Israel-Gaza war

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It's the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War.

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I don't. And I don't have any genocidal desires. I truly hope as few people as possible who are not Hamas members die. But tell me, what alternative solution that does not lead to this ad infinitum, the destruction of Israel, or the deaths of thousands of Israelis policing the Gaza Strip, exists?

A final solution, if you will.

Your whole "we have to ethnically cleanse them before they ethnically cleanse us, it's the only way, they forced our hand, it's them or us" shtick is genuinely one of the, if not the most reprehensible thing I've seen on all of Atlas.

Just really bleak sh-t.

Netanyahu tried to blame Palestine for the Holocaust.

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Israel's experience with Gaza should serve as a counter-example to those who claim that withdrawing settlements from the West Bank (among other concessions) will lead to sustained peace between Israel and Palestine.  The past fifteen-plus years have convinced me that then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a mistake with nothing to show for it, and that Israel will be better off reversing that decision, beginning with the elimination of Hamas (and other terrorist groups in Gaza) as an entity.  

The number of West Bank settlers is a record high at over 500k, so I don't know what you're talking about.

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Israel's experience with Gaza should serve as a counter-example to those who claim that withdrawing settlements from the West Bank (among other concessions) will lead to sustained peace between Israel and Palestine.  The past fifteen-plus years have convinced me that then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a mistake with nothing to show for it, and that Israel will be better off reversing that decision, beginning with the elimination of Hamas (and other terrorist groups in Gaza) as an entity.  

The number of West Bank settlers is a record high at over 500k, so I don't know what you're talking about.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and expelled its own citizens in doing so.

There were only 9k, so the settlers are still a record high. It's worth noting that only 2 countries (Monaco and Singapore) as well as Hong Kong and Macau are more dense than Gaza Strip, so there's not really much land available there.

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I have a very superficial knowledge on the conflict, so i have a few questions:

Does Hamas have a presence on the West Bank or is it only limited to Gaza?

If Hamas is such a threat, what stoped Israel from invading the strip and toppling the Gazan administration? They've conducted strikes and bombings there before, would a full on invasion be considered risky or undesirable in some way?

I know Hamas has support in Iran and Lebanon, but elsewere in the region is it seen as a legitimate authority of the palestinian organizations, or is Fatah the prefered one? Would anyone object to Hamas being ousted?

2005 Israel withdrew from Gaza.

2006 Palestine has first and final elections. Hamas does well in Gaza, Fatah, traditional leaders and party of current Palestinian President Abbas and ex-Palestinian President Arafat wins in West Bank. Later in 2006 Hamas seizes control of Gaza and effectively secedes from Palestinian Authority leadership, running a separate regime.

Since 2006, negotiations between Israel and Palestinian Authority have been rocky in part because the Palestinian Authority can't speak for Hamas and Gaza. Hard liners on both sides benefit from violence and the regular cycle over the last 17 years of "Hamas attacks out of Gaza, Israel retaliates" is good for the Israeli right and far right in terms of making security the main issue and good for Hamas because they recruit off of blown up buildings and such in Gaza and garner international sympathy. Meanwhile settlement continues to creep into West Bank and people conflate the mess in the West Bank with the different mess in Gaza.

Basically the entire world accepts the government of the Palestinians as the Palestinian Authority, which is run by Fatah. The only people who accept Hamas as legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people are people like Laki. Hamas has never accepted going back into the Palestinian Authority and is terrified of the idea of another Palestinian election, which is why they haven't participated in one since 2006, because they know Fatah will win and would have a claim to regain control of Gaza.

This is factually incorrect. Hamas won 74 seats while Fatah won 45 seats in the 2006 election. Hamas beat Fatah 45-17 in district-based seats, winning both the West Bank and Gaza. These numbers are all on wikipedia if you dont believe me. Haniya (Hamas) became the leader, but Israel (and the US) refused to recognize the election results since Hamas won. Israel also refused to release the PA tax money to a Hamas government. After some monkeying around by Israel and the US, they somehow got Fatah to take over West Bank, with Hamas in Gaza.

There was never another election but nobody, neither Israel, the US, nor Fatah wants another election, and its questionable whether anybody would accept the results of an election in which the wrong party won.

I dont like Hamas either, but lets not repeat the common revisionist history about these elections.

For what it's worth, the opinion polls show a close election between Hamas and Fatah. Although I'm sure Hamas would win right now after these latest events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Palestinian_legislative_election

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I have yet to hear anyone propose a serious solution to stop Hamas attacks into Palestine.

As I've said before, it's extremely easy to sit in the peanut gallery and say "oh how dare you, oh how inhumane" to any proposed solution.  But the status quo is appallingly inhumane.  Unless you have an actual proposal for how to fix the status quo, you are advocating for its continuation.  So you are the one advocating for something appallingly inhumane.

The really sickening truth is that many people in this thread are OK with the status quo because they see it as acceptable that these Jews are getting killed.  They think they deserve it, or "it's the natural consequence of decolonization", or "this is what fighting your oppressors looks like", or whatever other idiotic excuse for being OK with genocide you can concoct.  Think I'm exaggerating?  Look at the warning posted at the top of the thread.  I've seen the deleted posts.  I've also seen many of the posts that haven't yet been deleted.

