Israelis Divided on Ground Offensive
A poll on Israeli support.
Haartez reports: Israeli Poll Finds 49% Support Holding Off on Gaza Ground Offensive.
Asked if the military should immediately escalate to a large-scale ground offensive, 29 percent of Israelis agreed while 49 percent said “it would be better to wait” and 22 percent were undecided, the poll published in the Maariv newspaper said.
The daily said the results contrasted with its Oct. 19 poll that found 65 percent support for a major ground offensive.
“From a breakdown of the answers, it emerges that there is no division in accordance with political camp or demographics, and that it is almost certain that the developments on the matter of the hostages, which is now topping the agenda, have had a great impact on this shift [in opinion],” Maariv wrote.
[…]
Maariv polled a representative sample of 522 adult Israelis. The margin of error was 4.3 percent, the newspaper said.
I cannot speak to the quality of the poll nor to the exact quality of Maariv (Wikipedia tells me is it a centrist-oriented publication). It is published in Hebrew, so I cannot go to the source. I do know that Haaretz is a respectable outlet.
I share this because it illustrates a couple of points.
First, not surprisingly, opinion is fluid as we get some distance from the shock and horror of 10/7.
Second, and really the main reason this caught my eye, it underscores that those of us who had some doubts about the ground offensive from the start have a lot of company. Specifically, it turns out we have a lot of Israeli Jewish company who are being directly affected by the violence and whose opinions carry more weight, in my view, than any of ours.
Of course, this does not tell any of us what the right next step is. It doesn’t even tell us why the respondents think what they think. But it does indicate that perhaps it is okay for intelligent people to disagree about the wisdom of a ground offensive without it degenerating into vitriol and accusations of soft-headed liberal squishiness (or worse).
As I have said in various comment threads, I agree that Israel has the right to retaliate and I agree that Hamas committed heinous human rights violations. I do not know what the best course of action is (I expect that most of us don’t), but I know enough to know that no course of action is an especially good one (and, I would stress again, that reasonable people can disagree on the next steps).
I do fear for the consequences to Gaza, both in terms of short-term suffering and long-term escalation.
I will also say that I do not think it is unreasonable to note that violence can beget more violence. It is not axiomatically the case, because yes, sometimes either an adversary is thoroughly defeated or both sides simply tire of fighting. But it is odd (and ahistorical) in my view, for observers to look at the current conflict and not see that this present violence is very much based in the violence of the past.*
As a side note, speaking as a person who studies Colombia, it is rather impossible not to see how, in fact, yes, violence can be part of a long-term, ever-evolving process of violence and retaliation (as well as how one set of violence actions can lead to long-term resentments and fuel future violence). I would further note that Israel can raze Gaza to the ground and that will not prevent some future groups from relatively low-tech terrorism. It isn’t like Hamas has some sophisticated infrastructure (apart from the tunnels) that is going to be taken out. Busting through a wall and causing chaos for a few hours does not require the resources of even a quasi-state. And I do think it is reasonable to assume that there will be a new crop of Gazans who will be easy to radicalize after this is all over with.
And my ongoing references to 9/11, which I still think some readers are misunderstanding, is that immediate emotional reaction to awful crimes can lead to reactions that may have long-term negative consequences.
And you don’t believe me (or Ezra Klein), I heard this this week from some guy named Biden
When I was in Israel yesterday, I said that when America experienced the hell of 9/11, we felt enraged as well. While we sought and got justice, we made mistakes. So, I cautioned the government of Israel not to be blinded by rage.
This seems to me to be a reasonable word of caution.
*Some day I may do a full write-up about why I think most references to WWII are simply not useful. The simple version is that I think too many folks see WWII as the quintessential model for war when it really is an outlier. I think that WWII is unique (or near unique) as a model of conflict for a host of reasons. For example, the horror of the Holocaust makes the war in Europe in particular, into one of the clearest cases of war as good v. evil that one could ask for (and decades of pop culture have reinforced that fact). Also, the fact that Germany, Japan, and Italy all become fast friends with the US, the UK, France, etc. creates a belief that if you pummel the adversary enough they can be made into enduring allies. Most wars are not so clean in either their moral underpinnings or in their post-war success stories. It is impossible to tell a similar morality tale, for example, about Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq (just to name four US-centric cases). And don’t get me started about US military involvement in Latin America.
