Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashpoint

[Mr Bean]

Targetting civilians in general has no military value. It is thus, inarguably a war crime. Israel claims their objective is to destroy the ability to conduct rocket attacks (a legitmate military value), and has some evidence that they're attempting such (secondary explosions indicative of weapon storage, etc). It's arguable about whether the Israeli attacks are proportional to the military value gained. It's inarguable that there's no military value to the rocket attacks, and that said rocket attacks have the intent to destroy, in whole, or in part, a religious or ethnic group (by killing them). It is therefore inarguable that Hamas is attempting genocide. I'm not going to argue about Israeli settlements in the West Bank (they're wrong to be constructing them). But intent in military situations matters. And the intent of Hamas is to commit genocide, while the intent of the IDF is to stop said attacks. To look solely at casaulty ratios is to deny the importance of intent.

I've been staying out of this thread for the most part but this post brought something up I'm seeing to much of.

The central method of launching said attacks is to set up someplace with a temporary frame, launch the rocket on remote and bug out. Now often times the rockets are not removed far from where they are made (This is gaza after all) but the number of attacks that have hit hospitals, UN facilities, schools and UN observer locations indicates that the IDF is not pursuing a pure goal of stopping said attacks. After all if a rocket is launched from a hilltop the proper method is not saturated bombing the area but instead watching it until you see them re-using said hilltop and hitting them then. Far to many IDF attacks seem to be targeted let say a touch... haphazard? Not counting hospitals, shelters, or UN facilities lets count the number of times we've heard about busy markets being hit (Two incidents come to mind) because if Hamas is know for one thing it's gathering in large masses in marketplaces.

Beowulf my point is that when IDF "accidents" start taking up a good 40% of all strikes can not be linked back by the IDF to either a missile being fired or missile movement you can start looking at alternative explanations. *Edit my numbers are theoretical. I've not been keeping an exact count or measurment but only following second hand and when the number of seperate incidents crossed over the 9th page of my google alerts I've started getting a bit concerned on the civilian to "Hamas" ratio keeping in mind it seems the IDF like America has that same lose definition of "male between the ages of 16 and 60"=enemy.

[Simon_Jester]

Intent matters but so does outcome. And the outcome is that the IDF is closer to effecting genocide than Hamas is to attempting it.

Insofar as the IDF is close to committing genocide it has more to do with the blockade than with their incursions into the Gaza Strip.

Suffering blockades is one of the things that can happen to you when you get into a war-of-choice against an enemy that has stronger air and naval power and a land army capable of surrounding your entire country. If Hamas did not want the Gaza Strip to become blockaded, they would be wise to cease launching rocket attacks and commando raids and try negotiating a peace.

We can argue that the IDF should remove the blockade and allow free flow of supplies into the Gaza Strip despite the presence of ongoing missile and commando attacks coming out of it into their territory... but if so, we had better recognize that this would be almost unprecedented in the history of warfare. It's not a normal thing we'd be asking the IDF to do.

So when you realize that you cannot win and your tactics are failing you are supposed to give up and just take it, even if there is no benefit to be had? Is that what you are arguing here?

The reasoning is as follows:

1) There's no benefit to be had by attacking. It does nothing but harden the enemy's resolve. Our attacks don't even make it harder for the enemy to attack us.
2) There's no obvious benefit to be had by defending but not attacking, but we lose nothing because attacking accomplishes nothing.
3) The enemy might stop harassing and attacking us if they are not themselves under attack, creating grounds for an actual peace in which they might finally respect our rights. Unlikely, but see (4).
4) While (3) is unlikely, it must again be emphasized that there is no benefit to be had by attacking. There is literally no strategy that runs from "we fire random occasional rockets at enemy towns" to "the enemy is defeated and withdraws from the lands we're trying to drive them out of."
5) There isn't even a strategy that runs from "we fire random occasional rockets at enemy towns" to "the enemy stops blockading our homes and allows us to resume normal economic activity."

If I am in that position, it would seem sensible to concentrate my resources on defense, not on attack.

We have ongoing threads about World War One elsewhere. I think the analogy between Hamas and the Anglo-French chateau generals is pretty good: they are pressing attacks that are unnecessary, achieve no military gain, and make it far more likely that their own side will lose the war of attrition. The only difference is that instead of shells and bullets killing German soldiers that didn't urgently need killing, the rockets land on Israeli civilians who need killing even less.

So they are being about as stupid as the idiot-generals of the WWI Allies, possibly even stupider than those generals, although that is difficult to imagine. Also considerably more unethical.

You misunderstand the purpose of the rocket attacks. They force Israel to spend money. They are part of an overall strategy making it just not worth it.

Making what "just not worth it?" Living in the country of Israel? If so, then the damage caused by the rocket attacks has absolutely zero chance of achieving this result. In which case it is not "part of an overall strategy."

If a tactic is to fit into an overall strategy, it must be part of a plan. Not just 'points in the same direction as the plan,' but part of a plan.

For example, if I walk up to a brick wall and punch it with my fist, that is not "part of a strategy" to knock down the wall. That is not me somehow subtly undermining the wall, or making it 'just not worth it' for the wall to stand up. That is me bruising my knuckles.

Sure, if my goal is to knock down the wall, then punching it is somehow analogous to what I actually want to accomplish (say, hitting the wall with a battering ram or a wrecking ball). But in this case, it is absolutely useless for me to waste time and energy punching the wall, when I should either be finding a bigger tool or figuring out a way to get what I really want without knocking down the wall.

So don't dignify Hamas' actions by saying they are "part of a strategy" to wear Israel down. The actual things they do can never have this effect, so they are not "part of a strategy" in the sense of fitting into a larger plan that could conceivably succeed.

Such a strategy has been done by a lot of people (see Ireland - they never could win against GB until they did). They are targeting towns because that is all they can hit.

But since hitting

And I don't see the Israelis having any moral high ground considering how they are acting and how they punish entire families for the deeds of one member.