But there are also a lot of useful idiots who are willing to go along with the status quo simply because they're too cowardly to actually propose a real, practical, workable solution to the problem.  Should the Jews continue to suffer and die because of your cowardice?

Yes, I'd rather see a whole lot of people have to move across the border than see a whole lot of people get raped, murdered and killed.  If you're a decent person, you would as well.  So if you think this is a false choice, tell me about it.  If you think there's an alternative solution, tell me about it.  Because this attack is a paradigm shift.  Previously it was plausible to think Israel could continue the status quo of just keeping Hamas bottled up and crushed under foot, using the Iron Dome to shoot down all their rockets, using the IDF to beat back all their attacks, and no lives would be lost.  But that's clearly no longer true.  Hamas must go.  One way or another, Hamas must go.

Long term there needs to be a peace deal. The Arabs attacked Israel in 1973 and even though Israel won the war, they realized that they weren't invulnerable and made peace with Egypt and Jordan in 1978.

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Long term there needs to be a peace deal. The Arabs attacked Israel in 1973 and even though Israel won the war, they realized that they weren't invulnerable and made peace with Egypt and Jordan in 1978.

OK so tell me about this peace deal that Hamas is going to accept.  It's not going to happen.  Hamas is not a rational actor, it is a terrorist group whose singular purpose is the extermination of all Jews and the conquest of Israel.  To veto any other solutions because you're still holding out delusional hope that Hamas and Israel can come to some sort of peace deal is just childish thinking.  Of course, we all know you don't actually believe this is possible.

I mean neither Hamas nor Likud are likely to come to a peace deal. I'm sure if it was somehow magically up to Fatah and  Meretz, they could figure something out.

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From 2019, before the current extreme violence but after several waves of Hamas rocket attacks that killed Israeli civilians:
https://twitter.com/haaretzcom/status/1711329340804186619?s=20
I haven't made anything up.

AP reports that the Egyptian government repeatedly tried to warn Israel that Hamas was planning this invasion - that Netanyahu knew what was coming but still failed to stop it

Allies who share intelligence with Israel said security agencies were misreading reality.

An Egyptian intelligence official said Egypt, which often serves as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, had spoken repeatedly with the Israelis about “something big,” without elaborating.

He said Israeli officials were focused on the West Bank and played down the threat from Gaza. Netanyahu’s government is made up of supporters of Jewish West Bank settlers who have demanded a security crackdown in the face of a rising tide of violence there over the last 18 months.

“We have warned them an explosion of the situation is coming, and very soon, and it would be big. But they underestimated such warnings,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the content of sensitive intelligence discussions with the media.

There you have it, the Israeli people voted for Hamas.

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Journo cites channel 13 Hebrew, confirms the government was warned (and lied about not being warned):

https://twitter.com/lisang/status/1711824708746838214
Considering this and his 2019 comments on the need to support Hamas to harm the Palestinian movement, there is no sensible scenario in which Netanyahu benefits from a rally-around-the-flag effect. However, we're living in an age of stupid scenarios, and the Israeli electorate often makes terrible choices.

He's obviously absurdly pro Hamas, but as you say the Israeli electorate isn't the brightest.

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The Israeli military has told the UN that everyone living north of Wadi Gaza should relocate to southern Gaza in the next 24 hours, says a UN spokesperson.

The UN says this amounts to approximately 1.1 million people - about half the population of the entire Gaza Strip

24 hours is not nearly enough time. This will lead to countless civilian deaths.

I don't get the impression that Israel cares.

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Some are suggesting from the photograph that casualties may also be overstated, but without a look inside the hospital (and knowing thousands of people were sheltering in the hospital and on the grounds last night) I'd hesitate to draw any conclusions there.

Yes, that seems like hopium to me. Outright denying that this was a mass death of civilians just doesn't connect with reality.

I'd imagine that hospitals in Gaza are pretty crowded right now.

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USA embassy in Lebanon on fire

And just 5 days before the 40th anniversary of the Beirut barracks bombings.

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It certainly did not help Israel's narrative when they ordered the hospitals to evacuate and threatened to bomb them in the past few days.

Yeah, Israel really showing that they weren't the villain at this particular hospital on this particular day.

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https://twitter.com/IsraeliPM/status/1034849460344573952


1. Senior State Department official publically resigns to protest Israel
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/state-department-resignation-gaza_n_65306079e4b00565b622b1fb

2. "Mutiny brewing" at State Department over Israel
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/state-department-gaza_n_6531a23ae4b0da897ab75ce4

https://twitter.com/AllezLesBoulez/status/1715004653681672342

Netanyahu is weak and pathetic for saying he needed Hamas and ignoring all the warnings about Hamas attacking.

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https://twitter.com/Israel/status/1717241394761269452?s=20
Totally unserious country.

Hamas was created through the actions of Israel, while ISIS was created through the actions of the US. So there's a similarity there, but not one that either country wants to admit.