To be clear, I am not a pacifist. I understand the need for directed violence, it is just that over time I keep seeing that the righteousness of the cause and the intended goals of that violence often do not work out the way it seemed they would when everyone was running on anger and adrenaline.
Side note on violence begetting violence. Do we have WWII if the Germans don’t have long-term resentments about the end of WWI? Do we even end up with the Nazis in control of Germany? Yes, that is a simplistic point, but after all, this is a footnote to a blog post. But still, I think it is worth thinking about.
I hope we can put aside our differences and all agree that these 49% of Israelis are vicious anti-semites and should be silenced and forced out of their jobs.
I mean, if anyone in America stated this position, that’s what some of our posters would call them. So we should at least stay consistent.
@wr: At least no one is calling anyone “surrender monkeys”…
…yet.
@wr: Only 29% agreed that “the military should immediately escalate to a large-scale ground offensive” with the rest undecided or opposed, so really over 70% of Israelis are anti-semites, a fact I bring up more in sadness than in anger.
Agreed, on all counts. One of the things I personally have not seen well addressed by advocates for the ground invasion is what happens after it. This is not my area of expertise, but I can’t help but think that, if the goal is to eliminate Hamas, then Israel will have to necessarily go into the business of “nation building”–or just accept that within a decade or so things will be back to the current status quo.
I say this because Hamas was the government in Gaza. And with the civil infrastructure decimated, someone is going to need to put the pieces back together and form a functioning government.
And I think we all have seen how well nation-building in these situations has gone in the past.
@mattbernius:
From the first @James post on the Hamas massacre and the likely Israeli military response the question was, what then? Of course the sad truth is that there is no significant group on either side that is willing to make the necessary compromises to have a peaceful resolution.
My take is that gap exists because this action isn’t a ”policy decision” to begin with, merely an act of revenge/retribution/quid pro quo (take your pick). Further, it was never able to be a policy decision because there is no policy regarding Palestine and Palestinians other than recognizing an enemy to begin with.
So yeah, return to status quo it is. Still, “God gave this land to me,” so…
@wr:
You keep up your brave, lonely struggle against fantasy opponents, @wr. The other day you accused me of calling for the extermination of Gazans, which is flatly untrue. (Pretty sure you were referring to a speculative comment by our mutual friend, @Eddie.)
My position has been and remains:
1) Still waiting for someone to offer a realistic solution.
2) I don’t like lazy use of ‘genocide’ or ‘indiscriminate’ because neither is true, and leveling the genocide accusation at Jews is standard anti-semitism meant to denigrate the importance of the Holocaust.
3) Israel will go in because Israel has to go in because anything short of massive attrition of Hamas just invites another Hamas attack. So they will, they have, and it’ll be bloody.
4) And finally that this is a tragedy, in that there is no good answer. See #1 above.
Angry rants are not a substitute for a plan. Have you got one?
@wr:
They’re also naïve moralists who don’t understand war.** Because what if the UK had had this attitude during WW2 or something.
**Typed from the comfort of my chickenhawk privilege, some thousands of miles away from any war zone.
@Michael Reynolds:
Bahahahahaha. Self-awareness not our strong suit, huh?
Such solutions have been quoted here and elsewhere, and are not difficult to find except for people dedicated to ignoring and dismissing them.
@mattbernius:
Israel will have no choice but to try though, as its future security depends on it. The status quo is unsustainable, and failure is not necessarily inevitable.
@DK:
Gee, I guessed I must have missed that. Can you summarize your plan for Gaza?
@Michael Reynolds:
Doubt you missed it, you’re not illiterate. More likely you’re just arguing in bad faith, again. No I’m not going to repeat myself for the virulently non-persuadable, because why waste energy on the impervious?
