to lack of funds. At that point, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank could have picked up the pieces and had a unified voice in favor of a 2-state solution.
Part of Israel's negotiating position is for Hamas to return bodies as well as live hostages. If the hostages are dead, Hamas could just as well point Israel to where they're buried and/or return the bodies.
Given that the president hung up on Netanyahu on at least one occasion, there's likely at least some friction there. Maybe that is all performative, but that seems unlikely.The US is playing politics and Israel is playing for real. Just like the delay in the ammo is not to force Israel into a ceasefire, it's to try and save some of the so-called "protest votes" in Nov. Of course these are all just "conspiracy theories"...
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Joe doesn't manage conflict elegantly in real time. He gets mad and starts calling people silly names.
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@boatgeek, I see that more as a result than a strategy. I don't think Israel is making deals to keep Hamas in power, but the result of having an internal struggle between the PA and the Hamas terrorist does help them. It is true that the PA is biding their time until the Hamas are gone (or severely degraded) to regain some recognition and power in the Gaza territory, but I think that's an internal power play by the PA as they are not in any position (and likely never will be) to demand a 2SS. One of the two has to go...it won't be the PA.There's a bunch more detail here, published 10/8/23. I've posted the info several times in this thread, so maybe @Bravo52 won't believe it this time either.
Among other pieces of evidence is the current Finance Minister (and current leader of the Religious Zionism party) saying in 2015 "The Palestinian Authority is a liability, Hamas is an asset." (Non-neutral source reporting that contemporaneously in 2015 is here) While Netanyahu himself hasn't said that publicly, there are numerous reports that he said similar things in party conferences, and that messaging was also out in the right-wing political parties' media surrogates.
More or less the way it worked was that Israel gave enough work visas (for Gazans to work in Israel and bring money home) and allowed enough cash into the territory to keep the Hamas government operational. If they had cracked down, Hamas would have collapsed due to lack of funds. At that point, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank could have picked up the pieces and had a unified voice in favor of a 2-state solution.
Part of Israel's negotiating position is for Hamas to return bodies as well as live hostages. If the hostages are dead, Hamas could just as well point Israel to where they're buried and/or return the bodies.
Given that the president hung up on Netanyahu on at least one occasion, there's likely at least some friction there. Maybe that is all performative, but that seems unlikely.
IMO, Hamas is stuck between an Egyption border and Israeli howitzers when it comes to the hostages. They overplayed that hand and are now using it as a delaying tactic in order to give the outsiders time to make demands in a hope it will play out in their favor. If the hostages are dead, they know their leverage is gone and IDF will be less conservative. I don't think the Hamas terrorist are interested in a hostage trade because they have nothing to trade. As time goes on, we'll see more and more propaganda about how the Israelis killed the hostages in battle. Kind of a "Hospital Parking Lot Scenario". I don't think the Hamas terrorist are interested in a hostage trade because they have nothing to trade.
The interesting thing will be the American politics in all of this. Biden hanging up on Netanyahu is not really a concern because it only matters here...not there. I'm pretty sure Israel will still be flying F-35s tomorrow.
boatgeek
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Israel's right wing parties explicitly planned to keep Hamas in power in Gaza by allowing them to receive money in order to weaken the PA and delay or derail a two state solution. That was the strategy. They hoped that the money would be just enough to keep Hamas afloat and Hamas would hold up their end by not leading any significant attacks. The result is 1200 dead Israelis because Hamas is a scorpion. BTW, I don't think that there was a formal agreement between the Israeli right wing parties and Hamas. I think that the Israelis signaled that small rocket attacks (handled by the Iron Dome) weren't that big a deal, and made it clear through public statements that they were OK with Hamas ruling Gaza. I would guess that Hamas saw that as weakness rather than a cushy deal for everyone, and planned the 10/7 attack.
I mean, They're not wrong. Israel already did kill three escaped hostages because they were using unofficial rules of engagement. Of course, nobody got any kind of punishment for that, which kind of indicates that the Israeli government doesn't really care that much about the safe return of hostages either. But that's just my view from far away.
