Israel-Hamas war 3

[Bael's Bastard]

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

I assume the Israeli people are either too fearful and saddened or too enraged at Hamas to go out in the streets and protest against the government. The whole thing about the judiciary is on the back burner now.

Israelis have been protesting for nearly a year, but the Hamas mass murder, hostage taking, and continued rocket attacks have halted them.

[Craving Peaches]

Also, I don't think an invasion will be able to wipe out Hamas as supposedly the leaders aren't even in Gaza. Also, based on the targeting of hospitals, ambulances, fleeing civilians etc. I really doubt civilian casualties will be minimised, which will just bolster Hamas support.

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Also, I don't think an invasion will be able to wipe out Hamas as supposedly the leaders aren't even in Gaza. Also, based on the targeting of hospitals, ambulances, fleeing civilians etc. I really doubt civilian casualties will be minimised, which will just bolster Hamas support.

You don't need to destroy hamas in total. If they are unable to project power in Gaza or the west bank the same result has happened.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

23 minutes ago, Darryk said:

Well personally I'd rather call a ceasefire and negotiate with Hamas to get the hostages back.

There's no point in negotiating. I doubt a fraction of the hostages will be recovered. 

[Corvinus85]

My feeling is that Israel can absolutely obliterate Hamas in Gaza at the costs of thousands of civilians, which will in turn raise support for Hamas in the West Bank. And once that happens, that war will be far more costly for Israel.

The Hamas leadership that operates from Qatar and wherever else needs to be eliminated. That should be the #1 priority as a long-term military goal.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Corvinus85

[Fragile Bird]

Another question I have is, just exactly what is supposed to be the world's response to the Hamas attack? Statements of shock and horror? Is that it?

In the past when terrorists came up with new forms of violence, there usually were two responses: create strategies to prevent the form of attack, and hunt down and kill the bastards. Both have had limited success. An example of the former was dealing with plane hijackings, and while some were not violent, you did have the Entebbe form of hijacking. The  protective measures only lasted as long as someone set their mind to circumventing them, and as a result we had 9/11. We now have even more draconian rules around flying (hey, which I'm grateful for) but that doesn't mean it isn't going to happen again. Just what did happen to Flight MH370?

An example of the latter, well, many examples of the latter, dealt with police and security forces trying to hunt down members of terrorist organizations and kill them all or take them alive and jail them forever. Every country created anti-terrorism units. The problem with that strategy is that for every terrorist you kill, two more seem to spring up to replace them. With powerful forces at work and the will to end decades of violence, a solution has been found for Northern Ireland. No one knows if that will be permanent, the last time I was in Belfast I was told there are still areas a person should not wander around alone. Black September might technically be gone, but from oversees operations only, right? It lives on in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel under other forms. And that's the problem, the IRA issue got resolved because their existence was not for the purpose of killing every Brit in the world.

I ask the question because the terrorist attack was just too big to ignore. You can't dismiss it by blaming the Israelis. I think you have to assume that this form of attack will take place elsewhere, and will be just as ugly.

[Crixus]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Most Israelis seem to agree, but suffice it to say that the political situation is so fragile that if he resigned immediately it would throw the government into complete chaos. So most seem to say he should go after the conclusion of the war.

Entirely true, yet also convenient for him unfortunately. 

[kissdbyfire]

@Fragile Bird the world is a broken shitshow. I get that there are no easy answers, but I also believe there are answers out there. Whether there’s any will to try anything different than what’s been done for decades w/o success is another matter. Apparently not would be my own answer, since leaders keep going back to the same playbook(s) that have never really done anything other than providing a temporary sense of security or ‘victory’. 
The only way to achieve lasting peace and prosperity is for at least the majority of people to feel relatively safe and seen and to have a sense of belonging and that they can pursue their own happiness. But the only way for this to be even remotely possible is for the powerful leaders to win hearts and minds. But really win hearts and minds, through actions and an awful lot of hard work, something that I don’t see happening anytime soon - or ever, really. People are not stupid (yes, they are but not in the sense I mean here), they wouldn’t want to go back to whatever terrible situation they were in if their lives actually improve. But then we’re talking decades of A LOT of work in education, health, civics, digital literacy, removing people from abject poverty, and the list goes on and on and on. Would it be possible? I don’t see why not. Is the will there to try? Fuck no. Especially now. The radicalisation we see in Palestinians supporting Hamas b/c why not at this point is not that different from the radicalisation of someone in some red state in America who thinks Mango Mussolini is the 2nd coming of Jesus. All these disgusting populist authoritarian wannabe dictators are similar and use similar playbooks: keep people ignorant so that they’ll believe you when you tell them free universal health care is communism! Of course there are regional variations to the lies they use to radicalise the people, but the result is always the same. 
And even leaders who are not like Mango or Netanyahu or Orban and have good/better intentions don’t seem to be able to break the mold, b/c the power structure is what it is and round and round we go. I feel very pessimistic about the whole thing. 
But I’m just rambling and, as you know, this is as far from from my area of expertise as can be. 