If you’re actually interested in finding such ideas — and not just in ignoring and dismissing them with “angry rants” as you’ve been doing — you can review the many threads already posted here, replete with relevant quotes/citations from even Israeli sources.
I don’t see that the ground war will accomplish anything long-term for the safety of Israel. There just isn’t much there to disrupt that can’t be rebuilt almost immediately — a few dead Hamas folks who can be replaced.
Just a lot of dead civilians for no real benefit.
The only outcomes are: two states, one multiethnic state, and more of this back and forth violence for the next N years.
This assault doesn’t advance any of those other than more back and forth violence, and we can get there without so many civilian deaths.
Mr.Reynolds asks what the solution is, but he cannot explain why the path Israel is on doesn’t lead to this happening again in 2025?
@DK:
Oh puh-leeze. Does your secret Canadian girlfriend have the plan? I’ve asked the same question again and again and gotten nothing back.
@Gustopher:
Uh huh, because as I’ve said repeatedly, there is no good solution.
@Michael Reynolds:
Not true. Maybe your secret Canadian boyfriend dropped you on your head, and you forgot.
A matter of opinion. And which is it? No solution, or just none you like? Which is not the same thing.
@DK:
Then I apologize for missing it. Perhaps you’d favor me with a link.
@Michael Reynolds:
Absolutely not, I don’t play the internet debate link game. It typically involves people who are dedicated to believing what they want regardless reality sending you on wild goose chases for sources and citations they’ve already decided to disregard and dismiss. Waste of time.
You apparently were uninterested when these ideas were originally bandied about, reinforcing this.
There’s links, thoughtful (and nasty) debate, and copious quotes in previous threads on this topic, you are welcome to review them.
@DK:
And I’m the one arguing in bad faith? You’ve now written what, three comments refusing to even offer up a few bullet points?
ETA: And anyone else who has a solution to Gaza, jump on in.
@DK: Reynolds is being disingenuous, to be sure, but in the absence of parties seeking to implement solutions the fact that solutions are available may be moot.
@Michael Reynolds:
This may well be the case, but that doesn’t mean that differing choices don’t have different moral calculations.
@Gustopher: Reynolds is not interested in explaining anything. His role here is voice crying in the wilderness/prophet without a country moaning “there is no workable solution.” While he is right, he’s also pointless and dull.
ETA: As I think about it more, the sad part of Reynold’s lament is that it fuels the “no reason for Israel to not continue with its plan (???)” argument so many are making. 🙁
@Michael Reynolds:
Have you offered one? I don’t understand why you think “what’s your plan?” is supposed to be some kind of retort to concerns that a ground invasion and commensurate humanitarian crisis without any plan as to what to do next might not be a good idea.
” 49 percent said “it would be better to wait” and 22 percent were undecided, ”
Suspect that a lot of these people are ones with family in the IDF. Israel has generally been pretty casualty averse. A ground offensive puts soldiers at risk and the competency of the current leadership is suspect. Bombing is much safer but it’s not that good for targeting Hamas.
The likely solution is that Israel kills enough people to think they have gained revenge falling short of killing off Hamas. Then they establish a much larger security zone on the Gaza side. Then make sure its is staffed with IDF and dont send them all off to the West Bank. Rinse and repeat when there is a rocket attack.
Steve
@Michael Reynolds:
You keep saying that as if it is dispositive. It is not.
The statement “engaging in actions that kill or injure an enourmous amount of civilians is a bad idea” is sufficient and correct on its own. Voicing it does not obligate someone to provide a solution to the original problem.
@Michael Reynolds:
Then why are you upset that people have not provided a solution?
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
True. But everything we say here is moot — none of us have real power, except helping to bend opinion in our own tiny little orbits. Which is what everyone should be doing on all issues.
Israel will either have to try to live peacefully with its neighbors or the players can slowly destroy each other. Netanyahu’s too-clever-by-half plan — blocking a two-state solution by bolstering terrorists, sidelining moderate and secular Palestinians, and endorsing “settler” violence — is not working.
