Israel-Hamas War Update

The killing goes on.

YahooNews (“Israel-Hamas conflict live updates: Death toll reaches 1,600, including 11 U.S. citizens“):

More than 1,600 people have been killed, including 11 Americans, since Hamas launched an unprecedented assault on Israel over the weekend, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare war.

In a joint statement issued Monday evening, President Biden, along with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, expressed “united support to the State of Israel” and “unequivocal condemnation of Hamas and its appalling acts of terrorism.”

“We make clear that the terrorist actions of Hamas have no justification, no legitimacy, and must be universally condemned. There is never any justification for terrorism,” read the joint statement. The leaders went on to pledge to “support Israel in its efforts to defend itself and its people against such atrocities.”

Reuters (“Gathering its dead, Israel pounds Gaza with fiercest air strikes ever“):

Israel pounded the Gaza Strip on Tuesday with the fiercest air strikes in its 75-year conflict with the Palestinians, razing whole districts to dust despite a threat from Hamas militants to execute a captive for each home hit.

Across the barrier wall surrounding the strip, Israeli soldiers were collecting the last of the dead four days after Hamas gunmen rampaged through towns in by far the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.

Israel has vowed to take “mighty revenge”, calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists and placing Gaza, crowded home to 2.3 million people, under total siege.

Israel’s embassy in Washington said the death toll from Hamas’ weekend attacks had surpassed 1,000, dwarfing all modern Islamist attacks on the West bar 9/11.

The victims were overwhelmingly civilians, gunned down in homes, on streets or at a dance party. Scores of Israelis and some foreigners were captured and taken to Gaza as hostages, some paraded through the streets.

Gaza’s health ministry said Israel’s retaliatory strikes had killed at least 770 people and wounded more than 4,000. The air strikes, already the heaviest ever, intensified on Tuesday night, shaking the ground and pouring columns of smoke and flames into the morning sky.

The United Nations said more than 180,000 Gazans had been made homeless, many huddling on streets or in schools.

At the morgue in Gaza’s Khan Younis hospital, bodies were laid on the ground on stretchers with names written on their bellies. Medics called for relatives to pick up bodies quickly because there was no more space for the dead.

A municipal building was hit while being used as an emergency shelter; survivors there spoke of many dead

[…]

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, who denounced the Hamas attacks, said civilians had been harmed in Israeli strikes on tower blocks, schools and U.N. buildings.

“International humanitarian law is clear: the obligation to take constant care to spare the civilian population and civilian objects remains applicable throughout the attacks,” he said.

NYT (“More foreign nationals are reported killed, kidnapped or missing in Israel.“):

Nations worldwide were trying to clarify the situations of their citizens who were caught in the attacks by Palestinian fighters against Israel. At least 50 foreign nationals have been reported killed or kidnapped, and many others were still missing on Tuesday, as authorities warned it was increasingly likely that they had been taken hostage.

  • President Biden said on Monday evening that at least 11 U.S. citizens had been killed in Israel. An unknown number were still unaccounted for, Mr. Biden said, but he added that “it is likely that American citizens may be among those being held by Hamas.”
  • At least 18 Thai nationals have been killed and 11 have been taken hostage, Thailand’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
  • More than 10 British citizens are feared dead or missing after the attacks, the B.B.C. reported on Tuesday, citing an unnamed official, although the British government has yet to give any public figures. “The situation is fast-moving and complicated,” James Cleverly, the U.K. foreign secretary, said on Tuesday. “A lot of the figures are yet to be fully confirmed and I don’t want to speculate. A significant number of British-Israeli dual nationals have been involved.”
  • Ten citizens of Nepal were killed in the attacks, Reuters reported.
  • Argentina’s embassy in Israel said on Tuesday that seven Argentines had been killed and that 15 were still missing.
  • France has announced the deaths of four of its citizens in the attacks. The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that 13 others were still missing and that some of them “have very probably been kidnapped.”
  • Two citizens of Ukraine were among those killed, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday.
  • Shani Louk, a German-Israeli citizen, was abducted by Hamas militants while attending an open-air music festival, German officials said. The German federal prosecutor has launched an investigation into the killings and kidnapping of German nationals in Israel. German authorities have not released the number of their citizens believed to be victims of the Hamas attacks.
  • Two Mexican nationals are still missing, according to Mexico’s Foreign Ministry. A third citizen, David Heiblum, was initially thought to have been kidnapped, but Alicia Bárcena, Mexico’s foreign minister said on social media on Tuesday that he was safe.

AP (“Under heavy bombing, Palestinians in Gaza move from place to place, only to discover nowhere is safe“):

Over 180,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are packed into United Nations shelters as Israeli warplanes pound the tiny territory of 2.3 million people after their Hamas militant rulers launched an unprecedented weekend attack on Israel.

[…]

But residents say there is no real escape in Gaza, which has been under a suffocating 16-year blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt. When war breaks out, as it has four times since the Hamas militant group seized power in 2007, even United Nations facilities that are supposed to be safe zones risk becoming engulfed in the fighting. The U.N. said that an airstrike directly hit one of its shelters Sunday and damaged five other schools-turned-shelters on Monday. There was no immediate word of casualties.

[…]

But as the Israeli military went neighborhood to neighborhood with rapid and intensifying airstrikes, the heavy bombardments reached the heart of Gaza City, transforming the affluent neighborhood into an uninhabitable desert of craters. Rimal was also hit by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza’s bloody 2021 war, but not to this extent.

[…]

The bombing in Rimal and the potential risks of sheltering in U.N. schools highlighted the desperate search by Gaza civilians for refuge, with the territory’s safe spaces rapidly shrinking. There are no civilian bomb shelters in Gaza. Ahead of the Israeli military’s warning to civilians on Monday that Rimal would be hit, families staggered into the streets with whatever belongings they could carry and without a destination.

In a briefing Tuesday, Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht suggested Palestinians should try to leave through the Gaza border crossing with Egypt — a seemingly impractical suggestion.

While Hamas officials operating the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing said Tuesday that Gazans who had registered in advance could cross into Egypt, the number of those allowed to travel has typically been small. That has led to backlogs and waiting times of days or weeks, even in calm times.

YahooNews, like many, is employing a live-blog style, making linkage challenging. But two graphics are telling.

First, the surely way behind casualty toll:

As to the sheltering plan for civilians:

Having safe areas is likely the best one can hope for under the circumstances. But it’s not at all clear how safe they are in practice.

And, it must be emphasized, this is a war, not a punitive raid. The Hamas-led attacks. on Israel continue.

NYT (“Israel says it killed 1,500 Palestinian fighters, but Hamas has many more in its ranks.“)

The announcement by the Israeli military that it had killed about 1,500 Palestinian fighters since their incursion into southern Israel on Saturday is a blow to Hamas, but likely not a debilitating one, given its capabilities and the number of fighters it can summon.

Hamas, which is both a militant group and the de facto ruler of the Gaza Strip, does not provide details about its military capabilities. But outside estimates put its overall force in the tens of thousands, including some highly trained commandos and a larger number of fighters with varying capabilities.