I do not give a shit whether Israel has any moral high ground. I am indifferent to that. Tu quoques are not relevant here. My criticism is that Hamas, specifically Hamas, is acting in a certain way. My criticism is that Hamas is abysmally stupid, if they actually are trying to achieve victory over Israel and the security and well-being of the Palestinian people.

Now, if Hamas' goal is to cement themselves in power forever by making sure the Palestinians continue to hate Israelis forever, their actions make perfect sense. That's different.

And as posted before, Israel lied about the reasons for the war.

I could easily rip into the ethics of Israeli policy all I want. This does not change the fact that Hamas rocket attacks make no strategic sense, if the goal is either to protect Palestinian lives or to somehow expel Israel from the land formerly known as Canaan.

Israeli government officials being immoral does not mean that Hamas stops being stupid and/or immoral when they act in stupid and immoral ways.

Besides, this is just ridiculous:

I can't quite bring myself to say "well, they're angry, so they can be forgiven for not doing a cost-benefit analysis and deciding to stop killing civilians in attacks that do them no good."

Considering the relative death toll in civilians on both sides. Israel killed more civilians already than Hamas ever could with rocket attacks in an entire year.

Since Hamas' rocket attacks cannot prevent Palestinian civilians from dying, and in fact make it MORE LIKELY that Palestinian civilians will die, I fail to see how Israeli attacks justify Hamas rocket attacks.

If Hamas rocket attacks could somehow protect Palestinian civilians, then I would see no problem in Hamas opening fire with every rocket it could lay its hands on. But they can't, they only make it worse by removing any semblance of credibility from anyone who says to the Israelis "leave the Palestinians alone and all will be well."

Do you have an answer for this? Or are you basically just going to repeat that because the Palestinian people feel angry and vengeful, their leaders no longer have a duty to act in ways likely to secure the future of their people?

I've been staying out of this thread for the most part but this post brought something up I'm seeing to much of.

...the number of [IDF] attacks that have hit hospitals, UN facilities, schools and UN observer locations indicates that the IDF is not pursuing a pure goal of stopping said attacks... Far to many IDF attacks seem to be targeted let say a touch... haphazard? Not counting hospitals, shelters, or UN facilities lets count the number of times we've heard about busy markets being hit (Two incidents come to mind) because if Hamas is know for one thing it's gathering in large masses in marketplaces.

Beowulf my point is that when IDF "accidents" start taking up a good 40% of all strikes can not be linked back by the IDF to either a missile being fired or missile movement you can start looking at alternative explanations. *Edit my numbers are theoretical. I've not been keeping an exact count or measurment but only following second hand and when the number of seperate incidents crossed over the 9th page of my google alerts I've started getting a bit concerned on the civilian to "Hamas" ratio keeping in mind it seems the IDF like America has that same lose definition of "male between the ages of 16 and 60"=enemy.

I am inclined to agree with all this.

Basically, I'm criticizing Hamas for being stupid and immoral. The Israeli leadership's strategy is likewise immoral, perhaps exactly as immoral as Hamas' strategy... the main difference I see being that it isn't stupid. Because both Hamas and Israel's government are acting to ensure that the status quo goes on indefinitely. The status quo strongly favors Israel.

The only advantage the status quo has for Hamas is that Hamas gets to stay in charge in Gaza.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

The thing that strikes me here is that nothing Hamas does actually correlates to Israel not punching Palestine in the balls.

Literally, their 'counterattack' accomplishes exactly zero to further their objectives. Attacks launched from the Gaza Strip don't even hurt the parts of Israel that are causing an immediate threat (settlements in the West Bank). They don't hit military targets, they don't disrupt the Israeli military's ability to launch raids or incursions in the territory Palestinians hold.

I think that Hamas is achieving every goal they're actually setting out to achieve. Firing unguided light artillery rockets into Israel does a spectacular job in annoying the IDF into blowing up Palestinian civilians in job lots, and ensuring the occupation continues ad infinitum. Which is what Hamas really wants. After all, a man whose family is prosperous, and living at peace with his neighbors, is much less likely to join a band of militants than one whose family was blown up by Israeli bombs, and whose surviving children are starving thanks to the eternal blockade and occupation (Hamas spends a lot of money on providing basic services and non-militant employment, making sure that the average man on the street in Gaza quickly forgets that Hamas keeps bringing down the IDF on them.) Also, as long as the bulk of the few people Hamas actually manages to kill during these incursions are IDF soldiers operating on the ground, they can say to the world: "Look, at least we're killing viable military targets, unlike those damned Jews."

So in the end, the leadership of Hamas continues to suckle on the largesse of rich oil sheiks, with a never-ending supply of men "in the trenches" willing to strap bombs to themselves and blow up school buses and whatever else is in easy reach ... which will only encourage Israel to continue to blockade Palestinians, expand the settlements to squeeze out the Palestinians, and otherwise discriminate against Palestinians in every meaningful way. They know that the Israelis aren't going anywhere. They know there's zero chance that the nation of Palestine will ever be "restored." The real reason Hamas continues to exist and continues to get funding from the Gulf States is that they're a perpetual pain in Israel's ass that keeps Israel's attention focused inward, and ensures they periodically massacre enough Palestinian women and children that Israel continues to be something of an international pariah whose only real friend is the United States.

Bear in mind that this is an incredibly cynical view of the conflict.

[AniThyng]

@Simon I think the question here now is who actually has the *power* to break the cycle and is willing to exercise it even if it makes little sense in the short term. If neither the Israeli's and the Palestinians have that will, then the conflict will continue and 20 years from know we'd STILL be discussing this. Hell, 20 years AGO I don't think there was even much difference other than everyone knew about that guy with the checkered cloth headgear thing named Arafat.

[Grumman]

So when you realize that you cannot win and your tactics are failing you are supposed to give up and just take it, even if there is no benefit to be had? Is that what you are arguing here?

Of course there is benefit! The fighting Hamas started and the sapping Hamas ordered has killed hundreds of Palestinian children. Not causing the deaths of hundreds of your own children for the sake of a fruitless war fought out of spite is a benefit.