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As yet another tragedy continues to unfold in the Middle East, I can’t help but think of how both Palestinians (initially, then continuing) and Israelis (later, also continuing) could’ve made different decisions that could’ve avoided this. If Arafat hadn’t rejected Clinton’s offer and launched the Second Intifada…if Israel had never elected Bibi Netanyahu in the first place…and so much more. 

And don't forget if rabin hadn't been killed

That’s one of the huge ones, yes 

They always talk about how you can't let the terrorists win, but it's pretty clear that the terrorist Yigal Amir won.

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846 years ago to the day (OK, week), a fight for Gaza was brewing.

King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem vs Saladin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxOohaleI4M

Without CNN and Al Jazeera, things were much simpler back in the day.

This time the Christians are getting killed together with the Muslims.

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Reportedly the 2023-24 school year in Gaza has been cancelled because all of the children are dead.

Just let that sink in. All the children. That's hundreds of thousands of children. That's a level of genocide that would make Putin jealous. And we helped Israel do that.

I'm done with this country.

So Israel just killed 1 million people?

Yes.

Lots of bad sh**t is definitely happening there, but there are not 1 million dead children.

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McCain's widow is extremely worried.

https://twitter.com/WFPChief/status/1718176834444030006

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Bernie Sanders is refusing to call for a ceasefire, rather a "humanitarian pause" to get supplies into Gaza but he refuses to outright call for the conflict to cease despite immense pressure from the left:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/01/gaza-humanitarian-pause-bernie-sanders

I think he's doing the right thing, of course -- in fact the EXACTLY right thing as my position is practically identical to his on this matter. I will give credit where it's due, and he certainly is doing better than the Squad and even Dick Durbin on this. But I do find it interesting he's not apparently facing as much flak for this stance as mainstream Dems including Biden who have taken essentially the same position.

Bernie has always been too pro-Israel.

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Bruh.

https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1721070704806989884?t=lBcBa13yzPZsPl0W...

Obviously Israel would be a total pariah state if they used one. Do they have tactical nukes? Because a normal sized nuke is going to do significant damage to Israel too, seeing as the furthest part of Gaza is something like 8 miles from Israel. Also, is this the first official confirmation as to Israel being a nuclear power?

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Honest question, is Israel planning to occupy and replace Hamas as the government of Gaza with something
or leave them in place after the operation?

In answer to your question, these are the snippets I have researched which have been slowly released thus far by Israel.

1. Hamas will be destroyed in terms of their economic, military and leadership capacity.
2. A 300m perimeter inside the Gaza border will be cleared as a security barrier.
3. Israel will not occupy or govern Gaza, presumably an Arab security coalition will do that.
4. Israel will provide no water, electricity, fuel, communications or any medical assistance to the new Gazan regime.

The information on the southern border is clearly impossible to predict at this stage.

A 300m perimeter would reduce the size of Gaza by several percent.

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On a related note is there any way that Israel can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hamas is shooting their own people to keep them in dangerous areas to act as human shields?

I mean if you had that, say video footage of Hamas militants firing at Palestinians trying to exit a hospital or something, it would just be overwhelming.  It inarguably proves everything Israel has been saying.  Why else would Hamas shoot their own people except to prevent them from leaving?  Why would Hamas want to prevent people from leaving other than to use them as human shields?  And where were the people trying to leave from... could it be Al-Shifa hospital and other hospitals Hamas uses to cover their command bases?

But the problem is, all we have are vague reports of people being shot at, and cell-phone videos that just have the sound of gunfire and don't have footage of the shooter at all, much less enough detail to prove that the shooter is a Hamas militant.

This lets Hamas turn around and say, look here is a video of the IDF shooting innocent civilians.  And people will believe it.  Maybe Israel really is just a bunch of genocidal maniacs itching to do another My Lai Massacre and shooting at any civilians they can get in their sights.  Or maybe the IDF told those civilians to stay, and when they tried to leave, the IDF shot at them to frighten them back inside.  Either way nobody who is already anti-IDF is going to believe the IDF's story that it's Hamas doing the shooting without solid evidence.

But if they did believe IDF's story, that would surely cause the whole house of cards to tumble?

If Israel turned on power and internet in Gaza, it would help to get more reporting there.

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https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-seeking-to-appoint-uks-tony-blair-as-gaza-humanitarian-coordinator/amp/

Israel is seeking to install former British prime minister Tony Blair as a humanitarian coordinator for the Gaza Strip, according to a report Sunday, out of a desire to improve the humanitarian situation inside the Palestinian enclave and reduce international pressure as it continues to wage its war on Hamas.

Which unrelated country will Blair invade?

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Anyway, looking the actual text of the resolution, Ravid isn't being exactly accurate here. It's a resolution calling for periodic pauses for humanitarian corridors, which is very much in line with what the US has been asking for and is currently trying to negotiate for. Israel likely views it as neither a betrayal nor really relevant to its current path.

They also abstained, rather than voted for it.

Which Russia also did for kind of opposite reasons.