In an interview on Wednesday, Ali Barakeh, a Beirut-based foreign relations official with Hamas, said that 2,000 of the group’s fighters had participated in the initial attack on Israel on Saturday morning. Fighters from other armed Palestinian factions joined once the operation was underway, he said.

And, not at all surprisingly, the war is not contained to Gaza and the bordering areas inside Israel.

While all eyes are on Gaza, there has been a surge in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. At least 19 Palestinians have been killed since Saturday, mainly in separate gun battles and confrontations with the Israeli military, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Hamas has been calling on Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to “rise up” and “clash” with Israeli soldiers and settlers since the start of the assault on Saturday.

Rather clearly, the hostages are not deterring Israel. Nor, in the short term, are they being used as a bargaining chip. WaPo:

A Hamas spokesman announced no hostage negotiations are underway. “We will not exchange or negotiate … while under fire, during aggression and battle,” said Abu Obaidah, nom de guerre of the spokesman for the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigade, the group’s military wing. “The enemy should save its energy and prepare to pay the price.” It’s estimated that over 100 hostages are held in Gaza.

This tragedy is far from over.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. DrDaveT says:

    Anyone else viscerally offended every time a news story goes out of its way to specify how many Americans were killed, out of some much larger total?

    10
  2. Beth says:

    In a briefing Tuesday, Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht suggested Palestinians should try to leave through the Gaza border crossing with Egypt — a seemingly impractical suggestion.

    It also strikes me as ethnic cleansing as the official Israeli policy. Leave or we’ll kill you. And good luck getting back.

    15
  3. charontwo says:

    WaPoGift

    The Palestinian militants behind the surprise weekend attack on Israel began planning the assault at least a year ago, with key support from Iranian allies who provided military training and logistical help as well as tens of millions of dollars for weapons, current and former Western and Middle Eastern intelligence officials said Monday.

    While Iran’s precise role in Saturday’s violence remained unclear, the officials said, the assault reflected Tehran’s years-long ambition to surround Israel with legions of paramilitary fighters armed with increasingly sophisticated weapons systems capable of striking deep inside the Jewish state.

    Hamas, the Gaza-based Palestinian militant organization that led the attack, has historically maintained a degree of independence from Tehran compared with true Iranian proxy groups such as the Lebanese-based Hezbollah. But in recent years, Hamas has benefited from massive infusions of Iranian cash as well as technical help for manufacturing rockets and drones with advanced guidance systems, in addition to training in military tactics — some of which occurred in camps outside Gaza, the officials said.

    U.S. and Israeli officials said they have no firm evidence so far that Iran authorized or directly coordinated the attack that killed more than 900 Israelis and wounded thousands. But current and former intelligence officials said the assault bore hallmarks of Iranian support, and noted officials in Tehran have boasted publicly about the huge sums in military aid provided to Hamas in recent years.

    “If you train people on how to use weapons, you expect them to eventually use them,” said a Western intelligence official who, like others interviewed, requested that his name and nationality be withheld to freely discuss the rapidly unfolding events in southern Israel. The official, and a second Western analyst with access to sensitive intelligence, said the analysis conducted in the wake of the attack pointed to many months of preparation by Hamas, beginning at least as early as mid-2022.

    In interviews, more than a dozen intelligence analysts and military experts expressed astonishment at the stealth and sophistication of the Hamas assault, which involved coordinated raids across the Israeli border by hundreds of gunmen traveling by land, sea and air — including motorized paragliders. The ground offensive was accompanied by swarms of rockets and drones that began streaking across the border early Saturday, hitting targets with a degree of precision not seen in previous Hamas attacks. While the Palestinian group has a capable militia and indigenous assembly lines for rockets and drones, an attack of Saturday’s scale would have been extremely challenging without considerable outside help, analysts said.

    Pretty long piece, lots more.

    3
  4. steve says:

    Given the barbaric level of the attacks it was appropriate for Biden and other world leaders to issue a blanket condemnation. However, it’s appropriate in other discussions to note how we got here and where this is going. It’s been very clear for a while that Israel’s intent has been to keep expanding and displacing Palestinians in the West Bank. They will have little choice but to leave or at best have a limited role in an apartheid nation. At any rate, Israelis will take all of the good land.

    Judging by their actions Israelis were happy to maintain a harsh blockade that let weapons through but kept Gaza impoverished. That feels very much like they were “encouraging” people to leave Gaza also. Not sure who would take them. That said, the current Israeli attacks are a war, seeking revenge. If they manage to get a bunch of people to leave it’s a bonus but doubt Egypt is interested in taking a bunch of poor refugees. They arent exactly rich.

    Steve

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  5. MarkedMan says:

    @DrDaveT:

    Anyone else viscerally offended every time a news story goes out of its way to specify how many Americans were killed, out of some much larger total?

    Not me. The local angle is and always has been a big part of any news story. I’m willing to bet those ten Nepalese that were killed are the biggest story there.

    8
  6. charontwo says:

    Judging by their actions Israelis were happy to maintain a harsh blockade that let weapons through but kept Gaza impoverished.

    All that happened when the blockade was relaxed was more rearmimg.

    The border with Egypt was also blocked, BTW.

    It’s been very clear for a while that Israel’s intent has been to keep expanding and displacing Palestinians in the West Bank.

    Separate issue, not much connection to Gaza – or Hamas.

    There used to be Israeli settlers in Gaza, since withdrawn – Israel has abandoned territorial ambitions there.

    And – there is a lot of anger now – angry people say and do angry stuff. Easy to cherry pick out the worst.

    6
  7. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @DrDaveT: Given that the two sources that specified American casualties (at least based on the clips provided) were Yahoo News and NYT, I don’t see any particular reason to react in any way. Americans are more likely to be concerned with what’s happening to Americans and less concerned with what’s happening to anyone else, so the tone of the reporting makes some sense. (For better or worse.)

    3
  8. charontwo says:

    @Beth:

    So what do you think the Hamas strategic objective was here? The projected end result? What would any deep thinker expect to happen?

    3
  9. Scott says:

    @steve: I cannot see an endgame to any side in this conflict (both short and long term) other than war without end. If a Palestinian state is not allowed, then the Israelis will have to keep Palestinians imprisoned in camps forever or make them full Israelis citizens with full voting rights. Neither is feasible or sustainable.

    7
  10. JKB says:

    Five times Israel has offered the Palestinian Arabs a separate state. Five times they said no, Jews must die. Talk to Jimmy Carter, talk to Bill Clinton both had organized offers by Israel only to have Arafat then Abbas to say NO! to everything. Even when Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza strip, the Palestinians elected Hamas whose charter explicitly calls for the death of all the Jews in Israel.

    It is my hope that the world is tired of this intransigence and leaves this to be seriously altered when this war ends.

    5
  11. SenyorDave says:

    The status quo was no possibility of peace and Israel drifting toward a full-fledged apartheid state. And that is exactly what Netanyahu and Likud wanted. Netanyahu could never be part of a peace plan, that is the last thing he wants. The second best thing is an all out war that will destroy hamas. In five years something worse will replace hamas, but in the meantime Netanyahu doesn’t have to worry about any trial for his corruption charges. He is a smart Trump, totally disinterested in the long term well being of Israel.