[AniThyng]

So when you realize that you cannot win and your tactics are failing you are supposed to give up and just take it, even if there is no benefit to be had? Is that what you are arguing here?

Of course there is benefit! The fighting Hamas started and the sapping Hamas ordered has killed hundreds of Palestinian children. Not causing the deaths of hundreds of your own children for the sake of a fruitless war fought out of spite is a benefit.

A fruitless war fought out of spite is a very dismissive view of a people displaced by a state they have no say in, no? To them, it is the IDF that is killing thousands of civilians and it is the Israelis that don't belong there.

[eyl]

So when you realize that you cannot win and your tactics are failing you are supposed to give up and just take it, even if there is no benefit to be had? Is that what you are arguing here?

You misunderstand the purpose of the rocket attacks. They force Israel to spend money. They are part of an overall strategy making it just not worth it. Such a strategy has been done by a lot of people (see Ireland - they never could win against GB until they did). They are targeting towns because that is all they can hit. To my knowledge, Hamas is not targeting individual civilians (as in, kill Mr X living in Y). They are firing against whatever they can hit.

As Simon asked, not worth what? In addition, keep this in mind: it has often been pointed out that Israeli attacks on Palestinians serve to radicalize them. However, the same is true in the other direction. The terrorist attacks of the 90s caused the Israeli public to lose faith in the peace process; the second intifada demolished the peace camp; the rockets from Gaza discredited the idea of further withdrawals. The continued atatcks are making achieving teir goals less likely, not more. Why do you think Protective Edge had such large public support?

I've been staying out of this thread for the most part but this post brought something up I'm seeing to much of.

The central method of launching said attacks is to set up someplace with a temporary frame, launch the rocket on remote and bug out. Now often times the rockets are not removed far from where they are made (This is gaza after all) but the number of attacks that have hit hospitals, UN facilities, schools and UN observer locations indicates that the IDF is not pursuing a pure goal of stopping said attacks. After all if a rocket is launched from a hilltop the proper method is not saturated bombing the area but instead watching it until you see them re-using said hilltop and hitting them then. Far to many IDF attacks seem to be targeted let say a touch... haphazard? Not counting hospitals, shelters, or UN facilities lets count the number of times we've heard about busy markets being hit (Two incidents come to mind) because if Hamas is know for one thing it's gathering in large masses in marketplaces

You are, however, missing a few things. While it's true that Qassams can be set up to fire quickly and then launched on a timer, Israel is still going to try to hit the area if it does spot the launcher prior to launch. And that time isn't necessarily as short as you assume, see this video as an example (if I understand correctly the rocket was set up Monday evening and fired in the morning).

Furthermore, the heavier rockets aren't that portable, they're fired from hidden fixed emplacements. Israel airstrikes are also intended to take out those implacements, as well as rocket stores, manufactories, and so on.

Finally, once IDF ground forces entered Gaza, not all strikes were because of rockets in the first place, but also to neutralize attacks on Israeli forces. For example, Wafa hospital was (eventualy) hit because Palestinian militants were firing on the IDF from there.

[Simon_Jester]

I think that Hamas is achieving every goal they're actually setting out to achieve. Firing unguided light artillery rockets into Israel does a spectacular job in annoying the IDF into blowing up Palestinian civilians in job lots, and ensuring the occupation continues ad infinitum. Which is what Hamas really wants...

Yeah; I touched on this at one point in my post. I agree with you that Hamas is basically doing everything in its power to ensure that the conflict never ends, despite the fact that their people are losing the conflict and will continue to do so as long as it proceeds on the same terms it is now.

Which is rather disturbing- the idea that one would deliberately keep one's own society locked in an unending losing war that serves no useful purpose other than retaining political power.

@Simon I think the question here now is who actually has the *power* to break the cycle and is willing to exercise it even if it makes little sense in the short term. If neither the Israeli's and the Palestinians have that will, then the conflict will continue and 20 years from know we'd STILL be discussing this. Hell, 20 years AGO I don't think there was even much difference other than everyone knew about that guy with the checkered cloth headgear thing named Arafat.

Well, twenty years ago there were, I think, more people on the Israeli side actually trying to change the situation- there was. But since then, well... the Israelis never really stopped building "settlements" in the West Bank, which ensured that they would not be the ones to unilaterally stop provoking the other side. And even when they did cede the Gaza Strip to total Palestinian control, evicting the Israeli "settlers" from that area, it accomplished less than nothing- the place turned into a rocket launch pad.

So the Israelis seem to have, de facto, decided that they can't really hope to get a peaceable resolution to the conflict, and have therefore decided to just keep doing what they were doing, only harder. Since the status quo is tolerable to Israel but not to Palestinians, the Israelis have very little incentive to change.

The Palestinians have considerable incentive to change, but have changed in a way that ensures that their situation won't improve- specifically, they seem to have thrown their weight behind militarists who refuse to acknowledge that they're fighting out of their weight against an opponent who's not willing to pack up and leave because of occasional bombings and snipings.

A fruitless war fought out of spite is a very dismissive view of a people displaced by a state they have no say in, no? To them, it is the IDF that is killing thousands of civilians and it is the Israelis that don't belong there.

And rocket attacks help this state of affairs how?

[His Divine Shadow]

I think it's not realistic to expect something of Hamas or the palestinians that none of us would accept if it had happened to us, we'd all fight to the death and beyond. At least this way it's harder for the world to ignore Israels racially motivated lebensraum policies and perhaps eventually we'll do something concrete about it once popular opinion swings enough away from Israel, which is slowly but surely happening even in the US. If that is the long term plan the palestinians have, well it might be the only one that could remotely work.

If this had happened to me I wouldn't think that not resisting would yield a better result, it would just continue the inevitable extermination and marginalization of palestinians. In fact I am pretty sure they're also right about it, all it would do is make it easier for the world to look away as things proceed more "cleanly" and eventually the last holdouts of palestine are gone;
http://suomenkuvalehti.fi/wp-content/up ... tiina1.jpg

[Thanas]

Suffering blockades is one of the things that can happen to you when you get into a war-of-choice against an enemy that has stronger air and naval power and a land army capable of surrounding your entire country. If Hamas did not want the Gaza Strip to become blockaded, they would be wise to cease launching rocket attacks and commando raids and try negotiating a peace.

