Israel - Hamas War XII

[Werthead]

Changing leaders in wartime is actually done on a fairly regular basis. Chamberlain gave way to Churchill in WWII, and Roosevelt gave way to Truman (not voluntarily, to be fair). Depending how you count it, the war in Iraq spanned two Presidents, in Afghanistan four. 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Werthead

[kissdbyfire]

And then there’s the corruption trial on top of everything else…

“Israel: PM Netanyahu's corruption trial resumes”

Quote

In one case, it is alleged that the prime minister offered perks to Israeli telecom giant Bezeq during his time as communications minister in return for favorable reporting.

In another, Netanyahu is accused of accepting luxury gifts worth around 700,000 shekels ($189,000; €174,000) between 2007 and 2016 — including jewelry, cigars and pink champagne — in return for his support of the extension of a law which would have saved Israeli Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan millions in tax payments.

Bribery charges in Israel carry a jail sentence of up to 10 years and/or a fine. Fraud and breach of trust carry prison sentences of up to three years.

Netanyahu has always denied all the accusations and has spoken of a "witch hunt," insisting that he only ever accepted gifts from friends and never solicitied bribes.

He says the charges are a witch hunt, to the surprise of… no one. 

[Altherion]

46 minutes ago, mormont said:

Then why do I keep hearing this stuff about how it can't be done now? How you can't change leaders in wartime because, uh, everyone knows you can't change leaders in wartime?

He needs to be kicked out immediately if there is to be any hope of salvaging something from the aftermath. If he is not, then that, too, will be a humanitarian disaster.

I think it is not so much about changing leaders in wartime and more about how to kick him out in the context of the Israeli parliamentary system. I think I saw a poll at some point where he was getting single digit support (something like 4% in general and 8% from people who voted for his party in the past) so almost everyone wants him gone, but it would require a new election which is rather difficult to do during a war with a large part of the country evacuated. Thus, he will be kicked out shortly after the war ends... but not before.

[Mudguard]

19 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I literally went out of my way to cite something from the exact same news source you did, and in it they had a graph showing a massive one day leap that isn't explained with the numbers plateauing again. 

The big jump is there to account for all the deaths that weren't reported in roughly a weeks worth of days prior to the ceasefire.  These missing days are mentioned in the figure caption.  Communications were essentially completely down during these periods of time, so the health ministry wasn't able to get updated numbers from their various sources, such as hospitals.  Presumably, they were able to do the tally for these missing days during the ceasefire, and decided to add them when the ceasefire ended.

But this has nothing to do with the reporting of the death toll since the ceasefire ended.  We have daily data since then, and it's been around 300 deaths per day, which is on par with the death rate since the beginning of the war.  It's very clear that there isn't a substantial decrease in the death rate since the ceasefire ended as you've claimed.

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Every plan has deep flaws. That's the problem. Ultimately Israel has no choice but to wreck Hamas right now. A multi-year approach to removing them isn't plausible. However, like I said before, there needs to be a really good plan being developed for what to do after the war and as far as I can tell there isn't one. 

Did you read the article?  Because you found one line that mentions how building a relationship with the non-terrorists is difficult --not "low chance of succeeding", not "almost impossible", not "not worth trying" and used it to wave away the one thing that has worked in similar situations--  and are instead advocating the exact same thing that the article describes as what we know doesn't work.  

Edited December 10, 2023 by Larry of the Lawn

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 minutes ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

Did you read the article?  Because you found one line that mentions how building a relationship with the non-terrorists is difficult --not "low chance of succeeding", not "almost impossible", not "not worth trying" and used it to wave away the one thing that has worked in similar situations--  and are instead advocating the exact same thing that the article describes as what we know doesn't work.  

"Incredibly difficult" was the exact quote and the approach would take several years with an uncertain outcome. That's not a realistic alternative, especially when Hamas is open about how they're going to keep attacking. 

41 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

Presumably, they were able to do the tally for these missing days during the ceasefire, and decided to add them when the ceasefire ended.

Right, which skews the daily totals if you include that day in the sample. 

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

Right, which skews the daily totals if you include that day in the sample. 

It does not, actually. The median is what most people have been using. 