Israel will be flying F-35s for the foreseeable future. They might get pulled back (or their firmware remotely disabled) if the ICJ really does come down with a genocide ruling in 2-3 years. But I think even that's unlikely (both the ruling and pulling back F-35s). On the arms side, I think it's more likely that the US will slow down offensive weapons supplies in the fall and maybe stop them altogether depending on the results of the November elections. That said, I think the diplomatic side is more likely where the action will fall. You'll see a lot more abstentions at the UN Security Council, Palestine likely getting recognized by the UN, less or no US interference if the ICC decides to indict Netanyahu, etc. The diplomatic side doesn't really impact the conduct of the war, but it will have much larger long-term consequences for Israel's international standing and long-term economics.
Again, that's all my guess from an armchair far away. We'll see what happens ove rthe next couple of months.
A realist idea is that Hamas wins if Hamas even barely survives this war. They can't and won't destroy Israel and/or the Jewish race. So first, relax.
Senator Lindsey Graham suggests Israel use nuclear weapons to completely destroy Hamas. But in my humble opinion, that goes too far. Some compromise needs to be negotiated by cooler heads than those now in control. My #1 compromise: avoid regional/global escalation.
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@Dotini, Israel won't use nukes on Gaza, So first, relax. Lindsey Graham did not say he wanted them to use nukes on Hamas he said they would be justified to do whatever they needed to do to survive the Jewish state. He started by asking why was it okay for America to drop two nuclear bombs on Japan to end that war...
IMO the end state of this war looks like this... First, the fighting stops and Gaza is "demilitarized". No tunnels, no rockets, no outside support for weapons. Second, Hamas is gone. That does not mean "genocide" as some like to claim. They are no longer in power, political or otherwise. Ismail Haniyeh and all of his co-terrorist must be gone. It wouldn't surprise me to see a provincial government made up of PA reps overseen by some other group (for all the is holy, not the UN).
Many years ago, Tom Clancy's novel suggested that final peace in Israel was overseen by the Swiss Guard from the Vatican. Probably not, but yeah, NOT the UN.
boatgeek
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Whatever other fever dreams Lindsey Graham has, he's not in charge here. Sure, senators have some influence and power, but they are not in the executive branch and don't get to decide the US response to any particular action. The most the Senate could do is hold hearings, and Graham isn't even in the majority that would get to decide to do that.
NTP2
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it wasn’t ok, and Israel should learn from our mistakes. This applies to Using large scale military to combat terror as well, it really just makes it worse.
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Ahh....a different discussion for sure.
Here's an article with the Lindsey Graham quotes. It's from NDTV, which is an Indian company; I don't know what if any political slant they have or how it pertains to their coverage of this.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/isr...ing the Israel-Hamas war,need" to end the war.
The article makes it clear that Graham's comments were made as a rebuke to Biden over withholding weapons from Israel. It was (what I consider to be highly overblown) rhetoric, which can be paraphrased as "Let Israel drop whatever bombs they want. Heck, let'm use nukes if the want."
Anyway, it would be a lot worse today, because the effects are better known (so the "We didn't know better" part doesn't apply) and the bombs are bigger, and the risk of nuclear retaliation and escalation exists as it didn't then.
I am pretty well convinced that Israel is not going to take that step, and I rather doubt Graham wants them to, or would be as OK with it as he sounded in that interview.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/isr...ing the Israel-Hamas war,need" to end the war.
The article makes it clear that Graham's comments were made as a rebuke to Biden over withholding weapons from Israel. It was (what I consider to be highly overblown) rhetoric, which can be paraphrased as "Let Israel drop whatever bombs they want. Heck, let'm use nukes if the want."
It's been argued, and I can't refute or deny, that the casualties caused by the nuclear bombings of Japan were fewer than the Japanese casualties would have been from an allied invasion of the home island. And, the after effects of the bombs were less well understood at the time than they are today. At the time, the bombing or Hiroshima genuinely looked OK; in hindsight it wasn't. And Nagasaki is a little more complicated.
Anyway, it would be a lot worse today, because the effects are better known (so the "We didn't know better" part doesn't apply) and the bombs are bigger, and the risk of nuclear retaliation and escalation exists as it didn't then.
I am pretty well convinced that Israel is not going to take that step, and I rather doubt Graham wants them to, or would be as OK with it as he sounded in that interview.
Relations between Egypt and Israel are fraying, but the Camp David Accords do not not appear to be in danger - yet.
A very different discussion indeed. Projections if the war had dragged on another five years (likely) would have seen another 25million dead (or something like that) I have read. Definitely a bitter pill to swallow though.
Titan II
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It was more than okay, and there were no mistakes.
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