    11
  12. Andy says:

    I don’t have much time for commenting today or most of the rest of the week, so I’m going to close out the debates I’ve been having with commenters here with a few items, some useful information, and some questions to ponder.

    First of all, I want to make it clear where I stand. In my view, the atrocities Hamas committed are beyond the pale. Comparing them to ISIS and the Nazi Einsatzgruppen is not, IMO, an exaggeration. If you don’t believe me, then I’d encourage you to empty your stomach and watch the hundreds of videos documenting their atrocities, many of which were filmed by the perpetrators and then posted on Telegram to brag and gloat over. I think those who mostly remain silent, provide the minimum “I’m not defending Hamas” response when pressed, and instead spend the vast majority of their effort complaining about what Israel has done, and equivocating and bothsidesing are factually and morally incorrect. Whatever you think Israel has done, Hamas is demonstrably and factually a thousand times worse. And if you can’t admit that distinction and want to play games about extremists on “both sides” without making any distinctions between them, then I think your moral compass needs readjustment. You are playing the same game that Republicans play when they suggest that Ukraine is really no different from Russia.

    Secondly, we’ve known for many decades that Hamas has been very public about its intentions. Rather than describe it, I’ll just quote this excellent article by two experts:

    This situation arguably was foretold 35 years ago in Hamas’ covenant. Just as Hitler’s genocidal intentions toward the Jews in his 1923 book, Mein Kampf (My Struggle), were ignored or dismissed as bluster, so too have Hamas’ identical intentions. “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it,” is how the document begins. Article 7 then clearly states, “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” And, Article 13 completely disdains negotiations or a peaceful resolution of Jewish and Palestinian territorial claims. “There is no solution for the Palestinian question,” the covenant proclaims, “except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.” Nor are these words historical artifacts. Every Hamas “military” communiqué since the attacks began has ended with the words, “It is a jihad of victory or martyrdom.”

    It wasn’t until this “attack” that Hamas acted out its desire in their full and clear brutality.

    And in my view, that means that Hamas should no longer be allowed to exist in the same way that Nazi’s and ISIS were hunted and destroyed. Not just for justice and retribution for what they are and what they have done, but it is so clearly obvious that there can never be any hope for a peaceful solution while they are the de facto government of Gaza and are a major player – and spoiler.

    So, I am primarily anti-Hamas in this fight, which makes me an ally of convenience with Israel to achieve this end, even though I disagree with and criticize Israel on many things. I’m sure there are people here who may continue to dishonestly claim that I do not care about the bad things Israel has done and is doing, but that is not true, so I will state that again here for the record.

    Secondly, I want to highlight the Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC) explanations I’ve given in previous threads. To do that, I’ll highlight the most recent Advisory Opinions podcast where David French – a lawyer and combat veteran – lays out the legalities as a legal expert. It starts at the beginning and lasts a bit over 30 minutes, with the bulk covering the history and context. If you want to cut to the chase, where he discusses the five principals of LOAC and how they actually apply to this war between Hamas and Israel, with examples from other similar conflicts in urban terrain, then listen to the roughly 5 minutes starting from the 31-minute mark. For those who’ve been reading my comments, there is not much new.

    I think this is important because what we are already seeing from some quarters are incorrect accusations of Israeli war crimes combined with silence on Hamas’ much deeper, pervasive, and constant war crimes. People who value the truth should understand what I’ve been saying on this topic, which is explained in much better detail in this podcast.

    Finally, I’d like to ask a couple of general questions:

    What Israeli actions do you personally think are appropriate and legitimate in response to Hamas’ attack, if any?

    What, if any, consequences should Hamas face for its massacre of civilians?

    I’m out, have a good week.

    13
  13. charontwo says:

    @charontwo:

    I see Yastreblyansky has a very different take than what the WaPo piece is claiming:

    https://yastreblyansky.blogspot.com/2023/10/three-things-theyre-not-talking-about.html#more

    And the last thing is the situation of Iran, which is a lot more ambiguous than you might suppose, despite reporting in the Wall Street Journal that the Iranian government is responsible for the planning of the whole outrage—the rest of the press and the US and Israeli governments don’t have evidence of it (I’ve been thinking about this since last night, when NBC’s Matt Bradley in Lebanon was on television expressing his surprise that his own sources didn’t know).

    Iran, too, has been negotiating, and not just (under those Chinese auspices) with Saudi Arabia, but with the US as well, in talks that may have culminated with the prisoner exchange of mid-August, in which $6 billion in frozen Iranian bank accounts in South Korea were transmitted to Qatar to be spent for humanitarian purposes in Iran, rousing rightwing commentary like this and Republican agitation (by people associated with Trump and Pompeo) for a war with Iran, as LGM’s Cheryl Rofer was noting just the day before the new Gaza war began. The story of Iranian involvement in the last is in the rightwing interest to spread, especially if it’s not true.

    These are things I want to be watching as the situation develops; I don’t know if they’re related or not, but we’ll see.

    https://twitter.com/Yastreblyansky/status/1711384295904866814

    Change the labels a bit and this cartoon could have gone in Der Stürmer in 1938 or so. The Iranian’s features come directly from antisemitic caricatures of those days.

    1
  14. drj says:

    @charontwo:

    I’m very skeptical of the Iran angle. Hezbollah is much more of an Iranian proxy than Hamas. And Hezbollah was clearly caught off guard. Doesn’t make much sense if Iran was coordinating it all.

    Hamas had plenty of motivation to act this way without being pushed by the Iranians.

    @charontwo:

    All that happened when the blockade was relaxed was more rearmimg.

    This is a pretty dishonest take. The blockade included much more than military or dual-use goods. What was the point of prohibiting the import of musical instruments and soccer balls except for making people miserable?

    You know what wasn’t blocked, though? Cash from Qatar that allowed Hamas to buy the loyalty of the people of the Gaza Strip. That Qatari cash was pretty much the only economic game left in town, and Netanyahu needed Hamas as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority to ensure that the latter wouldn’t be in a position to negotiate a two-state solution.

    Netanyahu and Likud created this monster. Pointing to Iran is playing their game. Again.

    7
  15. SenyorDave says:

    @Andy: I am in the camp of destroy hamas entirely*. I would hope that there is some possibility of appropriate restraint regarding civilian casualties, but I don’t hold out much hope, sinceIsrael has a pretty piss poor record of how they have dealt with Gaza.
    I also firmly believe that Israel has spent decades violating international law, and it is always strikes me as abhorrent that they suddenly quote chapter and verse regarding international law when it is on their side.
    * I assume in a few years something equally bad will replace hamas since Israel has no intention of changing anything regarding Gaza.

    14
  16. MarkedMan says:

    @Andy:

    the atrocities Hamas committed are beyond the pale. Comparing them to ISIS and the Nazi Einsatzgruppen is not, IMO, an exaggeration.

    100% agree.