It also hardly matters as it's a running total of deaths. If anything that makes it worse for your argument, as 300 deaths per day is including the 3k boost, and before it was 'only 250 per day. So now that we are seeing 300 per day that means it's actually getting worse.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It does not, actually. The median is what most people have been using. 

It also hardly matters as it's a running total of deaths. If anything that makes it worse for your argument, as 300 deaths per day is including the 3k boost, and before it was 'only 250 per day. So now that we are seeing 300 per day that means it's actually getting worse.

Not if your argument is that the recent tolls match the previous ones, and more likely than not a lot of those deaths occurred much earlier. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

The Post is running an article today that reports Hamas is demanding more humanitarian aid or its going to kill the rest of the 100+ hostages.

Israel has said that Hamas is refusing to return the remains of at least 20 hostages who've  died in captivity.

What a horror show, just all of it.

[Craving Peaches]

Israel used U.S.-made white phosphorus weapons in South Lebanon attack - The Washington Post

Quote

Israel used U.S.-supplied white phosphorus munitions in an October attack in southern Lebanon that injured at least nine civilians in what a rights group says should be investigated as a war crime, according to a Washington Post analysis of shell fragments found in a small village.

But before someone goes 'legitimate military use'

Quote

It is unclear why the Israeli military fired the rounds into the evening, as smoke would have little practical use at night and there were no Israeli troops on the Lebanese side of the border to mask with smokescreens. Residents speculated that the phosphorus was meant to displace them from the village and to clear the way for future Israeli military activity in the area.

Any other possible explanation?

6 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

What a horror show, just all of it.

It's so awful it sometimes verges on surreal, seeing all the horrible stuff going on and no one who could stop/reduce it doing anything, or doing very little, about it.

Edited December 11, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[Kalbear]

17 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Not if your argument is that the recent tolls match the previous ones, and more likely than not a lot of those deaths occurred much earlier. 

Again this doesn't make any sense at all. The death toll cited above is the per-day reports that exclude that big bump. Which are comparable or actually a bit higher than the previous per-day reported death tolls in October. You said that the per day death tolls were significantly lower than before and that appears to be completely wrong. 

This is also backed up by the rate of bombings that Israel has been doing which have increased over previous times, hitting rates per day that were only higher at the very beginning of the war. The thesis that Israel has toned things down does not appear to be supported by evidence. 

[Kalbear]

In other horrible news, Palestinian Authority states that Hamas isn't going to be eradicated by Israel and is an important part of the landscape of Palestinian political power. 

Maybe this is just a negotiating tactic, but my fear is that the PA is basically going to welcome and facilitate Hamas in the West Bank - which would then potentially cause Israel to escalate to there as well.

https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-12-10-23/h_e2a06dbfd683a6ed5a3f0bb2aff60886

[Zorral]

A Few Thoughts on Israel/Palestine, Etc.

Author makes 18 points concerning this ongoing horror of inhumanity, and what it is, and why it matters -- including Bibietc. despises Biden and Co., because of this, Hamas has and is playing all of us/US and Israel like a violin, and this degrading condition is gonna lose Biden the election.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/12/a-few-thoughts-on-israel-palestine-etc

 

Edited December 11, 2023 by Zorral

[DireWolfSpirit]

12 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Palestinian Authority states that Hamas isn't going to be eradicated by Israel and is an important part of the landscape of Palestinian political power. 

^^^^If that comes to pass an escalation is all but certain.

Talk about a gulf in vision between two groups, there needs to be some serious expectation adjustment for this fighting to ever end. Israel thinking Hamas needs to be eradicated and the Palestinian Authority stating they are an important part of the future Palestinian landscape, thats a gulf of wildly different expectations.

Eta: This is also why I expect things to get much worse yet, we are not remotely close to any sort of cessation, not to mention the terrible hostage stalemate.

Edited December 11, 2023 by DireWolfSpirit

[Kalbear]

On 12/9/2023 at 11:49 PM, Ran said:

"Other conflicts" includes extremely different sorts of conflict. If you limit it to urban warfare, 90% of all casualties are civilians. Indeed, the Secretary-General of the UN has cited the same figure, so I think those who believe him to be a straight shooter would admit that this estimate of casualty levels out of Gaza are actually indicative of the IDF taking care and being discriminate in its targetting in a very difficult urban environment.