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, Darryk said:

Well personally I'd rather call a ceasefire and negotiate with Hamas to get the hostages back. The Israeli public are baying for Hamas blood after the pogroms but a leader has to be rational and avoid giving into bloodlust. Currently the Israeli government are just giving Hamas what they want anyway; where's the victory in that?

As for how to get rid of Netanyahu, we just have to hope he gets voted out or arrested for corruption. The bad news is that, according to historian  Benny Morris. secular Jews have about 2 or 3 children per family while religious Jews have about 7 or 8 children per family, so the far-right religious Jews are gradually gaining more voting power.

 

I've been thinking about this since you posted it. The problem is, by opening negotiations you reward Hamas for their attack. I just can't see how you can reward such a brutal, vicious attack. 

I'm afraid that means dead hostages, but did anyone here actually think any hostages would survive? I also see from the headlines on Google the Israelis sent in a secret rescue team just after the attack and rescued 250 hostages, so while the situation is horrible it's not as horrible as it could have been. The 150 that are apparently still prisoners probably haven't got a hope in hell.

Just think of the size of this Hamas operation. They killed so many people and also kidnapped over 400 people.

[Bael's Bastard]

10 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I've been thinking about this since you posted it. The problem is, by opening negotiations you reward Hamas for their attack. I just can't see how you can reward such a brutal, vicious attack. 

I'm afraid that means dead hostages, but did anyone here actually think any hostages would survive? I also see from the headlines on Google the Israelis sent in a secret rescue team just after the attack and rescued 250 hostages, so while the situation is horrible it's not as horrible as it could have been. The 150 that are apparently still prisoners probably haven't got a hope in hell.

Just think of the size of this Hamas operation. They killed so many people and also kidnapped over 400 people.

My understanding is those hostages were rescued on the day of the attack from areas of Israel that Hamas had held. They held significant parts of Israel surrounding Gaza for a time.

The number of those believed to be held in Gaza has only increased. At one point it was estimated at 100, then 130, now the families of around 200 have been notified by the IDF. I'm guessing that might not include non-Israelis.

I am not sure how many made it to Gaza alive in the first place let alone are still alive now, but hope for those still alive will be costly if it is at all possible.

Shalit is the only one to ever be released released alive, and it was for more than 1000 prisoners, about a quarter of whom had life sentences for killing or planning attacks on Israelis.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Bael's Bastard

[GrimTuesday]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

There's no point in negotiating. I doubt a fraction of the hostages will be recovered. 

Oh please, if Hamas wanted to kill them they would have killed the hostages when they attacked Israel proper. The entire point of taking hostages is to extract something or to protect yourself from reprisals, killing them is entirely counter productive. At this point, Israeli bombing is more of a danger to these hostages than Hamas is. THis is not to say that they are being treated well, just that this idea that we should just assume they are already as good as dead is dumb and fails to understand the logic of Hamas's actions in favor of just demonizing them as complete monsters devoid of humanity.

Edited October 16, 2023 by GrimTuesday

[fionwe1987]

There's no solution to this problem where the agency and freedom of Palestinians continues as is. Any such "solution" will be a temporary victory, at best, which will need to be backed up by an attempt at even better defense systems, which, in the end, will also fail, because you corral humans into a place with no escape, with basic resources scarce, and they will wait to figure out the flaws in your defense and strike, destroying any false sense of security you have.

16 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I've been thinking about this since you posted it. The problem is, by opening negotiations you reward Hamas for their attack. I just can't see how you can reward such a brutal, vicious attack. 

I don't think negotiations reward Hamas any more than a ground assault, and maybe less. Negotiations (in good faith) allow Israel far more control over the narrative. It is just perceived as weak and rewarding bad behavior, but I don't think it is.

Edited October 16, 2023 by fionwe1987

[JGP]

11 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Oh please, if Hamas wanted to kill them they would have killed the hostages when they attacked Israel proper. The entire point of taking hostages is to extract something or to protect yourself from reprisals, killing them is entirely counter productive. At this point, Israeli bombing is more of a danger to these hostages than Hamas is.

I think Ty's point, and he'll correct me if I'm wrong, is that Hamas won't release them because Israel will be coming into the Strip imminently, at which point Hamas will either commit to its threats and start executing hostages or hanging on to some [or most] for further leverage [edit: both, probably]

And, unless a location is caught by surprise, it's doubtful the hostage[s] wouldn't be executed to deny their recovery. 

Edited October 16, 2023 by JGP

[Craving Peaches]

21 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

At this point, Israeli bombing is more of a danger to these hostages than Hamas is.

Hamas claimed some of them were killed by Israeli airstrikes but whether that is reliable...

[Werthead]

Iran continuing to sabre-rattle.