The hubris of said statement cannot be overestimated. Please provide one example of any palestinian power sitting down to negotiate and actually gaining a free state out of it. If you say the oslo accords, I am going to slap you silly. Israel is clearly unwilling to negotiate any settlement that would give the Palestinians any devolved power or sovereignty and is equally unwilling to stop the encroachment on Palestinian territory.

We can argue that the IDF should remove the blockade and allow free flow of supplies into the Gaza Strip despite the presence of ongoing missile and commando attacks coming out of it into their territory... but if so, we had better recognize that this would be almost unprecedented in the history of warfare. It's not a normal thing we'd be asking the IDF to do.

Yeah well, they are not fighting a normal war either. This is one slow ethnic cleansing, which makes any of their actions criminal by default as they are in support of ongoing settlement policies.

The reasoning is as follows:

1) There's no benefit to be had by attacking. It does nothing but harden the enemy's resolve. Our attacks don't even make it harder for the enemy to attack us.
2) There's no obvious benefit to be had by defending but not attacking, but we lose nothing because attacking accomplishes nothing.
3) The enemy might stop harassing and attacking us if they are not themselves under attack, creating grounds for an actual peace in which they might finally respect our rights. Unlikely, but see (4).
4) While (3) is unlikely, it must again be emphasized that there is no benefit to be had by attacking. There is literally no strategy that runs from "we fire random occasional rockets at enemy towns" to "the enemy is defeated and withdraws from the lands we're trying to drive them out of."
5) There isn't even a strategy that runs from "we fire random occasional rockets at enemy towns" to "the enemy stops blockading our homes and allows us to resume normal economic activity."

If I am in that position, it would seem sensible to concentrate my resources on defense, not on attack.

Defence failed for sixty years and is impossible anyway - there is no way you can defeat the US-funded Israeli military.

We have ongoing threads about World War One elsewhere. I think the analogy between Hamas and the Anglo-French chateau generals is pretty good: they are pressing attacks that are unnecessary, achieve no military gain, and make it far more likely that their own side will lose the war of attrition. The only difference is that instead of shells and bullets killing German soldiers that didn't urgently need killing, the rockets land on Israeli civilians who need killing even less.

No. Just.....no.

So they are being about as stupid as the idiot-generals of the WWI Allies, possibly even stupider than those generals, although that is difficult to imagine. Also considerably more unethical.

Yeah well when Israel does whatever it wants to you you kinda don't tend to care for ethics.

Making what "just not worth it?" Living in the country of Israel? If so, then the damage caused by the rocket attacks has absolutely zero chance of achieving this result. In which case it is not "part of an overall strategy."

No, it raises publicity, forces Israel to show its true face (as in when they kill kids on camera) and makes the decent Israelis become more and more squamish. This is a problem solely of Israel's making and it will only be solved by the Israeli public becoming more and more disgusted by what their scumbags in uniform are doing.

If a tactic is to fit into an overall strategy, it must be part of a plan. Not just 'points in the same direction as the plan,' but part of a plan.

For example, if I walk up to a brick wall and punch it with my fist, that is not "part of a strategy" to knock down the wall. That is not me somehow subtly undermining the wall, or making it 'just not worth it' for the wall to stand up. That is me bruising my knuckles.

Sure, if my goal is to knock down the wall, then punching it is somehow analogous to what I actually want to accomplish (say, hitting the wall with a battering ram or a wrecking ball). But in this case, it is absolutely useless for me to waste time and energy punching the wall, when I should either be finding a bigger tool or figuring out a way to get what I really want without knocking down the wall.

So don't dignify Hamas' actions by saying they are "part of a strategy" to wear Israel down. The actual things they do can never have this effect, so they are not "part of a strategy" in the sense of fitting into a larger plan that could conceivably succeed.

You can cease your incessant preaching and self-jerkoff explanations for terms everybody gets. The smarm is getting to become unbearable, even for your tandards.

But since hitting

You some words.

My criticism is that Hamas is abysmally stupid, if they actually are trying to achieve victory over Israel and the security and well-being of the Palestinian people.

You don't get it? It is not about achieving a conventional military victory. Not at all. The goal is to cause Israel to inflict disproportionate damage on the Palestinian civiilians so that their own populace gets disgusted of the war (and the policies of Netanyahoo).

Basically, I'm criticizing Hamas for being stupid and immoral. The Israeli leadership's strategy is likewise immoral, perhaps exactly as immoral as Hamas' strategy... the main difference I see being that it isn't stupid. Because both Hamas and Israel's government are acting to ensure that the status quo goes on indefinitely. The status quo strongly favors Israel.

The only advantage the status quo has for Hamas is that Hamas gets to stay in charge in Gaza.

On the contrary, the Israeli leadership is very stupid. They committed extraordinary amounts of money and lives. They don't have a clear strategy for Gaza that does not consist of the status quo, which most assuredly does not favor anybody but Hamas. Tell me - what is the overall strategic goal of Israel in Gaza?

[madd0ct0r]

I disagree that the status quo favours only Hamas.
From the israeli elite point of view, as long as the gazan population is going down and is trapped economically, they are winning long term. Hamas being in charge means they don't need to worry about peace talks or concessions. Rockets coming in daily help keep the right-wing of Israel in power, just as it does Hamas. Stable solution that sucks for the population.

[eyl]

Given that the main effect of their policy has been to shove the Israeli electorate further for to the right, they might want to rethink that (Netanyahu owes his electoral success to Hamas)

[Thanas]

Given that the main effect of their policy has been to shove the Israeli electorate further for to the right, they might want to rethink that (Netanyahu owes his electoral success to Hamas)

And yet, the 2009 military action had the direct result Hamas wanted.

