Israel-Gaza war

[Dereich]

This is all highly organized. It's not just that it's not representative, it's that it's actively non-representative, with the intention of deceiving the pols and drowning out the majority.

They've also made their pet issue toxic. Note how all the reps suddenly calling for a temporary stop to the fighting are using the random term "humanitarian pause" because "Cease-fire" has become associated with the fringe.

1. Almost everyone is saying ceasefire
2. Ignore this all you want just like you ignore the situation in Gaza, but it will come back to bite you

You don't get that Biden can't stop this. No one can. After what Hamas has done, this is the path of action that ends with the least horror, and all the people advocating for radical moves are advocating for opening pandora's box.

So they don't need our money then, got it.

That is money very well-spent to keep Israel restrained and cautious. What you're watching right now is Israel restrained and cautious.

Not even the Israelis think this. This is Hasbara slop for the dumbest segment of Americans (which is, unfortunately, a majority).

We've seen weeks of unrestrained strategic bombing with an explicit strategy of maximizing damage (and, as posted above, an agnostic or even celebratory attitude towards mass civilian death), deliberate targeting of journalists, bombing of refugee and aid corridors they claimed they wouldn't hit, plus an unleashing of fascist settler militias against the West Bank with the explicit backing of the IDF. What greater escalation would be possible beyond literally nuking Gaza and setting up extermination camps in the West Bank?

You're not going to get anywhere arguing something as clearly wrong as that. If that chart is correct it doesn't support "unrestrained strategic bombing with an explicit strategy of maximising damage." Gaza City is extremely dense with over 15000 people per square mile. If that was really their objective, over 6000 Israeli strikes would have much much higher death numbers.

There is plenty of room to argue that Israel's bombing campaign isn't sufficiently concerned with civilian causalities or that some other strategy to deal with Hamas is appropriate, but people advocating the obviously false position that Israel is right now intentionally trying to maximise damage does nothing but taint the (already horrible) discourse and make any sort of consensus (let me dream) impossible.

[Dereich]

What is Israel's plan after the current campaign ends?

No home, no work, no education, no health care makes for a perfect breeding ground for terrorists.

Or is the immediate plan still to expel Palestinians from Gaza?

The plan seems to be to permanently occupy a buffer zone near the border, massively fortified as a sort of DMZ to prevent any further incursions with extreme prejudice. The remaining 90% or so of Gaza will likely be rebuilt by the world at large, with little involvement from Israel, but the effectiveness of that will heavily depend on what Egypt does about their border.

If Gaza turns into a breeding ground for terrorists, Israel has only itself to blame.

This is children’s cartoon bad guy logic

He's clearly right though? Assuming that was "the plan" the war would end with Gaza devastated and  with nobody responsible for rebuilding it. It is extremely reasonable to think that a Hamas-like organisation or even Hamas itself would spring back up with the funding and the dedication to fill the void. Israel cannot take no responsibility for what happens in Gaza post-war if it expects this kind of group to stay out of power.

[Dereich]

Israel needs to immediately make clear that any country attempting to carry out these illegal warrants will be treated as if they attempted a kidnapping and hostage-taking of an Israeli official. And start sending Netanyahu around the world with a security force that can repel such an attempt.

Receiving countries can deny visas. Foreign citizens don't have a right to travel to other countries.

Such an action by the ICC I think would make Netanyahu persona non grata in most of Europe. They won't arrest him but that means to not having to arrest him and being exposed as hypocrites (a bunch of African states right now are salivating at the notion of European states being forced by law to arrest a foreign leader and choose not to), they just won't let him fly or travel there. The U.S. won't do anything to Netanyahu, but that's quite the long plane trip from Tel Aviv to New York and Netanyahu and his ministers would be even more effectively isolated internationally.

If Netanyahu flies to the U.S. and he is under ICC criminal charges and we choose to do nothing, then the U.S. can never say anything "ICC" again in any circumstance and have it be worth ten cents.

The official US position is that we have no obligations to the ICC and are further under no obligations to see the treaty's success. That's been more-or-less the American position since 2002. Hell, in 2021 Blinken made a statement about the State Department's "longstanding objection to the Court’s efforts to assert jurisdiction over personnel of non-States Parties such as the United States and Israel." So I doubt anyone would consider US statements on the ICC regarding Israelis to be relevant anyway.

The ICC can go piss up a rope.  Israel should immediately make clear that any attempt to enforce this will be treated as a declaration of war.  Hopefully, the rest of the world does the right thing and uses the warrants for Gallant and Netanyahu as toilet paper.

Probably wouldn't be a good idea for Israel to declare war on a NATO state creating an even bigger international crisis, most of alliance being Rome Statute signatories.