I'll note that that 90% figure comes from looking at some very non-discriminate wars like the Syrian civil war, Nigeria and Somalia. 

I'll also note that I've looked through their documentation and finding a source for that 90% is pretty difficult. I'm willing to believe it, but if Israel's goal is to get the median value of combatants to civilians based on how Syria did I'm not sure that's the winning argument you think it is. 

ETA: here's a good comparison example - the battle of Raqqa in 2017. Massive shelling took place, bombing was quite severe and 'dynamic' - meaning that it was not planned directly but was a call-in from on the ground troops, and therefore was more indiscriminate. It caused anywhere from 1500 to 1900 civilian deaths, 80% of the structures of the city were made uninhabitable - and killed at least 1400 combatants with another 700 captured. Some good lessons and AAR here too. I say this is comparable because ISIS specifically planned on making this as hard as possible, used human shields, and it was one of the worst battles of the ISIS campaign - and they still had a 1-1 ratio of civilian deaths to combatant deaths. 

Edited December 11, 2023 by Kalbear

[Tears of Lys]

22 hours ago, mormont said:

Then why do I keep hearing this stuff about how it can't be done now? How you can't change leaders in wartime because, uh, everyone knows you can't change leaders in wartime?

He needs to be kicked out immediately if there is to be any hope of salvaging something from the aftermath. If he is not, then that, too, will be a humanitarian disaster.

With all due respect, saying Netanyahu needs to be kicked out immediately is as realistic as saying Hamas needs to release the hostages and stop fighting.  

Ok.  Maybe 5% more likely in the former case.  Unfortunately, if Bibi, et al., WERE to be kicked out, I'm sad to say that Hamas would view that as a big win for their side and encouragement that what they've been doing is working.  

Has anyone else seen the photos of the donkey with the Israeli flag painted on its side?  The schmucks who did it then shot the animal in the head and set it on fire.  

As for the quoted article about a smarter way to defeat Hamas, I read a lot of "should," "possibly," "could" and "might" in his piece, and using a "political" methodology to build a Palestinian government, which he says will take long time (ha! at least!)  I must agree with Tywin that Hamas will hardly cease their attacks on Israel during this process.    

Edited December 11, 2023 by Tears of Lys
thought of something else

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Again this doesn't make any sense at all. The death toll cited above is the per-day reports that exclude that big bump. Which are comparable or actually a bit higher than the previous per-day reported death tolls in October. You said that the per day death tolls were significantly lower than before and that appears to be completely wrong. 

Right, but they're not retroactively applied to the previous period either when making a comparison. 

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

In other horrible news, Palestinian Authority states that Hamas isn't going to be eradicated by Israel and is an important part of the landscape of Palestinian political power. 

Maybe this is just a negotiating tactic, but my fear is that the PA is basically going to welcome and facilitate Hamas in the West Bank - which would then potentially cause Israel to escalate to there as well.

https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-12-10-23/h_e2a06dbfd683a6ed5a3f0bb2aff60886

Shocking! It's not like the PA has a different goal than Hamas. 

[Zorral]

Why a 123-Year-Old Jewish Nonprofit Won’t Choose Sides in Gaza
The war has created an existential reckoning for the Workers Circle, a community organization that traces its roots to Yiddish activists in the early 1900s.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/nyregion/jewish-nonprofit-history.html

Quote

 

.... “There is a lot of pressure to make statements,” Ann Toback, chief executive of the Workers Circle, said recently, “and I am not a huge fan of statements.” The organization issued a single declaration on the war, delivered on Oct. 9, two days after the terror attacks by Hamas, condemning them but urging “all parties to uphold international law and create a pathway forward for human rights and peace for Israelis and Palestinians alike.”

The Workmen’s Circle supported the founding of Israel after the Holocaust but has leaned away from Zionism since the beginning. It has long stood for a two-state solution as the best way forward, but remains a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on what is happening to people who live here. “We have always focused on a domestic agenda. It’s not anti anything,’’ Ms. Toback, whose great-grandfather was a Workmen’s Circle member, said. “This is our history.” ....