[His Divine Shadow]

They have about as much to gain from peace talks as the jews in warsaw ghetto would have had, the colonisation, extermination and marginalization would proceed apace, just easier to hide from the world.

[Grumman]

The goal is to cause Israel to inflict disproportionate damage on the Palestinian civiilians so that their own populace gets disgusted of the war (and the policies of Netanyahoo).

And yet you continue to carry water for them. Hamas's strategy is one step away from murdering Palestinians themselves, and that's only because even the most devoted apologist might hesitate before blaming that on Israel.

[Thanas]

The goal is to cause Israel to inflict disproportionate damage on the Palestinian civiilians so that their own populace gets disgusted of the war (and the policies of Netanyahoo).

And yet you continue to carry water for them. Hamas's strategy is one step away from murdering Palestinians themselves, and that's only because even the most devoted apologist might hesitate before blaming that on Israel.

I don't carry water for them and I will demand either proof of me being a Hamas supporter or advocating that their tactics are morally right. Otherwise, you better retract that one right now.

[AniThyng]

The goal is to cause Israel to inflict disproportionate damage on the Palestinian civiilians so that their own populace gets disgusted of the war (and the policies of Netanyahoo).

And yet you continue to carry water for them. Hamas's strategy is one step away from murdering Palestinians themselves, and that's only because even the most devoted apologist might hesitate before blaming that on Israel.

Earlier on you stated that Palestinians can make a choice to not do this. Likewise, Israel or Israelis can make a choice not to retaliate in such a manner as to directly play into Hamas' hands.

I mean if we're going to talk about sacrifices and so on, why can't Israel be the one to employ "passive resistance"? Imagine how public opinion would be if Israel for once just played purely defensive - yes, more israeli civilians* might die, but so much less Palestinians will die also, and Hamas loses the game in the long run.

*Either way, faceless nameless people I don't know die, if you want to acuse me of being insensitive to Israeli casualties. But you cannot deny that in this scenario, far far less palestinians die, and Israel does not play in Hamas's hands.

[Simon_Jester]

Earlier on you stated that Palestinians can make a choice to not do this. Likewise, Israel or Israelis can make a choice not to retaliate in such a manner as to directly play into Hamas' hands.

In this case, it was Hamas that decided to make the transition from "cease-fire" to "shooting war." Choosing not to retaliate for the sake of international opinion is an interesting option, but let's explore the consequences.

I mean if we're going to talk about sacrifices and so on, why can't Israel be the one to employ "passive resistance"? Imagine how public opinion would be if Israel for once just played purely defensive - yes, more israeli civilians* might die, but so much less Palestinians will die also, and Hamas loses the game in the long run.

The only public opinion that matters to Hamas is that of the Arab nations, and the Arab nations contain many powerful people who secretly or openly wish there were no Israelis in the Levant, period. Watching Hamas kill Israelis will not make those people displeased at Hamas. It will not stop them from funding Hamas. The stream of money from oil millionaires will keep flowing in.

Likewise, at this point, the only public opinion that really matters to the Israelis is their own, and Israeli public opinion is motivated by 'not getting shot at.' So by this point that they are probably now willing to hand the IDF a blank check to do whatever it pleases in Gaza as long as the rocket attacks stop and Hamas can't tunnel into their backyard to kidnap and murder their children.

At this point, both sides' real backers are willing to endorse almost any amount of violence, cruelty, or brutality if it gets them what they want. For Hamas backers, that's distracted Israelis and occasional dead Israelis. For Israelis, that's a lack of rocket and tunnel-commando attacks.

Which is why both sides have long since stopped doing anything likely to end the conflict.

And that doesn't surprise me on the Israeli side of the line. It DOES surprise me on the Palestinian side because Hamas purports to be an organization that has the Palestinian people's best interests at heart, and preserving the status quo hurts the Palestinians more than it helps.

...........

Suffering blockades is one of the things that can happen to you when you get into a war-of-choice against an enemy that has stronger air and naval power and a land army capable of surrounding your entire country. If Hamas did not want the Gaza Strip to become blockaded, they would be wise to cease launching rocket attacks and commando raids and try negotiating a peace.

The hubris of said statement cannot be overestimated. Please provide one example of any palestinian power sitting down to negotiate and actually gaining a free state out of it. If you say the oslo accords, I am going to slap you silly. Israel is clearly unwilling to negotiate any settlement that would give the Palestinians any devolved power or sovereignty and is equally unwilling to stop the encroachment on Palestinian territory.

Except that in the case of the Gaza strip the Israelis deliberately evacuated the whole area. They may not have "given" the Palestinians any power or sovereignty, but they didn't have to- the Palestinians were perfectly capable of setting up their own provisional government in the territory. The Gaza Strip is de facto sovereign, has had the right of self-governance since 1994, and has had its own fully autonomous government that I'm very sure the Israelis would change if they could (but cannot change because it is autonomous) since 2006.

When that government turned out to be a militant government (after a round of open warfare within the Gaza Strip among Palestinians), the Israelis responded with sanctions. Which is not surprising since they had every reason to consider a Hamas government as some sort of threat.

As the Hamas government escalated up toward rocket attacks and commando raids, the sanctions tightened into a blockade and became a semipermanent phenomenon.

I mean, if the Gaza Strip were still directly occupied and garrisoned by the Israeli military, the situation on the ground today would look very different.

To me, the situation in the Gaza Strip looks like a pilot program or experiment to see what mighthappen if a 'two state solution' were enacted. And it looks like we have an answer that tells us one of the possible outcomes. Specifically, Hamas wins the election, then stages a coup/purge to remove any non-Hamas political, starts slipping guerillas across the border and firing munitions across it, pursuing a deliberate state of war against Israel.

Now, this does not in any way change the fact that in the West Bank Israel is pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing and colonization against the Palestinians. But in the Gaza Strip, they specifically stopped doing that, pulled out the colonizers, and eight years later they're still getting literally bombarded from the place.

Does that encourage them to stop? Or does it serve only to reinforce what was once a poisonous rationalization if not outright lie by the Israeli right, this notion that Israel can only have security for its own people by expelling the Palestinians?

