Israel-Hamas War 2023

[mongers]

This is just such a clusterfuck.

There really is no good options for an average Palestinian, whether in Gaza or the West Bank. Their leaders are corrupt, Israel is moving in an extremist direction and the other Arab states have turned their back on them. I can understand the frustration that fuels the support for Hamas and extremism.

Likewise the regular secularised leftist Israelis, they are slowly being pressured by demographics into irrelevance.

It just seems like the peace movements in the 90's was such a missed opportunity that will not come back for generations. Now the extremists have lots of influence on both sides and the moderates are losing ground all the time.

The Palestinian people have these enemies:
1. Most recent Israeli governments and their plans for a wider Israel.
2. Hamas
3. Nearly all Arab states
4. The widespread corruption within the PA and society.
5. ....

Their allies, potential or otherwise are:
1. Liberal left political parties and citizens in Western countries.
2. The Islamic Republic of Iran (though actually in the long run, enemy no.5)
3. Many Liberal or left Israeli voters.
4. ...

[grumbler]

OK. That's already done. So... How about that peace settlement and Israeli withdrawal then?

It's been a long time since this was a topic and I might have missed something big, but doesn't the Hamas charter still call for the elimination of Israel?

The Hamas Charter calls for the elimination of Israel, but not the elimination of the Jews.

Article Eleven:

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day. This being so, who could claim to have the right to represent Moslem generations till Judgement Day?

This is the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia (law) and the same goes for any land the Moslems have conquered by force, because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem generations till the Day of Judgement.

But note also Article Thirty-One:

The Islamic Resistance Movement is a humanistic movement. It takes care of human rights and is guided by Islamic tolerance when dealing with the followers of other religions. It does not antagonize anyone of them except if it is antagonized by it or stands in its way to hamper its moves and waste its efforts.

Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions - Islam, Christianity and Judaism - to coexist in peace and quiet with each other. Peace and quiet would not be possible except under the wing of Islam. Past and present history are the best witness to that.

Not much evidence Hamas actually follows al of the aspirations of its charter, but the claim that Hamas wants to wipe out the Jews is unfounded.

All quotes from https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp

[Jacob]

It just seems like the peace movements in the 90's was such a missed opportunity that will not come back for generations. Now the extremists have lots of influence on both sides and the moderates are losing ground all the time.

The assassination of Rabin was terrible on a number of levels. One of them was that it irrevocably destroyed the peace process. The other is that it proved that assassination as a political tool clearly works.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I suspect actually entering Gaza will be very difficult.

Will largely disagree here. You can't really harden your defenses like that in a modern war when the enemy has aerial superiority. E.g. in Ukraine the Russian front is solidified because Ukraine's only viable option is to advance, without air superiority, over mine fields. IDF has absolute aerial superiority over all of Gaza, if they want to enter they will and they will open up significant movement corridors with heavy aerial bombing / support, and they will use armor as the tip of the spear, which is hard to take out with insurgent weapons in urban combat.

The bigger issue is if the IDF goes into Gaza, what does it plan to do there, and if it plans to stay it now has a hostile military occupation to run over ~2m people which is hugely manpower intensive. And when such an occupation is running you will have lots of "ground level" interaction with IDF soldiers and Gazan civilians, lots of incidents of insurgents attacking IDF, IDF counterattacking, lots of Gazan civilians dead in the cross fire (similar to our occupation of the larger Iraqi cities in the 2000s.)

[Sheilbh]

It just seems like the peace movements in the 90's was such a missed opportunity that will not come back for generations. Now the extremists have lots of influence on both sides and the moderates are losing ground all the time.

Maybe. I think the 90s were certainly a missed possibility. But as sad as it is, I think that ultimately peace isn't made by moderates because they're not the ones doing the fighting. They generally don't have the credibility or power to impose peace on the men of violence on their side.

I think moderates are essential and help set the terms and create the conditions for negotiations and peace - but it's always when the largest violent groups begin talking that peace is in prospect. I think it's very rare that the beneficiaries of a peace process, or the people who come out of it with power are the moderates. I think it's a real shame that the rewards don't normally go to the people who were consistently right, but it also makes sense - they're rarely the people able to command the men with guns.

It's why I also wouldn't put too much weight on the Hamas Charter as Grumbler points out.

Totally separately but I've seen lots of military types ppointing out that the drones dropping bombs the drone footage from Hamas etc is now the baseline. This isn't a new tactic anymore or reserved for wealthy militaries, it is relatively accessible to everyone and presumably something conventional forces need to work out how to combat (I've seen footage in Ukraine of soldiers firing at drones - like soldiers in WW1 started firing at planes). I'm not sure how easy it is to deal with? I've no idea but it feels like a serious shift even just in frontlines (and I think this will be the case when the IDF push into Gaza) being visible to you and the other side at all times.

[OttoVonBismarck]

There's big tech gaps in drones. Some of the shittier drones the Russians / Iranians have used for example have suffered hilariously huge casualty rates without ever delivering a payload, these are drones that move at speeds akin to "walking" in terms of aerial combat, and can be very rapidly killed by a number of modern military technologies.

In lower tech situations they are high reward for very low cost, though.

Then there are drones that are almost as sophisticated as fighter jets.

[DGuller]

What is the message in all those "there is no perfect response to apartheid" arguments?  Any response is going to be imperfect, so we should accept wholesale slaughter of Israeli communities?  Is it possible that if Israelis weren't overwhelmingly murdered when under Arab control, ever since the time they were allowed to be expelled mostly alive in 1948, that there would be less impetus and support to create open air prisons?