    As for the rest, there is no shortage of two party conflicts in the world where both sides are barbaric. As a nation we decide whether to get involved, and the answer is usually “no” unless there is a strategic reason beyond simple morality. You feel that we need to intervene on Israel’s side for moral reasons. I do not, just as I didn’t believe that we needed to come in on apartheid South Africa’s side when the ANC and other guerilla groups committed atrocities.

    Strategic considers may apply, but you aren’t making that argument.

    7
  17. charontwo says:

    @Andy:

    I’m out, have a good week.

    Color me disappointed. You seem much better informed and knowledgeable than me, and I have valued your input.

    3
  18. charontwo says:

    @drj:

    Netanyahu and Likud created this monster. Pointing to Iran is playing their game. Again.

    You might take a look at the Yastreblyansky post I linked to upthread.

    1
  19. Stormy Dragon says:

    And, it must be emphasized, this is a war, not a punitive raid.

    What does the Law of War say about not allowing non-combatants to evacuate from the combat zone?

  20. Michael Reynolds says:

    @drj:
    Netanyahu did not ‘create this monster,’ the monster pre-existed Netanyahu. What Netanyahu did was give up on Gaza because Gaza was run by a group the Israelis called terrorists. Was that incorrect? Are Hamas not terrorists?

    The Israeli opinion of Hamas is now proven correct beyond any reasonable doubt. Hamas is a monstrous group that must be hunted down and wiped out. Full stop. Insofar as the US can help them to hunt them down, that’s what we should do.

    @JKB:
    STFU, no one who has paid any attention to your bullshit believes you give a single small fuck about Jews. You’re a MAGA cultist, a supporter of a White supremacist party and I have no doubt at all that you’d have been happy to grab a tiki torch and chant ‘Jews will not replace us.’ There may be one or two people here soft-headed enough to imagine you’re sincere, I’m not one of them. I know what you are. And I know that if your MAGA cult ever takes power again it will be you hunting Jews and slitting throats. Go fuck yourself with your concern trolling.

    7
  21. dazedandconfused says:

    @charontwo:

    Christian Amanpour’s show last night had a couple pretty high mucky-mucks from Israel, including the ex-head of Mossad. He mentioned that there is no evidence Iran was in on it, and that Hezbollah has already publicly stated they want no part of this.

    What is being reflected by that WaPo article is, IMO, the usual condition of the obsessed trying to shape all events to their agenda. The people currently consumed with hatred for Biden, or Trump, or Russia, or Netanyahu, are all trying to put a spin on this, and certainly the people who are obsessed with Iran are doing it too now. They all know how to play the outrage game with the media.

    That these people couldn’t have made this plan without outside help is patently ridiculous. They’ve been at war for generations.

    8
  22. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Stormy Dragon:
    Where would you like Gazans to evacuate to?

    Gaza borders Egypt as well as Israel, and Egypt’s border is just as closed as Israel’s. The PLA sure as hell doesn’t want them coming on over to the West Bank. Jordan? Nope. Can you name a single country that would accept two million Gazans who’ve been under the thumb of Hamas? Can you name a country that would take 200,000? How about 20,000? 2000? Two dozen?

    You have no solution, and Israel has no solution, so maybe the point is that there just is no solution at this time. Sometimes that happens. See also: Nagorno-Karabakh, Kashmir, Kurdistan . . .

    4
  23. drj says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    Netanyahu did not ‘create this monster,’ the monster pre-existed Netanyahu.

    Tal Schneider in the Times of Israel:

    For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.

    The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.

    Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad. […]

    Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.

    According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2018, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

    There have been similar reports in Haaretz and other Israeli publications.

    11
  24. SenyorDave says:

    @drj: Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.
    The last thing Netanyahu and his supporters want is any type of leadership that could have led to a Palestinian state. They would greatly prefer endless cycle of violence so they could say they have no partner for peace.

    6
  25. drj says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    Where would you like Gazans to evacuate to? […]

    You have no solution, and Israel has no solution, so maybe the point is that there just is no solution

    Yeah, let’s just commit even more war crimes instead of taking the tiniest bit of responsibility for the desperation Israel has deliberately created over the last half century or so. This time it will help keep them safe for sure!

    7
  26. Michael Reynolds says:

    @drj:
    Gaza became Gaza so to speak, in 1948 after the Israeli Independence war. Many Israeli governments have dealt with it in various ways, and Netanyahu obviously has as well. But you did not say anything that nuanced, you said that Netanyahu created this monster, and that is not the case. Netanyahu did not create Hamas, or elect Hamas in 2006, or conceptualize Islamist fanaticism. Netanyahu blockaded Gaza after Gazans elected a Hams government. He is a contributing factor, as is Iran, as is Qatar, as is the Palestinian Authority, the entire Arab world, the United Nations. . . This monster has many parents.

    5
  27. dazedandconfused says:

    djr, Michael,

    I suspect the call to “get out” from the Israelis might have been intended as a call to get out into the fields and away from the buildings. Gaza isn’t 100% city. Stating that plainly, that 2 million people go camp in the fields with no water or sanitation and make a Woodstock from hell, as it were, is rather awkward.

    2
  28. Michael Reynolds says:

    @drj:
    Still waiting for your solution. I don’t have one, you seem to think you do.

  29. Gustopher says:

    @Andy:

    Whatever you think Israel has done, Hamas is demonstrably and factually a thousand times worse.

    If you use dead civilians as the metric, this is not the case. If you get into years of life lost, that’s also not the case.

    The blockade has been devastating. 50% unemployment, massive poverty, infant mortality, food shortages, medical supply shortages… mowing the lawn.

    Hamas is shit, and needs to be wiped out. They spread a hateful ideology of antisemitism and support for genocide.

    But the reason they were able to gain control was because of the conditions in Gaza. Conditions that have been far worse, in terms of death counts, than Hamas’ attacks. Conditions that the state of Israel has been entirely comfortable letting be the status quo for decades and actively enforcing.

    Monsters on both sides. Hamas is the more showy of the monsters, the state of Israel the more effective. Root for the monster you prefer, I guess.

    I only hope that this breaks the status quo enough that people realize it can’t continue, and do the hard work of moving to a less worse status quo once this wave of killing slows.

    12
  30. Scott says:

    Just did some news channel surfing concerning Hamas/Israeli fighting. Was looking for non US news. The only news channel I found that had broadcast from within Gaza was Al-Jazeera. Different perspective.

    Just get tired of the American navel gazing of US networks where everything get turned into American political drama.

    If anyone has any suggestions, I want to hear it.

    4
  31. Gustopher says:

    @drj: Netanyahu fed the monster, he did not create it. Still not good, mind you.

    2
  32. drj says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    Still waiting for your solution. I don’t have one, you seem to think you do.

    So if you don’t have a ready solution to an intractable conflict, you can’t be opposed to blatant war crimes?

    That is the most childish comeback I’ve seen on here in a long time. And @JKB still posts here.

    8
  33. DK says:

    @drj:

    There have been similar reports in Haaretz and other Israeli publications.