Back in 1960 this was a lie. Now, it is beginning to appear as though it has become a truth. In which case, no matter how much we condemn Israel for pursuing ethnic cleansing, they're not going to stop because in their minds "it's them or us." And every time Hamas decides to fire a rocket at them, they reinforce this state of affairs.

We can argue that the IDF should remove the blockade and allow free flow of supplies into the Gaza Strip despite the presence of ongoing missile and commando attacks coming out of it into their territory... but if so, we had better recognize that this would be almost unprecedented in the history of warfare. It's not a normal thing we'd be asking the IDF to do.

Yeah well, they are not fighting a normal war either. This is one slow ethnic cleansing, which makes any of their actions criminal by default as they are in support of ongoing settlement policies.

So the blockade of the Gaza Strip is in support of colonization in the West Bank? Are munitions fired from the Gaza Strip affecting colonization in the West Bank? Are Hamas commandos from the Gaza Strip actually affecting colonization in the West Bank?

Because my impression was that the main consequence of the blockade was a humanitarian crisis and economic stagnation in the Gaza Strip. This suits the Israeli right wing just fine, they no doubt accept that, because half-starved, impoverished Palestinians can't compete economically with Israeli settlers and can't funnel wealth to their cousins in the West Bank to do the same. But since the Hamas organization in Gaza is de facto responsible for governing Gaza, and has basically all political power in Gaza... you'd think their policies should be calculated for the benefit of Gaza.

Defence failed for sixty years and is impossible anyway - there is no way you can defeat the US-funded Israeli military.

By your own argument, the Palestinians can make it costly enough for the Israelis to launch military incursions that they have no incentive to do so.

So either your argument then was bullshit, and it doesn't matter whether Hamas attacks or defends because they can't win a fight, or your argument now is bullshit, because Hamas can make the soil they control unpalatable for the Israelis.

You made an analogy to the IRA. You appear to have forgotten that the IRA secured independence for Ireland by making it prohibitively difficult to occupy Ireland. They were defending territory that they physically inhabited, not trying to expel another entirely different group from the territory that group inhabited. Guerillas can realistically accomplish the first, but not the second.

We have seen this with the resumed Israeli offensive just now- they are losing men and materiel and having to go to great trouble and expense to launch an invasion into Gaza. Why are they bothering? It wouldn't be worth it just to boss Gazans around. Is it simply a coincidence that this offensive started after Hamas kidnapped and shot Israeli teenagers (or at least publicly congratulated those who had), and fired rockets at Israeli towns?

Gee, I wonder if maybe kidnapping people's children and throwing explosives at them might make them more likely to accept the costs of fighting an aggressive military campaign against you...

We have ongoing threads about World War One elsewhere. I think the analogy between Hamas and the Anglo-French chateau generals is pretty good: they are pressing attacks that are unnecessary, achieve no military gain, and make it far more likely that their own side will lose the war of attrition. The only difference is that instead of shells and bullets killing German soldiers that didn't urgently need killing, the rockets land on Israeli civilians who need killing even less.

No. Just.....no.

You can reject this all you want. But as long as you pretend that Hamas' actions make sense in the context of some kind of serious, intelligent strategy whose ultimate goal is the liberation or protection of living Palestinians, you're fooling yourself.

Because if their goal is to liberate or protect any living Palestinian, Hamas' actions make no sense. Whereas they make a great deal of sense if Hamas is actively trying to perpetuate a conflict their side is slowly and painfully losing, and do not care about the long term consequences of that.

So they are being about as stupid as the idiot-generals of the WWI Allies, possibly even stupider than those generals, although that is difficult to imagine. Also considerably more unethical.

Yeah well when Israel does whatever it wants to you you kinda don't tend to care for ethics.

So do you agree that they are not acting ethically? I already conceded that the Israelis are acting unethically. Is it that hard for you to admit the same of Hamas?

Making what "just not worth it?" Living in the country of Israel? If so, then the damage caused by the rocket attacks has absolutely zero chance of achieving this result. In which case it is not "part of an overall strategy."

No, it raises publicity, forces Israel to show its true face (as in when they kill kids on camera) and makes the decent Israelis become more and more squamish. This is a problem solely of Israel's making and it will only be solved by the Israeli public becoming more and more disgusted by what their scumbags in uniform are doing.

Gee, I wonder if maybe the Israelis you now consider 'decent' might end up actually supporting such actions? Perhaps because they see it as the only way to stop or at least deter Hamas from kidnapping and murdering their children or firing missiles at them?

I mean, are you thinking this through even slightly?

The strategy of forcing the enemy to act brutally so that international pressure will make them go away and leave you alone is well known. But it only works if the enemy actually has the choice of going away. Here, they don't. Israel cannot "go away" from the Gaza Strip any more than it already has. They already left, abandoned the government of the Strip and returned to their homes.

So for the local government of the Gaza Strip to launch attacks against Israel that are less destructive than the IAF's bombings only because they have less firepower to throw, and considerably more indiscriminate... that is folly. It is idiotic, it makes no sense, because while it can provoke the IDF into launching a brutal counterattack, it will make the counterattack look justified and precedented. International media will NOT make the Israelis look worse than they already did anyway, and the Israelis will NOT get tired of 'occupying' a territory they don't actually occupy.

The reason Hamas has utterly failed in its alleged objective is because its alleged objective (expel all Israelis from the land formerly known as Canaan) is impossible to achieve by this tactic.

Making the Israelis look like a bunch of thugs in the West Bank or Gaza Strip will never result in the Israelis abandoning Tel Aviv or Haifa. If Hamas believes otherwise, they are unfathomably stupid.

...

You can cease your incessant preaching and self-jerkoff explanations for terms everybody gets. The smarm is getting to become unbearable, even for your tandards.

"When the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. When the law is on your side, pound on the law. When neither is on your side, pound on the table."

