Posted on 10/25/2023 8:26:28 PM PDT by FarCenter
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There is no military way for Israel to fully destroy Hamas without killing tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and radicalizing even more. An invasion of Gaza would be a humanitarian, moral, and strategic catastrophe, not only inflicting unfathomable human costs but also badly undermining Israel’s long-term security. Nothing it can hope to achieve – beyond satisfying Israeli demands for revenge – can outweigh the harm it is certain to do even in the best of scenarios.
Because Hamas’ military infrastructure is embedded in civilian areas and its 30,000-40,000 fighters hide among noncombatants, any attempt to destroy Hamas in Gaza would have to be conducted block by block, building by building, and door by door in one of the most densely populated and urbanized environments in the world, amid a uniquely hostile population and against a highly motivated enemy that has been preparing for this fight on their home turf for a long time. This slow and grinding urban battle would be tactically harder to prosecute and costlier in terms of Israeli military casualties than Fallujah was for the US. Even if Israel takes every precaution to protect civilian lives, many innocent people will inevitably be killed, injured, and displaced. Before Oct. 7, 50% of Palestinians in Gaza faced chronic hunger and 90% didn’t have access to clean water; under siege and without a way out of the territory, this will only get worse for them.
The death and suffering of innocent civilians will in turn radicalize many more Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere, increasing support for Hamas and multiplying the threat to Israel. At a minimum, widespread anti-Israel demonstrations will occur across the region, with terrorist attacks more likely. More social unrest will also emerge in the West Bank, Egypt, and Jordan, potentially destabilizing the broader region and sparking wider conflict beyond Gaza, with retaliation from Hezbollah in Lebanon or even Iran.
At the same time, the more damage Israel’s offensive inflicts, the more its own moral legitimacy and international standing will suffer. Western support for Israel will be tested, and Israel’s relations with Arab states and much of the Global South will become untenable, as will normalization with Saudi Arabia. Popular anger toward Israel among Arab populations could cause trouble for even the most repressive Arab regimes, lead them to distance themselves from the US and Israel, and drive a surge in extremist violence in the US and Europe.
Perhaps the biggest problem with a ground invasion is that even if Israel succeeded in eliminating Hamas, it has no plan for what to do with Gaza the “day after.” This is the same problem that befell the US after toppling the ruling regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel can’t install the Palestinian Authority, which is too weak and unpopular to take Hamas’s place. And it’s hard to imagine Egypt or the Gulf states would step up to administer Gaza after decades of washing their hands of the Palestinian problem. Yet if Israel simply pulls out, a reconstituted Hamas or another militant group like it would no doubt fill the power vacuum. Which means that once started, an invasion would lead to an indefinite occupation and an unwinnable counterinsurgency.
There will need to be an uninhabited security buffer zone in at least northern Gaza. Maybe the entire Gaza strip.
Because the Arab oil states are enormously wealthy, it will be an easy matter for them to build new cities in their lands to house the Gazan population as it relocates.
Please explain how Hiroshima targeted only enemy combatants.
It’s very unlikely that any Arab state will take the Gazans.
Perhaps they can move to the US and Europe, since that’s where the Jews displacing them came from.
The longer Israel waits to retaliate in any way approaching an equal messure of damage, the greater the feigned outrage will be from Hamas, the Palestinians and their defenders.
Sometimes collateral damage cannot be avoided.
Proportional.
“radicalizing even more.”
LOL
Civilized does not include being terrorized by muslims on every oil spike just because they can suddenly afford it.
Because the Arab oil states are enormously wealthy, it will be an easy matter for them to build new cities in their lands to house the Gazan population as it relocates.
How do you “radicalize” Arabs in Gaza any more than they already are?
Hiroshima was necessary. It’s not that it ended the war. It showed the people how to get along. Did it the hard way. Their POW’s would agree. Their people followed like sheep. A peaceful country wouldn’t you say? Same with Germany and Dresden.
Just because there are people in Gaza who don’t care for Hamas doesn’t make it Israel’s problem. Arab countries aren’t much help either, are they?
Densely populated. UNdensly populate it. Same with housing projects torn down. They were replaced with lower density housing and the former tenants were offered their homes back after everything was rebuilt. Took awhile but the result was lower crime-a lot.
Go in and get some payback.
There is simply no way for Israel to do what needs to be done next.
That’s why God is going to do it.
Yup!
>>It’s not that it ended the war. It showed the people how to get along.
The people didn’t matter. They never do.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused the Emperor and general staff to give up.
General MacArthur kept the Emperor and continued to use the people’s value system of emperor worship to manage them in the aftermath.
MacArthur was what would now be a globalist. His father was Governor-General of the Philippines after we took them from Spain in the Spanish American War.
yet the jews displaced the pals but the pals didn’t displace the jews?
It’s odd how historical acuity comes and goes upon convenience.
It may sound cruel, but there are many tribal peoples who are simply insufficiently civilized to be ready for a democratic republic.
Especially in the absence of any Judeo-Christian moral framework.
Israel got their sleeper’s in Terhan to blow up the Iranian Military HQ, and four other locations tonight. They also used 6-8 figher bombers to take the Aleppo Airport in Syria destroying the runaways. They also took out 6 Hezebola camps as well this evening. Shit has hit the fan. Tomorrow morning in the USA there will open warfare with Iran after they wounded and possibly killed GIs in Syria this past week with waves of drones.
What should Israel do next? Something involving napalm. Lots and lots of napalm.
Thanks, Jumper. That is a lot of appropriate targets in one evening, keeping the surrounding the Iranian sponsored jihad types at bay and seriously shut down. Iran is behind all this Hamas, Hezbollah and certain elements in the US support them. The mega cash shipment by Obama to Tehran via Geneva is a point of fact- given reason the failure of the US to deliver Lockheed fighters to the then Shah, whom they overthrew. Obama said it was a Hague Court decision. Of course we have never paid anything to revolution govts that may have been owed to the former. We didn’t pay France back after their revolution murdered the king who supported the US in the American Revolution. A historical fact.
When Soleimani was splashed (and he was Iranian army and at the Baghdad airport when hit)— there was little comment from the Leftists about why he was in Iraq. It was his planning that guided the Hamas attack plan, Israelis said. They helped US take him out- some kind of serious on the ground info real time.
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