    I’m still trying to figure out how and why it just gets glossed over that propping-up and funding Hamas was an official, publicly-stated policy of Netanyahu’s proto-dictatorship. Any other government who did this would be labeled a state sponsor of terror. But we’re not supposed to say anything because the culprit this time is the Prime Minister of Israel?

    Netanyahu was tangentially involved in the 1995 assassination of Yitkain Rabin, someone with views in opposition to Netanyahu and his rightwing extremists. Netanyahu first became prime minister in 1996. He didn’t help create the horrific conditions that enabled the rise of Hamas?

    Yes, he did. And he has all but said so, publicly. Frankenstein did not appear out of thin air, either.

    So if you believe as you should that Hamas are bloodthirsty terrorists directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Israelis and tens of thousands of Palestinians, it is inconsistent to then try to parse the relative “badness” of Israeli governments that have pursued elevating Hamas as a matter of policy.

    12
  34. DK says:

    @Gustopher:

    If you use dead civilians as the metric, this is not the case. If you get into years of life lost, that’s also not the case.

    Ah, but as you well know, the lives of white people matter more than brown people. So of course tens of thousands of Palestinians killed directly and indirectly by Israeli policy over the past two decades is not just as atrocious as thousands of Israelis killed by Hamas bombing and terrorism in the same time frame.

    The murders of European-descendents are by definition “worse than” those of black and brown people. Duh. Because God forbid we stop this childish compare and contrast “worse than” game and get outraged about the loss of all civilians and innocents.

    When a Palestinian starves to death, commits suicide, is shot by an Israeli soldier, blown up by a bombing authorized by the Hamas-fluffing Israeli prime minister, or withers away and dies to lack of blockaded medicine — video of it is not plastered on Twitter. So. Oh well.

    Orwell told us long ago, “All men are created equal and some are more equal than others.”

    11
  35. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Gustopher:

    I only hope that this breaks the status quo enough that people realize it can’t continue, and do the hard work of moving to a less worse status quo once this wave of killing slows.

    No one seems to have any concrete notion of how to solve the problem of Gaza. It’s a case of they should do something. The same they should do something about Haiti. Or Kurdistan.

    We – the US, but also western civilization more broadly – have two tools for influencing foreign countries: money and missiles. Throw in the weak sauce of moral suasion, but it inevitably comes down to buying or threatening. I don’t see a combination of greenbacks and GMLRS that will fix Gaza. Only Gazans can fix Gaza, but they’re under the thumb of psychopaths, which argues for annihilating Hamas and seeing what happens next.

    If Gaza managed to free itself from Hamas and install a decent, competent, not overly corrupt government you’d at least have a possibility, however faint, that Israelis would seize the opportunity to make a deal. A deal none of us can even outline let alone define. That’s my peace plan: 1) Israel wipes out Hamas along with a hell of a lot of Gazan civilians. 2) Gazans who’ve just been shot up manage to hold a constitutional convention. 3) Israel unaccountably seizes the moment and something something underpant gnomes.

    Now let’s do Kashmir.

    4
  36. Raoul says:

    The thing that is confounding to me is why would Israel allow a terrorism encampment on its border. Do you think the U.S. would allow an Al-Qaeda base by the Rio Grande? If Israel continues the current course it will inevitably encounter future massacres. The government and people of Israel would benefit if Gaza was not treated like an outdoor prison but that would take a change on how things are been managed.

    5
  37. steve says:

    “All that happened when the blockade was relaxed was more rearmimg.

    The border with Egypt was also blocked, BTW.

    It’s been very clear for a while that Israel’s intent has been to keep expanding and displacing Palestinians in the West Bank.

    Separate issue, not much connection to Gaza – or Hamas”

    It is my understanding that they were negotiating relaxing the blockade but it didnt happen. Do you have a cite for that happening? Also, it does matter quite a bit. The “good” Palestinians in the West Bank weren’t killing Israelis, playing by the rules. They even opposed Hamas, the bad Palestinians. Their reward? Israelis taking West Bank land at a record pace. The message Israel is sending by its actions, not its talk about peace or two state whatever, its actual actions show that they are dedicated to take the land away from Palestinians. Hamas runs Gaza because it was elected there. The message Israel sends to Gaza by its actions is that there is nothing they can do to negotiate a better outcome.

    “Five times Israel has offered the Palestinian Arabs a separate state. Five times they said no, Jews must die.”

    Correct, on Israeli terms. Palestinians can have peace if they give up hope of having land and accept permanent 2nd class status. The folks in Gaza can have peace if they accept Israel dictating what industries and jobs then can have and not have and knowing that anytime an Israeli official wants to get pissy they can stop the importation of necessary goods.

    “What Israeli actions do you personally think are appropriate and legitimate in response to Hamas’ attack, if any?

    What, if any, consequences should Hamas face for its massacre of civilians?”

    Easy. They should kill every Hamas member. Since Hamas hides behind civilians they are OK if they have some civilian casualties.

    Hamas should be universally condemned. Israel should stop using them to try to control the PA/Fatah. One hopes that the Gaza people would be willing to elect new leaders. However, not sure how that will matter much. Yes, it’s important to punish killers, that is important, but the facts remain. Israel aims to push out Palestinians or minimize them as much as possible. How much? They pulled their troops from Gaza to send to the West Bank to protect settlers. IOW settling more of the West Bank was so important that they told the jailers guarding the murderers at the jail for the criminally insane (Hamas in case you cant tell) to leave the jail and leave the cell doors open.

    Andy keeps saying judge people by their actions. By Israels actions it doesnt look like they considered Hamas terrorists and killers. Or if they did they were willing to risk the lives of the people living close to Gaza just to get more settlements. Probably the latter.

    Anyway, I think the point is that while nothing justifies the barbarity of the current attacks, both Hamas and Israel are responsible for keeping this in a revenge loop. The best I think we can hope for is that Gaza elects a new group that will want to kill Israelis but they will do it nicely with bombs the way that Israel kills people. Maybe they get lucky and destroy some infrastructure so that some Israelis die nicely due to inadequate supplies or lack of fuel instead of having their throats cut. On the Israeli side they need to either figure out how to talk productively with Hamas or kill them all. They need to do something to instill some trust or hope among the Palestinians. Or just be honest and tell them they might as well leave as Israel intends to control the entire area.

    Steve

    8
  38. charontwo says:

    https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/israels-calamity-and-after

    Gaza is indisputably a welter of human misery. It is a poor, overcrowded, underemployed landscape of suffering that exists under conditions of enforced isolation; it is ruled within by a corrupt theocratic regime that has not held an election in seventeen years. While the people of Gaza have languished and the world has focussed its attention elsewhere, recent Israeli governments have practiced a minimalist strategy known, in security parlance, as “shrinking the conflict.” The Israeli leadership believed it didn’t need to resolve the conflict with Palestinians in Gaza so much as ameliorate living conditions with occasional modest economic incentives. Its strategy was essentially to try to render the Palestinians invisible. After the Hamas attack, a Haaretz editorial described it as the consequence of a foreign policy that was keyed to “annexation and dispossession” and that “ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.”