If Israelis want more failure after this war, they can just keep doing what they were doing. It’s their necks not mine. Hamas isn’t storming/bombing L.A., DeKalb County, or Mitte. The US is at peace with its neighbors and regularly absorbs would-be internal belligerents. Israel’s problems are for Israel to fix. Or not.
@DK: Accurate on all counts. Well said.
@Steven L. Taylor:
No, for the obvious reason I’ve stated repeatedly: ain’t no good plan, just shitty plans. If I had a plan I’m not shy, I’d have proposed it. As to why I think pointing out that there’s no plan is a retort it’s because we’re all full of condemnation and expressions of woe and blame, that should, IMO, come with a proposal for how things might be handled better. When you criticize our electoral system, for example, you invariably suggest a better alternative.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Yes, the truth is often boring. Much more fun to criticize from the safe seats and cry, ‘won’t somebody think of the children?’
Here’s why there is no solution:
1) Two people want the same hamburger.
2) Neither person is interested in accepting half a hamburger.
3) So long as there is just one hamburger and neither party will accept less than a whole one, no solution is possible.
4) Especially so once the hamburger disagreement starts to involve burning children alive or dropping bombs.
@Jon:
No, it’s not. That’s just a commonplace, a virtue signal that has no relationship to what’s happening.
I’m not remotely upset. Just stating a fact. Maybe it’s just me, but see, when I criticize an action or a position, I feel an obligation to offer a better solution. Otherwise I’m just sniping. If action ‘A’ is wrong, what action ‘B’ would be right?
@Michael Reynolds: Israel has in the last several weeks engaged in actions that have killed at least 7,000 Palestinians and injured at least 19,000 more. That is unequivocally true. How then does the statement “engaging in actions that kill or injure an enormous amount of civilians is a bad idea” have no relationship to what is happening?
@Jon:
Because the reality is that sometimes you kill children. It’s fucking awful, but in every war ever fought since the dawn of time, innocents have been killed. When we landed in Normandy we killed approximately 20,000 French civilians, surely including children. Was it a bad thing to land in Normandy? Had we not we’d have ensured the annihilation of the last few Jews, Roma, gays etc… Had we not we’d have ensured that the war went on for years, resulting in how many deaths of children? Should we have left the 3rd Reich alone because we didn’t want to kill innocents?
These are not the choices we get in war. In war all the options are bad. All of them kill people. I’ll take the liberty of reprinting the open letter we posted for fans upset at the lack of a facile triumph at the end of Animorphs:
@Michael Reynolds:
Then why jump for the option that kills a lot of civilians? And likely a fair number of Israeli soldiers? And makes other Israeli soldiers do terrible things that will change them forever?
Israel could say “retaliatory strikes are complete” tonight, and have as much medium term (5 years out) impact as killing folks for the next three months.
“Better to wait” might mean let’s do more bombing first; “undecided” might mean that the respondent thinks that they don’t have sufficient personal information to make a big strategic decision right now. Let’s not use every little thing to merely reinforce our prejudices and score debaters’ points.
@Michael Reynolds: All of which has nothing to do with what you claimed, which is that “engaging in actions that kill or injure an enormous amount of civilians is a bad idea” is “just a commonplace, a virtue signal that has no relationship to what’s happening.”
And c’mon, nobody is denying that children get killed in war; it’s one of the big reasons people are arguing for restraint. WWII is not a great comparison either, as Dr. Taylor points out in the original post above and as people have pointed out in recent comments threads for other posts on this topic.
@Slugger:
I refer you to the OP:
@Gustopher:
100% this. It is really what I don’t get from his position and his insistence that stating that there are no good options is somehow a good retort.
I remember reading an article a while ago (well prior to the Hamas attack) that indicated in almost every poll American Jews are more likely to push for military action than Israeli Jews. There is not much nuance, and that applies to past Gaza offensives. There seems to be a lot of the “kill em’ all, let God sort of them” mentality.