Right now you've resorted to pounding on the table. Hamas is acting like a bunch of belligerent cretins, you have completely failed to present any convincing explanation for how their actions can make sense. And you have refused to acknowledge that their actions might not make sense, and when I go into detail as to why those actions don't make sense, you accuse me of being preachy.

You also accuse me of wasting time explaining things you already understand, to which I can only reply "well, Thanas, you sure don't act like you understand." You sure don't use phrases like "part of an overall strategy" like you know what a strategy is. Or at least, you don't use it like you know what a good strategy is.

You're smarter than this, and I know it, so I can only assume that your temper is getting in the way of your own analytical ability.

My criticism is that Hamas is abysmally stupid, if they actually are trying to achieve victory over Israel and the security and well-being of the Palestinian people.

You don't get it? It is not about achieving a conventional military victory. Not at all. The goal is to cause Israel to inflict disproportionate damage on the Palestinian civiilians so that their own populace gets disgusted of the war (and the policies of Netanyahoo).

If their goal is not to achieve conventional military victory, well, they got what they wanted. But that's a flippant one-liner, a more serious response follows.

As I have now explained... 2-4 times, and as others have also explained, Hamas' actions do not have the (allegedly) intended result. The fact that they didn't have this result was predictable well in advance. What, does Hamas really think Israelis who are worried that Hamas will murder their children and fire rockets at their houses will 'recoil' at civilian casualties in Gaza? The Israelis have no history of thinking that way. I would argue that no one has a history of thinking that way. Does Hamas think Israelis will 'recoil' at watching Israeli troops blow up a hospital when they have video footage of weapons fire coming from that hospital and firing on Israeli positions? Again, the Israelis have no history of thinking that way.

If nothing else, Hamas has catastrophically failed to estimate the psychology of its opponent before deciding to renew hostilities. Which is not unethical, but is very, very stupid.

My core point is, and has been, that Hamas is acting stupidly.

Because see, I don't actually care if Hamas is trying to use conventional military methods or unconventional nonmilitary methods or whatever. But whatever strategy they pursue, should be one that gets them what they want, rather than what they don't want.

If they want the well-being of Palestinians, their current strategy ("provoke a war and wait for the Israelis to decide fighting it is worse than letting us shoot at them") fails horribly.

If they want to drive Israelis out of all the land including that now Israeli-inhabited, then their goal is so unrealistic no strategy can be intelligently chosen to pursue it; the plan is stupid by default because there's no way to make it happen.

If they want to remain permanently in power by making the Palestinians feel as totally victimized and outgunned as possible... well, they're certainly accomplishing that goal. But that is a goal which benefits only Hamas, not the Palestinian people.

Basically, I'm criticizing Hamas for being stupid and immoral. The Israeli leadership's strategy is likewise immoral, perhaps exactly as immoral as Hamas' strategy... the main difference I see being that it isn't stupid. Because both Hamas and Israel's government are acting to ensure that the status quo goes on indefinitely. The status quo strongly favors Israel.

The only advantage the status quo has for Hamas is that Hamas gets to stay in charge in Gaza.

On the contrary, the Israeli leadership is very stupid. They committed extraordinary amounts of money and lives. They don't have a clear strategy for Gaza that does not consist of the status quo, which most assuredly does not favor anybody but Hamas. Tell me - what is the overall strategic goal of Israel in Gaza?

Presumably, to stop getting shot at with rockets. Blowing up the rockets helps with that. Of course, the Israelis are also causing mass civilian suffering among the Palestinians by doing this... but that consequence is not borne by the Israelis directly, while the consequences of doing nothing and accepting rocket attacks are.

Apparently, the damage the rocket attacks cause, if the Israelis keep bombing Gaza, is reduced to a level Israel can sustain. They can keep this up, and Israeli public opinion is likely to support them in doing so because the alternative is to sit back and do nothing while Hamas fires rockets at them.

And yes, that's a strategy of "preserve the status quo." The status quo is to Israel's advantage, because it isn't the Israelis who are starving and it mostly isn't them who are getting blown up. This is not surprising, the Israelis are indifferent to Palestinians' suffering as long as it means they don't starve and get blown up.

What is surprising is that Hamas wants to preserve the same status quo, despite the fact that they are Palestinians, and the Palestinians are starving and getting blown up.

[Grumman]

I don't carry water for them and I will demand either proof of me being a Hamas supporter or advocating that their tactics are morally right. Otherwise, you better retract that one right now.

For starters, how about your assertion that the Palestinians had tried defense for sixty years, let alone that they found it unsuccessful? What period of sixty years were you thinking of, that did not include Hamas sending suicide bombers to murder Israeli civilians? Or your attempt to pretend "[t]his is one slow ethnic cleansing, which makes any of their actions criminal by default as they are in support of ongoing settlement policies" when it is only unilateral Israeli opposition to ongoing settlement policies, in the form of evicting settlers from the Gaza strip by force, that allowed the current situation to exist?

[Beowulf]

The central method of launching said attacks is to set up someplace with a temporary frame, launch the rocket on remote and bug out. Now often times the rockets are not removed far from where they are made (This is gaza after all) but the number of attacks that have hit hospitals, UN facilities, schools and UN observer locations indicates that the IDF is not pursuing a pure goal of stopping said attacks. After all if a rocket is launched from a hilltop the proper method is not saturated bombing the area but instead watching it until you see them re-using said hilltop and hitting them then. Far to many IDF attacks seem to be targeted let say a touch... haphazard? Not counting hospitals, shelters, or UN facilities lets count the number of times we've heard about busy markets being hit (Two incidents come to mind) because if Hamas is know for one thing it's gathering in large masses in marketplaces.

Beowulf my point is that when IDF "accidents" start taking up a good 40% of all strikes can not be linked back by the IDF to either a missile being fired or missile movement you can start looking at alternative explanations. *Edit my numbers are theoretical. I've not been keeping an exact count or measurment but only following second hand and when the number of seperate incidents crossed over the 9th page of my google alerts I've started getting a bit concerned on the civilian to "Hamas" ratio keeping in mind it seems the IDF like America has that same lose definition of "male between the ages of 16 and 60"=enemy.