    […]

    The leaders of Hamas and Iran may also have seen opportunity in the deep divisions in Israeli society and the warnings from some Israeli officials, including Dan Harel, a former director general of the Israeli Defense Ministry, that military readiness was in a reduced state. They sensed that the behavior and rhetoric of Netanyahu’s cabinet members had eroded support for Israel in the West.

    Both Iranian and Hamas officials have denied that the Iranian regime was involved in the attack, and yet Tehran has long been a crucial supporter and arms supplier to Hamas and to Hezbollah, which is based in southern Lebanon. So far, Hezbollah has not jumped full-force into the conflict. Its arsenal of missiles is vast and far more sophisticated than anything in the possession of Hamas or Islamic Jihad, another, smaller militant group. Escalation into a broader war could be catastrophic. As the author and journalist Ari Shavit told me, “If Hezbollah gets in, it’s Armageddon. Tel Aviv could be hit hard. They’ve got missiles accurate enough to hit power plants and Ben Gurion Airport.”

    […]

    Pfeffer said that for years, Israeli politicians have, despite periodic rounds of violence with militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, relegated Gaza to the periphery of their concerns. The security establishment was confident that its arsenal of drones, signals intelligence, phone surveillance, on-the-ground informants, border fences, underground sensors, and, above all, the Iron Dome missile-defense system, would keep Gaza in check.

    When I reached Shapira, the historian, at home in Tel Aviv, her outrage at the Israeli leadership was palpable. Shapira is the biographer of David Ben-Gurion, Berl Katznelson, and other pivotal figures in the founding of the state. So long as Israel remains focussed on war, she said, criticism of the security services and the government will be generally restrained. But there will almost certainly be a reckoning—as there had been for Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan, who shouldered much of the blame for the way Israel was caught by surprise in 1973.

    “I hope they won’t concentrate on the military leadership but will accuse Bibi himself,” she said. “Bibi is to blame for the fact that the Army was less prepared than it should have been. Bibi for the last ten years cultivated Hamas against the Ramallah government”—the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas—“because this was his way to disrupt the possibility that the Palestinians would unite and maybe get a better deal.”

    Even before the attack, Shapira, who is in her eighties, had already spoken about her worries about Israel’s future. An outspoken liberal, she had, a week earlier, told Haaretz that she saw a rise of messianism and the diminishment of democratic values and institutions. “I always have days,” she said, “when I think about how to get a European passport”—not for her, “it’s already a lost cause, but for my children and grandchildren.”

    Toward the end of our conversation, with the airwaves filled with images of destruction, Shapira told me that two of her grandsons, both in their early twenties, were stationed with the I.D.F. in southern Israel. As a reader of her work, I’ve always found it to be imbued with a sense of scholarly authority and confidence. But now when I asked her what might be ahead, she struggled: “People are so outraged that they are willing to give the Army almost carte blanche in Gaza. On the other hand, what will happen to everyone? What about the captives? Babies and mothers, girls, and old people. This is a situation that we have never seen before.”

    2
  39. charontwo says:

    @steve:

    One hopes that the Gaza people would be willing to elect new leaders.

    Corrupt minority leaders can be pretty entrenched. Look no farther than the widely hated mullahs running Iran.

    By Israels actions it doesnt look like they considered Hamas terrorists and killers.

    As has already been abundently noted in these threads, they did a great job conning suckers like Netanyahu of their intentions, part of why this will blow back on Bibi.

    They need to do something to instill some trust or hope among the Palestinians. Or just be honest and tell them they might as well leave as Israel intends to control the entire area.

    Israel does not claim to control Gaza, it is self-governing, by Hamas in power for the past 17 years.

  40. DK says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    No one seems to have any concrete notion of how to solve the problem of Gaza.

    In which we pretend like the United States, the UN, the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, and others have not spent nearly two decades urging Netanyahu’s governments to stop breaking international law, halt settlement building, and boost secular Palestinians.

    Instead, Israeli voters concentrated power in the hands of religious extremists and Netanyahu, who thought it smart to, in his own words, “bolster” and “fund” Hamas, Islamofascist terrorists committeed to the genocide of Jews — Bibi’s attempt to sideline Palestinian moderates and block a two-state solution.

    Problems that have taken decades to create cannot be solved overnight. Israel can start by listening to its allies, getting rid of Netanyahu, following international law rather than breaking it, and electing leaders committed to a Palestinian state.

    Secular and moderate Palestinians must disavow Hamas, eschew terrorism, and commit to a two-state solution. Those who do should be bolstered and bribed, not Hamas.

    First, the Hamas Frankenstein monster has to be decapitated and burned, ashes scattered. Per usual, this process means poor civilians suffer the most.

    12
  41. Gustopher says:

    @charontwo:

    Israel does not claim to control Gaza, it is self-governing, by Hamas in power for the past 17 years.

    Through the blockade, the state of Israel controls the vast majority of what can enter the occupied territories. They control the electricity, the food and the water. They control the internet.

    They periodically bomb Gaza as their “mowing the lawn”.

    That is not a self-governing in any meaningful sense of the word.

    And that’s before we get into policies of Netanyahu boosting Hamas to keep a two state solution off the table, if those claims are accurate (I don’t know the relative legitimacy of Israeli news organizations)

    5
  42. charontwo says:

    @Gustopher:

    Through the blockade, the state of Israel controls the vast majority of what can enter the occupied territories. They control the electricity, the food and the water. They control the internet.

    You are so full of shit.

    https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/israel-hamas-war-executing-hostages-rcna119521

    Hamas has stolen millions in foreign aid dollars earmarked to build Gaza hospitals and schools and instead used them to operate a terror network that stretches throughout the Gaza Strip. It is using the entire population as a civilian shield as Israel masses troops along the perimeter.

    https://www.cfr.org/blog/foreign-aid-hamas

    I’ve written about a half dozen times in the past about UNRWA, the UN agency that deals with Palestinians: here in 2014 and here in 2015, for example. Simply put, UNRWA has long had employees who were sympathetic to Hamas, and who engaged in acts of anti-Semitism, but it has overlooked their actions and indeed often protected them. That appears to be the culture of the place.

    In the last week we’ve learned something new: that employees of other leading charitable and development agencies like World Vision and the UN Development Program (UNDP) may also be diverting funds to Hamas. Israel has detained employees of both World Vision and UNDP. Australia has frozen contributions to World Vision’s Gaza programs until the entire matter can be sorted out, and the German offices of World Vision have frozen their own programs in Gaza.

    I’ve written about a half dozen times in the past about UNRWA, the UN agency that deals with Palestinians: here in 2014 and here in 2015, for example. Simply put, UNRWA has long had employees who were sympathetic to Hamas, and who engaged in acts of anti-Semitism, but it has overlooked their actions and indeed often protected them. That appears to be the culture of the place.

    In the last week we’ve learned something new: that employees of other leading charitable and development agencies like World Vision and the UN Development Program (UNDP) may also be diverting funds to Hamas. Israel has detained employees of both World Vision and UNDP. Australia has frozen contributions to World Vision’s Gaza programs until the entire matter can be sorted out, and the German offices of World Vision have frozen their own programs in Gaza.