@Jon:
I use WW2 because most of the people here are Americans and Americans only acknowledge about half our wars and generally know little about them. If I reference the Philippines war I’ll just get blank stares.
Wars are, to put it mildly, immoral, but in the 5000 years or so of history that we know even a little bit about, war kept happening. It keeps happening because homo sapiens is territorial and tribal. What we have here in Gaza is a case of immovable object and unstoppable force. Hamas wanted a war, Israel obliged. Did Israel help create the conditions for this war? Duh. But whatever the antecedents at bottom we have two tribes fighting over one territory. The human ‘solution’ to that problem has been approximately a million wars.
My ‘position’ on this war is that it is a tragedy – a story without happy ending, a story of pain and suffering. This is why war is a bad idea – all the killing. Israel and Hamas both contributed to laying the groundwork and if we had a time machine that might matter. We don’t. So what matters is what we have: two peoples who want the same hamburger. Hamas decided to trigger this particular war and now Israel is doing what people do in wars: try to destroy the ability of the enemy to wage war.
@Jon:
Here, I’ll give you something from a different war as illustration. My Dad was Army, 20 years, mostly dealing with boats – landing craft, then the Army yacht (when they had one) and finally an ocean-going tug. He did two tours in Vietnam.
One moonless night he had his boat anchored in the river. There had been warnings of saboteurs swimming out to boats and attaching mines or tossing grenades. On this night my Dad, the skipper, saw a dark shape come up over the side. Two possibilities: 1) Vietcong saboteur, or 2) hungry kid looking to scrounge some food. If (1) and he did nothing, his crew might have been killed. If (2) and he did something, he’d take an innocent life and suffer the personal consequences.
As it turned out he never knew if it was 1 or 2. He fired a pistol and the dark figure fell back in the water. Did he kill a kid? Maybe. Did he save his crew? Maybe.
Middle East peace at the governmental level was advancing. The Saudis were looking to make a deal, which would be the long-awaited Peace In The Middle-East. But the Saudis believe that no peace can come until Hamas is destroyed. The UAE agrees. Egypt agrees. Jordan agrees. If Syria had a government, they’d agree. Peace depends on the annihilation of Hamas. No more 67 war, no more 73 war, no more government-on-government war. But only if Hamas is destroyed.
So, let Hamas go and doom a larger peace? Let Hamas go and strengthen Iran, which endangers all the governments? Or annihilate Hamas, perhaps salvage a larger peace, an end to wars that might kill thousands of children. . . at a present day cost of thousands of children. Choose your own adventure.
@Michael Reynolds: Actually, they don’t have to go in. They have the option of deciding the place, means, and manner of how they will respond. But it takes leadership to not get forced into Hamas’s expectations. If Israel had leadership, they wouldn’t be in the scenario they currently find themselves in.
They could actually achieve the same ends with targeted raids and strikes over a long period of time. But because they have no leadership, they will be snookered into the most punitive response to themselves. It’s what everyone wants to see… just like the schoolyard fight by the flagpole at 3pm. The party that doesn’t show is effectively the loser.
You don’t necessarily have to counter a landed Haymaker with another Haymaker. You can knock the opponent out with jab after jab after jab after jab. Not entertaining but equally as effective.
As I mentioned before, both belligerents are locked in a collective punishment cycle. The need for instant gratification, the desire for immediate results, etc, will blind most of their decision making.
@Michael Reynolds: I don’t recall anybody in any of these posts or comment threads on this topic ever advocating for letting Hamas go unpunished. The question has always been what an appropriate response looks like, and what the long term plan is after that.
Roughly we have one group saying Israel should slow down, take a deep breath, and come up with a plan to get rid of Hamas that doesn’t include the death of large numbers of civilians. We have another group who I think is saying that getting rid of Hamas quickly outweighs most, if not all, concerns over civilian collateral deaths.
Fine. I’ll give a plan. Not a great plan, probably won’t work. But neither has anything else.