The problem I have with the casaulty numbers coming from Gaza is that first, they are all sourced from Hamas. Every source eventually ends up at the Gaza Ministry of Health, which is controlled by Hamas (surprise, they're the government of the Gaza strip). Second, since Hamas does control the data, the civilian to Hamas ratio is whatever they want, and since a definition of civilian for them can be "is not wearing a uniform when they show up at the morgue," can be massively skewed.

Additionally, Hamas isn't launching from hilltops. They're launching from in or near schools, hospitals, and mosques. It would therefore make plenty of sense that you end up with schools, mosques and hospitals being hit as a result.

Also, Hamas's rockets aren't very good. There are instances where Palestinian casualties have occured, but all material from the munition was removed before the press were allowed there. Reason being, it was a Palestinian rocket that fell short.

As explained previously, it is to Hamas's advantage to maximize civilian casaulties. And they aren't above lying about them:

Hamas admits 600-700 of its men were killed in Cast Lead
The military group had previously claimed only 49 militants died during Gaza war, though Israel put the figure at 709

So we know that Hamas lies about casaulties. Alot. As such, I have reason to doubt that the numbers released thus far are all civilians, as claimed by Hamas. Why do you trust their numbers?

The goal is to cause Israel to inflict disproportionate damage on the Palestinian civiilians so that their own populace gets disgusted of the war (and the policies of Netanyahoo).

So the object is to cause the Israelis to have sympathy for the Palestinians? The Israelis that are getting attacked by the Palestinian government? You think the objective is something like India tried, with immense Indian casualties resulting in the British losing their stomach to continue?

[Mr Bean]

The problem I have with the casaulty numbers coming from Gaza is that first, they are all sourced from Hamas

Including UN observer numbers when the building they are staying in gets hit by IDF attacks?

Seriously Beowulf, this is not Ukraine where both sides are engaged in a constant propaganda war without no one else able to report on the group except the various sides partisans. This is Gaza where there are several hundred UN personnel in places plus international media and part of Hamas strategy is to get reporters as close to the action as possible. (*Edit Action in this case is IDF strikes not Hamas attacks)

This is Gaza, tiny Gaza which is either urbanized or empty ground with very few types between. Thanks to Hamas press strategy while they can keep them away from rocket launches the same can't be said of IDF shells which is where I come back to number of incidents on the IDF side.

[Beowulf]

Sorry Bean, I don't have a Google alert on Gaza. Can you point me to where UN observers got hit? Yes, I know schools got hit... but then again, there's at least 3 cases where UNRWA personnel found rockets in their schools (and turned them over to the local authorities for disposal (by air (in Israel))).

[The Romulan Republic]

They have about as much to gain from peace talks as the jews in warsaw ghetto would have had, the colonisation, extermination and marginalization would proceed apace, just easier to hide from the world.

I'm tired of the its like the Holocaust and Israel is like the Nazis bullshit. At best its a simplistic exaggeration that downplays the horror of the Holocaust that is put forward by people who probably foolishly think they're being clever. At worst its a lie to inflame people and taunt Israel using one of the worst times in the history of the Jews.

And people defending Hamas here is disturbing. Whatever Israel has done, it doesn't make Hamas good. One side being bad doesn't make the other side good. Sometimes both sides suck dick.

You think Hamas fighting is going to lead to a peaceful solution? Of course not. Its just going to make Israel fight more.

[Elfdart]

Sorry Bean, I don't have a Google alert on Gaza. Can you point me to where UN observers got hit? Yes, I know schools got hit... but then again, there's at least 3 cases where UNRWA personnel found rockets in their schools (and turned them over to the local authorities for disposal (by air (in Israel))).

How many of the schools and hospitals that were bombed/shelled by Israel had rockets in them? Paging Dean Wormer...

[His Divine Shadow]

They have about as much to gain from peace talks as the jews in warsaw ghetto would have had, the colonisation, extermination and marginalization would proceed apace, just easier to hide from the world.

I'm tired of the its like the Holocaust and Israel is like the Nazis bullshit. At best its a simplistic exaggeration that downplays the horror of the Holocaust that is put forward by people who probably foolishly think they're being clever. At worst its a lie to inflame people and taunt Israel using one of the worst times in the history of the Jews.

And people defending Hamas here is disturbing. Whatever Israel has done, it doesn't make Hamas good. One side being bad doesn't make the other side good. Sometimes both sides suck dick.

You think Hamas fighting is going to lead to a peaceful solution? Of course not. Its just going to make Israel fight more.

I don't need to think Hamas are saints or even "good guys" to think that Israel is the far worse of the two, they basically stole their land and won't leave. GTFO and I would have sympathy for Israel, shit don't even have to return most of the land, just go back to the 1947 borders and that'd be a huge improvement, then at least israel can state they're only using the territory given to them by the UN. I bet it won't stop the violence from hamas but they would have a hard time to fish for sympathy if they got most of their territory back. Hamas would also have a hard time getting enough radicals anymore if they weren't being pressed into a few shitty reservations on what's left in the shattered remains of what was once their homeland.

As for the holocaust card, Israel has used that card with crocodile tears so many times it's already been downplayed and lost all it's impact a looong time ago. I'm not the one who defiled or downplayed that tragedy.

I don't think Hamas wants a peaceful solution, they probably want the state of Israel destroyed and we probably don't want them to have the power to do that, but they don't! Doesn't mean I think their actions in the face of an enemy that has taken their land, are not understandable, or that if the situations would be reversed that it would be any different. In that case I would be the one having sympathy for the israelis.

Frankly no two state solution is likely to work, what's needed is external military intervention that takes both sides by the ear and puts both leaders on trials for war crimes and then reforms the whole area into a not-israel not-palestine state with equal rights for all. It'd require some kind of marshall plan like initiative to also rebuild and allot territory for the palestinian population, would take decades, but if we did all that you can be pretty sure 99.999% of palestinians would stop fighting and just get on with their lives, because they would actually have lives. Basically everyone has to lose a little in order to win.