It is true that the likes of Hamas are not calling for the murder of all Israelis, only the destruction of Israel.  However, Hamas can still do things it doesn't call for, and if after this week it isn't obvious to you what it would do with Israelis if Israel ceased to exist, then frankly I just don't think you care.

[OttoVonBismarck]

What is the message in all those "there is no perfect response to apartheid" arguments?  Any response is going to be imperfect, so we should accept wholesale slaughter of Israeli communities?  Is it possible that if Israelis weren't overwhelmingly murdered when under Arab control, ever since the time they were allowed to be expelled mostly alive in 1948, that there would be less impetus and support to create open air prisons?

It is true that the likes of Hamas are not calling for the murder of all Israelis, only the destruction of Israel.  However, Hamas can still do things it doesn't call for, and if after this week it isn't obvious to you what it would do with Israelis if Israel ceased to exist, then frankly I just don't think you care.

At the end of the day the bigger question is this--there's around 5m Palestinians between Gaza and the West Bank. What should be done with them? Any dream of "ending" the violence, be it by Hamas or Palestinian groups of other names, runs into the problem that it is fueled by 5m people who are functionally stateless.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Germany's development minister says her country will review its aid for the Palestinian areas following the attack by Hamas on Israel.

The development ministry says Germany does not finance the Palestinian Authority directly, but a total of 250 million euros ($265 million) is currently pledged in German aid –- half of that for bilateral projects via Germany's overseas aid agency and development bank, and the other half for the UN agency for the Palestinians, UNRWA.

I would doubt Germany truly stops all humanitarian aid, but the fact such a strongly anti-Israel country as Germany is saying this IMO shows how bad Hamas actions are for Palestine's global standing. I think movements like BDS etc are going to all but die in countries like the United States.

[Razgovory]

There is no perfect response to anti-Semitic fascism.

[Sheilbh]

Will largely disagree here. You can't really harden your defenses like that in a modern war when the enemy has aerial superiority. E.g. in Ukraine the Russian front is solidified because Ukraine's only viable option is to advance, without air superiority, over mine fields. IDF has absolute aerial superiority over all of Gaza, if they want to enter they will and they will open up significant movement corridors with heavy aerial bombing / support, and they will use armor as the tip of the spear, which is hard to take out with insurgent weapons in urban combat.

The bigger issue is if the IDF goes into Gaza, what does it plan to do there, and if it plans to stay it now has a hostile military occupation to run over ~2m people which is hugely manpower intensive. And when such an occupation is running you will have lots of "ground level" interaction with IDF soldiers and Gazan civilians, lots of incidents of insurgents attacking IDF, IDF counterattacking, lots of Gazan civilians dead in the cross fire (similar to our occupation of the larger Iraqi cities in the 2000s.)

That's fair and I take the point - it may not be the getting in that will be tough but what to do when you're there, staying and leaving.

I think it's been about ten years since the IDF have had significant numbers of troops in Gaza. That's a lot of time for Hamas to prepare for the next time ground troops come in - and a lot of time for the Israelis to not really know the land anymore. Getting in may be easier but as I say I'd expect Hamas to have been building tunnels and hidden posts etc all within Gaza for the next time Israeli troops are there.

[viper37]

The bigger issue is if the IDF goes into Gaza, what does it plan to do there, and if it plans to stay it now has a hostile military occupation to run over ~2m people which is hugely manpower intensive. And when such an occupation is running you will have lots of "ground level" interaction with IDF soldiers and Gazan civilians, lots of incidents of insurgents attacking IDF, IDF counterattacking, lots of Gazan civilians dead in the cross fire (similar to our occupation of the larger Iraqi cities in the 2000s.)

You are assuming Bibi cares about all of that.  It is a big assumption to make.

He will go on a rampage to destroy as much as he can in Gaza, than push forward to extend Israeli's lines of defense, colonize a bit more territory there and in the West Bank, most likely, push the Palestinians even further and re-fortify the positions.

It's not like any protests from the outside would matter.

[Iormlund]

The IDF doesn't have much of a choice, really.

The attack has shown that Hamas cannot be contained inside Gaza.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The bigger issue is if the IDF goes into Gaza, what does it plan to do there, and if it plans to stay it now has a hostile military occupation to run over ~2m people which is hugely manpower intensive. And when such an occupation is running you will have lots of "ground level" interaction with IDF soldiers and Gazan civilians, lots of incidents of insurgents attacking IDF, IDF counterattacking, lots of Gazan civilians dead in the cross fire (similar to our occupation of the larger Iraqi cities in the 2000s.)

You are assuming Bibi cares about all of that.  It is a big assumption to make.

He will go on a rampage to destroy as much as he can in Gaza, than push forward to extend Israeli's lines of defense, colonize a bit more territory there and in the West Bank, most likely, push the Palestinians even further and re-fortify the positions.

It's not like any protests from the outside would matter.

Some of this is true, but Israel even under its current far right regime is not going to genocide 5 million people. The question remains what is to be done with them?

I have seen reports in Al Jazeera now that the IDF is sending geolocation based text messages to everyone living in a corridor near the existing border fence (on the Gazan side) telling them to leave the area. Makes me think Israel may be planning on leveling all structures within x feet of the border fence on the Gazan side--maybe making it a "no man's land." We shall see though.

Note that the people in Gaza who have reported this also have indicated they literally have nowhere to go, Gaza doesn't have extra homes for them to move into.

[Sheilbh]

The IDF doesn't have much of a choice, really.

The attack has shown that Hamas cannot be contained inside Gaza.

Yeah I don't disagree and obviously, they need to respond to what happened. But I think it'll be horrible for them in Gaza and I'm not really sure what they can achieve.