Blinken was supposed to head back to the US tonight but turned round instead and flew to Amman, apparently to consider a fresh Jordanian initiative. Biden may fly to Israel in the next day or two, a sign of the influence the US wants to exert on the situation (he could potentially be in the firing line should Hezbollah or Iran attack).

Six senior Hamas leaders are now confirmed dead in the last week, including at least three senior figures involved in planning or leading last weekend's attack

17 hours ago, Altherion said:

It's not even that it has the potential to go wrong, it's that it's almost guaranteed to be a mess of epic proportions. Hamas has had more than a decade to fortify and trap the places the Israelis will be marching into and there is no technology out there right now that enables urban warfare without very high casualties (either on one side because the other is simply reducing the urban landscape to dust or on both sides because neither is willing or able to perform said reduction). It's going to be bad.

You can't fortify and booby-trap places where people are living and working every day. They'll have certainly taken steps in the nine days since the attacks, once they realised the reprisals they'd trigger would be enormous, and it may be they had time to do some things before than (perhaps even deliberately trying to trigger an invasion), but I think there will be limitations on what they can do (they can't have some school kids or a passer-by triggering a booby-trap whilst they're waiting for Israel to invade). The tunnels will be a different matter, however.

6 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

Apparently no water has even reached South Gaza...

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/15/israel-hamas-war-live-gaza-hospitals-fuel-to-last-24-more-hours-un-says

Israel turned the water back on, but have not allowed fresh water supplies back in. Gaza's own water supply is pretty grim at the best of times and widely believed to be contaminated, and without gas or electricity they can't boil it. Plus some of the pipes have been destroyed in the bombings, and there faults on the system engineers have not been able to get to. Turning the pipes back on alone is not hugely helpful.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Werthead

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, GrimTuesday said:

Oh please, if Hamas wanted to kill them they would have killed the hostages when they attacked Israel proper. The entire point of taking hostages is to extract something or to protect yourself from reprisals, killing them is entirely counter productive. 

Right, and their game theory that this would prevent an all out counter-assault has proven to be wrong. At that point the hostages don't have much value, plus feeding them when supplies are running low isn't ideal for Hamas. All the context clues suggest there's little hope for the remaining hostages, many of which are already probably dead.

1 hour ago, JGP said:

I think Ty's point, and he'll correct me if I'm wrong, is that Hamas won't release them because Israel will be coming into the Strip imminently, at which point Hamas will either commit to its threats and start executing hostages or hanging on to some [or most] for further leverage [edit: both, probably]

And, unless a location is caught by surprise, it's doubtful the hostage[s] wouldn't be executed to deny their recovery. 

Yep. 

[GrimTuesday]

23 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Right, and their game theory that this would prevent an all out counter-assault has proven to be wrong. At that point the hostages don't have much value, plus feeding them when supplies are running low isn't ideal for Hamas. All the context clues suggest there's little hope for the remaining hostages, many of which are already probably dead.

All this assumes that the IDF has to take the actions that endanger the hostages. Israel can choose to not go all cowboy, they can choose to enter into negotiations, they don't have to cut off the supplies that create the conditions that might cause Hamas to execute the hostages. We are talking about this shit as if every step of the way is inevitable or some kind of act of god, and that is just isn't actually how it is. Israel is making choices that have consequences (as did Hamas) and you can't pretend they don't have agency here.

None of this absolves Hamas of the crimes they have committed or from the fact that they put these people in peril by taking them hostage, they too have exercised their agency and people have suffered for it, but this is the reality that we have to operate from. Israel's actions determine what happens from here, and if the hostages die, it is at least partly because of how Israel reacted.

Edited October 16, 2023 by GrimTuesday

[Ran]

What is the purpose of negotiating with Hamas? If the negotiations will lead to them giving up Gaza, disarming, and disbanding, cool. Because nothing short of that makes strategic sense. Hamas must be destroyed.

[JGP]

30 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Israel turned the water back on, but have not allowed fresh water supplies back in. Gaza's own water supply is pretty grim at the best of times and widely believed to be contaminated, and without gas or electricity they can't boil it. 

Can't distribute it without gas for the gennies or electricity either. 

[Kalbear]

No, I don't think so. If the hostages die that's on Hamas, unless Israel actively bombs them or something. There are some places where I"m going to blame Israel for reacting and being overly zealous and not cautious enough, but in the case of hostages - no. 

Hamas took them. Hamas has full control over what to do with them. If Israel doesn't negotiate (and to be clear I do not believe they should negotiate at all) then Hamas killing them is 100% on Hamas.

This, btw, is not a matter of going 'all cowboy'. It is to make it clear that there is no actual value in taking hostages. If Hamas wants prisoners released they'll have to go another way. As long as it is perceived that you can take hostages to do prisoner swaps they will continue to do exactly that. That isn't Israel's longstanding policy, mind you - they'll do a lot of things including prisoner swaps - but as long as they keep doing that they'll keep having hostages.