1) Israel doesn’t invade Gaza. There’s no point. Hamas can’t hurt Israel in any meaningful way without Israel doing something incredibly stupid and essentially allowing it, as we saw on 10/7. This doesn’t mean that rockets being fired into Israel is OK, just that there’s nothing to be gained by doing anything other than shooting them down.
2) Israel does the same thing with Hamas that they did with the Nazis after WW2. They hunt the leaders and the perpetrators to the ends of the Earth. Israeli leadership has been tolerating and in some cases even encouraging Hamas; that ends. No more coddling terrorists.
3) Israel needs to prove to Palestinians that they have a future if they’re willing to let Israel live in peace. I don’t know what this means, I’ll admit, but Israel has not been a trustworthy actor where Palestinians have been concerned for at least twenty years. The settlements in the West Bank will be destroyed, the settlers removed. An actual contiguous Palestinian state will be designated.
4) Reparations to Palestinians. This one is tricky, but again, the point here is to show that the Palestinian people are better off living in peace with Israel instead of fighting. Someone has to stop the cycle of violence. This is going to take decades, if not generations. There’s no quick fix. But Israel, and ideally the rest of the world, needs to provide Palestinians with schools, housing, and so on. I’m fully aware that construction material has been repurposed by Hamas in the past, and I’ll admit I ‘m not sure how to handle that. But again, the whole point here is to demonstrate to the civilian population that one side actually offers a path to a better place.
5) The US and others provide Israel with a security umbrella, to dissuade actually dangerous countries like Iran from invading, as they already have been doing.
This is naive. But the current status quo isn’t tenable. Unless the Israelis want to commit genocide, or give up on the idea of a Jewish state, they have to figure out how to live in peace with a Palestinian state. As with global warming, it would have been much better to have started doing all of this decades ago, but barring that, the best time is now.
Other options include letting all Palestinians immigrate to, say Michigan or the like; that’s just as unrealistic as the above, geopolitically.
@Michael Reynolds: “Angry rants are not a substitute for a plan. Have you got one?”
Now you’re confusing me with someone else. I have not posted a single angry rant. I am entirely too aware that there is not a single good solution to this problem — actually, to any aspect of this problem, both the immediate horrors and the decades that came before. So I don’t get angry.
I am willing to tweak those who insist that even if they don’t know what to do, everyone else is morally inferior for also not knowing what to do. But that springs from disappointment, not anger.
Which is why I didn’t and wouldn’t engage Eddie when he was calling for what sounded like mass murder. I like him very much and have no interest in getting into a fight with him that could do serious damage without the possibility of doing any good.
I like you, too, by the way — but you seem to enjoy this kind of combat. (That is, sniping on this site, not invading Gaza…) So I’m happy to occasionally engage with you. If I’m wrong and I’ve given offense, I can only offer my sincere apologies.
@Steven L. Taylor: I agree with you. I think that this point got forgotten in the heat of this debate, and that’s why I repeated it.
I have a correspondent who is a self described ardent Zionist (she got angry with me when I told her that she was in a cult a few years ago.) Her 26 year old daughter is working in Asia. That daughter wants the war delayed until she can rejoin her reserve unit. Just reporting on one of the “let’s wait” people.
To quote Rodney King, “ I just want to say – you know – can we, can we all get along?”
I wish we could.
@Gustopher: @Steven L. Taylor: @
“ Then why jump for the option that kills a lot of civilians? And likely a fair number of Israeli soldiers? And makes other Israeli soldiers do terrible things that will change them forever?”
I think this gets us to Michael question, what’s the plan. Or what are the other options. If you were making the decisions for Israel, what would you recommend?
@Kevin: Despite earlier comments in this thread I think that’s the first time I’ve seen someone actually propose a plan. Well done sir. I see some flaws but I’ll leave the critiquing to others. I certainly don’t have a better idea.
I think most of us here agree that Israel must do something. The question is what?
@Jim Brown 32: I’m more inclined to see Israel as a country that does have leadership–but that leadership is committed to removing all the Palestinians from “this land [which] is mine [because] God gave this land to me” by whatever means are necessary. It might be better if Israel didn’t have leadership because that would provide the possibility of the citizens seeking out leadership that would move to address the issue by other means.