    2
  43. Gustopher says:

    @Michael Reynolds: If it was easy, it would have been done by now.

    Any attempt at normalizing relations and working towards peace with the occupied territories is going to be high risk, with the possibility of high reward, for the Israeli PM.

    Or they can contain the Palestinians (one third of the population of Israel’s territory)
    and hope it doesn’t blow up on their watch — and this tends to be the short term lowest risk.

    The next few months are going to be an absolute fucking shitshow. If the Israelis just decapitate Hamas, then a new version will just pop up, and we do this again in another few years.

    You’re right that only Gaza can fix Gaza — but only with conditions that are actually going to let them.

    Big changes need to happen to the blockade to make it more survivable. There needs to be some effort to get that unemployment down — it’s almost twice Great Depression levels.

    4
  44. charontwo says:

    @Gustopher:

    As I said above about you,

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/israel-says-gaza-world-vision-director-diverted-millions-to-hamass-military-wing/2016/08/04/22e6c1ef-b18c-4d0a-9b81-497a3ec250ef_story.html

    JERUSALEM — The Gaza head of the U.S.-based humanitarian aid organization World Vision funneled as much as $7 million a year over the past 10 years to Hamas’s terror activities, Israel’s domestic security agency said Thursday.

    The Shin Bet said the aid group’s Gaza director, Mohammed el-Halabi, is an active figure in Hamas’s military wing. He was indicted by Israeli authorities Thursday, accused of diverting some 60 percent of World Vision’s annual budget for Gaza to Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that rules the coastal enclave. He was charged with transferring money and working with a terror group.

    Hamas is viewed as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union. Israel has fought three wars with Hamas since 2009.

    In addition to the $7 million a year in funds transferred to Hamas coffers, Shin Bet said, Halabi also handed over to Hamas piles of cash — an additional $1.5 million a year. The Israelis also said he gave Hamas $800,000 taken from a United Kingdom donation to help build a Hamas military base. The money was designated for civilian projects in the Gaza Strip, Israeli authorities said.

    World Vision is among the largest Christian charities in the world and receives considerable funding from the United Nations and Western governments. Operating in more than 100 countries, it has a budget of $2.6 billion.

    In a statement Thursday, the charity said it was “shocked to learn of the charges” against Halabi and called for Israel to facilitate a fair legal process.

    https://www.cfr.org/blog/foreign-aid-hamas

    Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president of Israeli legal advocacy group Shurat HaDin, said her organization warned World Vision four years ago its funding was being diverted to armed militant groups in Gaza. She said she discovered this while her group researched a lawsuit against the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which in the past was involved in attacking Israelis. She said the PFLP used front organizations that appeared as beneficiaries on the World Vision web site. Darshan-Leitner said she is exploring suing World Vision in the United States for aiding and abetting terrorism.”Foreign NGOs want to give money to Gaza,” Darshan-Leitner said, even as they “ignore all the signs that their money is diverted to terrorism.”

    2
  45. Gustopher says:

    @charontwo:

    You are so full of shit.

    Are you claiming there is no blockade? That Israel does not control the vast majority of what goes in?

    Do you believe a people can be self-governing in such a state?

    If we lock you in your house and slip things through the mail slot, are you self-governing? I mean, you aren’t shitting your pants while chained to a radiator, so there’s self-governance, but it’s not so much that I would say you are self-governing.

    11
  46. steve says:

    “As has already been abundently noted in these threads, they did a great job conning suckers like Netanyahu of their intentions, part of why this will blow back on Bibi.”

    You do know that Hamas launched rockets and killed an Israeli as recently as May? Do you, can you really believe this was just a matter of being suckered? Hamas has attacked so many times. They did it just 5 months before this attack and after May the defenses were stripped. It took hours to get troops back. How long has Netanyahu been a prime minister, largely based on his security measures against terrorism? He might be corrupt but he is good at politics, I think even his critics would give him that. Seems much, much more likely that he got a few words of cover so he could do what he and his party really want to do, settle the entire West Bank. There is no other logical explanation for pulling the troops out of the Gaza area to the degree that they did.

    “Israel does not claim to control Gaza, it is self-governing, by Hamas in power for the past 17 years.”

    Well, ignoring the Israeli writers who claim that Israel plays PA/Fatah and Hamas against each other to make sure that neither ever achieves good leadership, does Gaza really control itself when Israel decides what it can import and export? When Gaza cant import steel and concrete. Where Israel decides that it cant have too much medical equipment because it could be used for bad purposes? When Israel decides how much fuel and electricity Gaza needs so that Gaza needs to resort to donkeys? They cant leave or re-enter unless Israel approves. That’s not control.

    The end result is the highest (or almost) unemployment in the world. Their reward if they behave like “good” Palestinians? They get treated like the West Bank. So, to be extra clear, I think it should be clear that there is lots of bad faith on both sides and both are guilty of bad behaviors. The bad behavior by Hamas always gets lots of coverage, and it’s usually well deserved as they are pretty awful and probably fair to say evil, but the bad behaviors by Israel tend to not get covered or ignored. So really, it’s a revenge loop and it largely is nonsense spending a lot of time placing blame. There is no good way out. Extra special bad killings need to be condemned, like we see now, but the nice clean killings used by Israel, bombings, delaying medical supplies so people die quietly, also perpetuate the revenge loop.

    Steve

    6
  47. SenyorDave says:

    @steve: Their reward if they behave like “good” Palestinians? They get treated like the West Bank.
    IMO this might be the key point. the West Bank has a pretty low amount of terrorism considering the behavior of Israel towards the Palestinians who live there. And their reward is to treated as barely human. If I were a 12 year old boy who watched his family, especially his dad, being subjected to daily humiliations by 18 year old pimply faced kids, I can imagine I would not have warm fuzzies towards Israelis.

    8
  48. charontwo says:

    @Gustopher:

    Are you claiming there is no blockade? That Israel does not control the vast majority of what goes in?

    I am pointing out that Hamas controls what happens to anything that enters, and what it is used for, often not what it was sent in for. You seem pretty determined to not grasp that.

    Also, the Israelis claim more what be sent in were it not so aggressively diverted and misused.

    1
  49. SenyorDave says:

    @charontwo: Also, the Israelis claim more what be sent in were it not so aggressively diverted and misused.
    I don’t think the current government of Israel is to be trusted, anymore than the Trump administration should have been trusted. Netanyahu is a smarter version of Trump, and half his cabinet seem to be overt bigots.

    6
  50. charontwo says:

    @SenyorDave:

    Hamas has been in control of Gaza continuously for 17 years, while Israel has had several governments.

    1
  51. Kevin says:

    We’re having the same goddamn “debate” we have after every mass shooting. It’s not the time to talk about gun control. We have to help the survivors. We don’t need to talk about how easy it is to get guns. We’ll put police in all the schools. Why are you defending school shooters?