 

 

 

[Crixus]

16 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I'll note that that 90% figure comes from looking at some very non-discriminate wars like the Syrian civil war, Nigeria and Somalia. 

I'll also note that I've looked through their documentation and finding a source for that 90% is pretty difficult. I'm willing to believe it, but if Israel's goal is to get the median value of combatants to civilians based on how Syria did I'm not sure that's the winning argument you think it is. 

ETA: here's a good comparison example - the battle of Raqqa in 2017. Massive shelling took place, bombing was quite severe and 'dynamic' - meaning that it was not planned directly but was a call-in from on the ground troops, and therefore was more indiscriminate. It caused anywhere from 1500 to 1900 civilian deaths, 80% of the structures of the city were made uninhabitable - and killed at least 1400 combatants with another 700 captured. Some good lessons and AAR here too. I say this is comparable because ISIS specifically planned on making this as hard as possible, used human shields, and it was one of the worst battles of the ISIS campaign - and they still had a 1-1 ratio of civilian deaths to combatant deaths. 

Thanks for this info. Also, @Ran, you haven't answered my earlier question about the point I cited from the same report re Israel deliberately causing mass civilian casualties to make people 'turn on Hamas'. Curious to hear your thoughts on this, given your steadfast assertions around the level of care Israel is taking to minimise civilian deaths. 

[Zorral]

WHO says medical convoy in Gaza was shot at, health workers detained

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/12/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-palestine/#link-KGNVKRXIVJGMTCW4X3VKSV5KBE

Quote

 

The World Health Organization said Tuesday that a medical convoy was stopped twice and shot at, with health workers held and questioned, during a mission to al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City last week.

The convoy was delivering trauma and surgical supplies to treat 1,500 patients, and was transferring 19 critically ill patients with 14 companions to another hospital in southern Gaza, the WHO said. Health workers were temporarily detained and interrogated, the WHO said, adding that staff “saw one of them being made to kneel at gunpoint and then taken out of sight, where he was reportedly harassed, beaten, stripped and searched.”

The WHO did not identify who carried out the alleged shooting, detentions and checks. The Washington Post could not independently verify the claims.

Patients were forced to leave the vehicles for checks, and critically ill patients who remained in the ambulances were searched, it said. One of the injured patients died as a result of untreated wounds during the delayed mission, the WHO said, citing the Palestine Red Crescent Society, which was part of the mission. “Obstructing ambulances and attacks on humanitarian and health workers are unconscionable,” the WHO said. ....

 

The White House notes that Biden often calls for protecting Palestinian civilians, but critics see an imbalance in his tone

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/12/biden-empathy-lacking-palestinians/

Quote

 

.... Like Biden, Blinken is a staunch supporter of Israel whose views were forged during years of government service. But as the top U.S. diplomat, he has been at the receiving end of numerous warnings and pleas from Arab leaders and humanitarian groups seeking to limit the violence. He has also listened to diverging views within the State Department and met with authors of internal dissent memos calling for the United States to use its leverage with Israel to help end the conflict.

Many Arab and Muslim American voters say their current hurt and anger stems in part from the fact that they supported Biden in 202o in the belief that they were electing someone committed to human rights who could empathize with the deep grief they are now feeling. Some Palestinian Americans have lost dozens or more family members in Israeli airstrikes, and many Arab and Muslim Americans now say they will not back the president in next year’s election.

Imran Salha, imam of the Islamic Center of Detroit, said many Muslims and Arabs — including Arab and Palestinian Christians — feel betrayed. He recounted one Muslim activist who had been so energized by the president’s candidacy in 2020 that he had Biden’s name written on his birthday cake as he campaigned for him.

“He really thought he was investing in leadership that could carry some level of moral clarity,” Salha said. “All the people who made sure to campaign very strongly to get Biden the presidency — all of them feel betrayed.”

One Biden ally and former administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly about the president’s political views, said the president’s feelings for Israel have clouded his empathy for Palestinians, an assertion strongly disputed by the White House.

“Viscerally, Biden is famous for empathizing with a lot of people,” the person said. “He doesn’t have that same feel for the Palestinians.”