The fact that the Palestinians appear to have chosen the same type of leadership complicates the problem greatly, though. It’s really as if a magical sky daddy really did say about Ishmael that “And he will be a wild donkey of a man, His hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand will be against him; and he will live to the east of all his brothers.” [Genesis 16:10-12 (NASB)] I dunno…
@Jon:
This.
@Just nutha ignint crackere: Just because you have a leader doesn’t mean you have leadership.
As for the land granted by Deity, biblically speaking, both the Palestinians and the Israelis are correct.
According to Scripture, the Promised Land was given to the 12 Tribes of Israel. The story of the Old Testament chronicles how 10 of those tribes were consumed by the surrounding peoples through war, famine, and aculturation. Only 2 Tribes, Benjamin and Judah (aka ‘The Jews”) remained committed to the traditions and religion of Israel.
If one takes the Bible to be historically true (I dont), its reasonable to deduce that the people living in the ungoverned space that was Palestine pre-1948 are the descendents of those 10 Lost tribes. Who btw have equal claim to the land as the Jews. Their land rights were never rescinded, despite their disobedience and falling away from Greater Israel.
Of course, you will NEVER hear this preached by an Evangelical. Mostly because the majority of them have never studied the Bible (including their Pastors). They study Evangelical theology referenced through the Bible. The ones that have noticed this and wrestled with this inconvenient piece of information..won’t mention it publicly because it contradicts Evangelical dogma.
@mattbernius: “One of the things I personally have not seen well addressed by advocates for the ground invasion is what happens after it.”
Most persuasive reason I’ve seen not to cheer on an Israeli war to “destroy Hamas”:
Israel has no plan for Gaza after war ends, experts warn
@Jim Brown 32: Faith is an amazing thing. And the best (??) part is that one can have faith without knowing anything at all.
ETA: Axiomatically though, whatever leaders do is “leadership.” But I suspect you and I will disagree because you’re likely to insist that leadership be good or wise to count. I don’t expect that. (I was never in the military either, though.)
@Ken_L: I make reference to this action
to illustrate that the Netanyahu faction has taken no lessons from Gaza and remains committed to a slow, centimeter by centimeter – meter by meter annexation while only maintaining the flimsiest of deniable plausibility to enagement, undercutting in reality at every turn any Palestinian groupement that is in fact non-radicalised. Radicalisation serves the Netanyahu faction perfectly well.
I’m late to this thread, but here’s my outline of a plan which is the least-bad I can come up with.
– Israel continues limited incursions and strikes in the north of Gaza.
– Egypt opens up Rafah, allowing Gazan civilians to leave. Measures are taken to ensure fighters and weapons don’t leave. Hamas will probably try to stop this with suicide bombs, but that will show the world just how much they car about Gazan civilians.
– The US and international community can step up with the funds and capabilities to house and care for displaced Gazan civilians. The US could bring one or both hospital ships to the area to provide medical care, as one example.
– Israel can then go in on the ground, destroy Hamas’ network of tunnels, and kill Hamas (and other groups) that remain.
Of course, the problem with this plan is that many do not support it, particularly Egypt.
@Andy: notably from the Arab perception, this is a repeat of past cases of Palestinian expulsion under cover of war (48, 67 etc), and accepting what for them is the neither politically nor socially attractive or even acceptable burden of having a Lebanon style Palestian refugee class permanently “temporarily” installed in the already problematic Sinai as the Bedou have no love for “the people of the Nile” as Egyptian own ethnic phrasing goes.
Netanyahu has no credible cards to play given his open under cutting of West Bank.
Millions who flee are almost certainly not going to return, and regardless that is going to be the understanding of much of the population
Of course there are those who’d be happy to leave the prison camp but Americans easily underestimate the percent of a population deeply wedded to land, rationally or not.
@Lounsbury:
The point is they don’t have the option to leave. It’s very weird to hear people advocate for forcing civilians to remain in a war zone.