    No one is arguing in favor of Hamas. We’re saying that Hamas isn’t the root of the problem. Like it or not, Israel has to figure out how to deal with their neighbors, and the 33% of their population they want to pretend doesn’t exist. Otherwise we’re going to keep having the same goddamn conversation, and innocent people and kids are going to keep dying.

    8
  52. Gustopher says:

    @JKB: since you just parrot right wing talking points, here’s one for you:

    An armed society is a polite society.

    4
  53. Gustopher says:

    @charontwo:

    Hamas has been in control of Gaza continuously for 17 years

    “Control.” Sure, Jan.

    Control greatly limited by the state of Israel. There’s a reason these are called the Occupied Territories, and it’s not because Palestinians are occupying them.

    4
  54. charontwo says:

    @Gustopher:

    Control greatly limited by the state of Israel. There’s a reason these are called the Occupied Territories, and it’s not because Palestinians are occupying them.

    False. Israel has had no presence within Gaza for 17 years.

    For you all’s info:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/hamas-covenant-israel-attack-war-genocide/675602/

    When Hamas Tells You Who They Are, Believe Them

    A close read of Hamas’s founding documents shows their genocidal intentions

    No point to quoting excerpts, couldn’t do justice to the whole thing.

    1
  55. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Gustopher: I thought it was more “Squirrel!!! Over there!!”

    ETA: That and two people talking past each other.

    2
  56. steve says:

    Do we have a semantics issue here. If I locked you up in a cell and controlled when you could leave and for how long, if I controlled what could enter your cell, as long as I left you alone while in the cell you would consider yourself in control of your life.

    Yup. Hamas is evil. They want to destroy Israel. I dont think anyone is really disputing that. Most of us hope that Hamas gets killed off. Crush them. Gonna have to kill a few civilians in order to kill Hamas? That sucks but it’s understood so go ahead. The issue at hand is whether or not we want to look at causes and if we do does Israel bear some blame. Some of us making the case believe that Israel has flaws. Based upon Israel’s actual behavior, not what they say, their goal is to eliminate Palestinians from the West Bank. Based upon their attempts at “peace” where they talk with countries hundreds of miles away but not with Palestinians it doesnt look like Israel is interested in a 2 state solution or any solution other than Palestinians go away. The people of Gaza know this so they can vote for someone who says they will fight or someone who will work nicely with Israel while they slowly get eliminated/displaced. That Israel makes claims they let in food and medical supplies but when independent parties work in Gaza we learn that there are real, harmful shortages.

    BTW, do you have that cite for where Israel recently relaxed import restrictions?

    Steve

    4
  57. charontwo says:

    Guess who is right there agreeing with you all folks:

    https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1711721613610324242

    Putin finally makes his first comments on the Israel-Palestine war.

    He says it’s “a clear example of the failure of US policy in the Middle East” for not “taking the core interests of the Palestinian people into account” and working to create an independent Palestinian state.

    Hey – Guess what?

    https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1711843002388283551

    Targeting becomes challenging when military installations are mixed with civilian infrastructure, particularly in urban areas like Donetsk and Luhansk, where Russian forces frequently operate alongside civilians and utilize active civilian facilities.

    https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1711777379553624409

    So Putin just plainly conned Netanyahu.
    The tactics of staying neutral regarding Ukraine in exchange for Russian deterrence of Iran and its proxies in the region have failed miserably.
    It’s now Russia that depends on Tehran – the dirty magic of Putin’s failure in Ukraine.

    2
  58. DrDaveT says:

    @charontwo:

    I am pointing out that Hamas controls what happens to anything that enters, and what it is used for, often not what it was sent in for. You seem pretty determined to not grasp that.

    So, if you are locked in your house and fed through the mail slot, and you have a creepy roommate who steals it all before you can eat… you are self-governing? Or she is?

    You seem to be conflating Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls internal Gaza operations, with Gaza, a region populated by Palestinians and currently operated as a concentration camp by Israel. The “government” (if we can dignify them with that word) is not the people, any more than Trump and his enablers were America.

    Earlier, you wrote:

    There used to be Israeli settlers in Gaza, since withdrawn – Israel has abandoned territorial ambitions there.

    The first half of that is unquestionably true. The second half assumes facts not in evidence — I’m pretty sure that Israel will be happy to reclaim Gaza once there aren’t enough Palestinians left there to be a bother to them.

    3
  59. charontwo says:

    @DrDaveT:

    Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls internal Gaza operations,

    How is that not the sovereignty of what amounts to a city-state? But yeah, they have managed to foreign policy themselves into a retaliatory invasion now.

    I’m pretty sure that Israel will be happy to reclaim Gaza once there aren’t enough Palestinians left there to be a bother to them.

    I would call that an absurd fantasy, I’m obviously not living in your alternate reality.

    I guess Andy had the right idea, I should just bail on all this fucking nonsense.

    1
  60. DrDaveT says:

    @charontwo:

    How is that not the sovereignty of what amounts to a city-state?

    I don’t even understand the question. I am pointing out that the ordinary citizens of Gaza are not Hamas, any more than the ordinary citizens of Russia are Vladimir Putin or the ordinary citizens of Libya were Ghaddafi. I would be content to see all of Hamas exterminated tomorrow, but I do care about actual ordinary Palestinians, who have been living in a hellhole (engineered by Israel) for quite a while now. You seem to be equating the two; if I have that wrong, please clarify.

    3
  61. DK says:

    @Kevin:

    No one is arguing in favor of Hamas.

    Except the Prime Minister of Israel and his allies, according to Haaretz and the Times of Isreal.

    7
  62. SenyorDave says:

    @DrDaveT: No point in arguing with someone who has taken a position and decides it is correct no matter what points opponents make. The idea that Israel does not control Gaza is absurd. It is like saying that the Bantustans were independent, self-governing territories that could operate freely. In reality they operated totally within whatever limitations South Africa wanted to place on them. Israel has total control of the economy of Gaza, which means they have de facto control over Gaza.

    7
  63. Assad K says:

    Assuming that Israel ‘destroys Hamas’ (which they have tried before, unsuccessfully) what will they do differently with Gaza that would prevent Hamas 2.0 from arising? I mean, there will be plenty of people who will have lost friends and family who had nothing to do with Hamas.

    1
  64. JKB says:

    @Assad K: what will they do differently with Gaza that would prevent Hamas 2.0 from arising

    Re-occupy and administer by the IDF as they did before the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. Before Israel turned Gaza over the Palestinian control the area was under modernization and could have become a beach destination for Europe. Yes, Jewish settlers were a mistake but Israel force them to leave when Gaza was turned over ot Palestinian control. Hamas flipped all that, turning sewer system into tunnels for terrorists to invade Israel to murder and rape.

    This is a war and either Gaza is controlled by Israel in the future or they find their own sources of water and electricity as who in Israel would support Israel returning to supplying rapists and murderers for free again.

  65. Kevin says:

    @JKB: OK, and what happens to the Palestinians who live there? Israeli leaders want the land without the people. Do they show that they’re truly an apartheid state, and remove the pretense that they’re working really hard to solve the problem they’ve had for sixty years?

    Also, please go back over the past few articles and please answer the questions you were asked about your last set of assertions.