Anybody else been following this?
Talk about a massive intelligence failure. They really dropped the ball on this one, but am fairly sure they attacked now because of the dysfunctional political situation created by Bibi in Israel. Far too many religious, right-wing ideologues were put into positions of influence.
Netanyahu says Israel is at war after hundreds die in Hamas attacks - Netanyahu says Israel is at war after hundreds die in Hamas attacks | Financial Times via @FT
Been sorta following along. Saw the October 2023 date in the thread title and thought it was overly optimistic that the shooting stops in the month it re-started.
I know that I don’t know enough about the whole Israel vs. Palestine conflict to say I’m an expert, but I do think I can say fairly confidently that neither side is innocent as a whole, and both sides have innocent blood on their hands.
That being said, this latest atrocity is nothing short of a horrendous terrorist attack, and I don’t see how this plays out as anything other than a full throated IDF response. They are calling it Israel’s 9/11 moment.
The rocket attacks are maybe an unfortunate
but expected part life there, but the hamas invasion into some of the border communities and kidnappings is absolutely frightening. This seems like it could escalate rapidly.
Agree that this is going to go on for a while.
The additional problem is they have lots of human shields now (the kidnapped people), so you can’t just start carpet bombing the place. You have to go slowly, and that means grinding urban warfare.
A lot of this is the fault of the right-wing nutjobs that Bibi installed (they are ideologues and not competent) They fractured society so much that they started looking inwards for domestic threats (instead of outside threats).
Impossible to say how this will shake out domestically. I would hope the right-wing nutjobs get booted out, but that is probably wishful thinking on my part. Bibi will do what is best for Bibi, so they will likely remain in power for now.
Not like we don’t already know what the cause of all of this is, and what a potential solution is. Also not like anyone really cares about effective that potential solution for the good of all, people people are selfish.
Do I feel bad for the innocent people killed on both sides? Absolutely.
Do I see this ending any time soon? Nope.
Do I see hundreds, if not thousands, more innocent people being killed on both sides? Absolutely.
IMO, let each side identify all its leaders, let others self-select to be part of the leadership, drop all of them into an enclosed area, arm them with an assortment of blunt weapons, and let them fight to the death - cause I don’t ever see this ending until someone’s side gets wiped out, and I don’t see everyone else saying “we’ve had enough, we’re willing to live with each other, we demand peace.”
What we need is the Tito version of the promised land.
I know what we could have done to solve the conflict. Instead of spending $7.8 trillion invading other countries, we could have given everyone in the region $800,000 on the condition that they just knock it off and stop fighting.
Nobody’s right when everybody’s wrong.
The status quo is wrong.
Israel declared war, so we are on at least step two of opinioning.
Of course.
One thing that has changed greatly since the last Yom Kippur War 50 years ago is the amount of support for the Palestinian cause by the Arab countries in the region. Only Iran now appears to be openly dedicated to the eradication of Israel so it is actively supporting Hamas. The other Arab countries no longer appear to share the goal of destroying Israel whereas they did in 1973.
I expect this to be one more bloody episode in the history of Israel. Many lives will be lost on both sides and the problems will remain.
Yes, I’ve been following it on my other bulletin board, and to a lesser extent in some chats with Israelis.
This is a blood bath. Armed men invaded a concert and massacred random kids who were there for the concert. They invaded towns and massacred the residents. They videoed themselves torturing innocents, and posted those online. It was a massive pogram, just the kind of event Israel was created to prevent. (They also invaded some military outposts, but that seems to have been to facilitate the bloodbath, and not have been the primary goal.)
Israel will react with massive force and lots of innocent Palestinians will die. This will help Hamas’s successor recruit (because Hamas, as presently organized, will be destroyed). But all those orphans the Israeli army will create will grow up to despise Israel.
And within Israel, heads will roll. At least, the Israelis I’ve heard from have assured me Bibi won’t survive politically. “You have one job…”
Note that this topic may very well be extremely sensitive to some on this board. Let’s show some consideration to those affected by avoiding “humorous posts” on the topic within this thread.
Thanks!
The closest to victim-blaming anybody did above was saying that Bibi’s Israel was too focused on internal threats over external ones. Per everything I’ve seen it appears there was a failure of Israeli intelligence so that’s potentially correct, but I doubt @The_Polymath was saying “Israel deserved it because…”
People are rightly pointing out that both sides have done terrible things, and will almost surely continue to. Israel allegedly has responded with a war crime of collective punishment by cutting electricity to Gaza. That doesn’t make the Hamas attack right, but is also not right.
No clear way forward. I cannot think of an example where colonization and the displaced peoples get along amicably, short of annihilation and utter capitulation of the former residents. These are open wounds across the globe. Many enlightened, democratic nations are struggling with their own versions. Canada and First Nations, the USA and it genocidal attitude to those same native Americans. Australia and its Aborigines. New Zealand. I don’t even have the language to describe the two groups other than natives and colonists. It’s a problem that’s been left to fester, hoping it will go away with time.
But, it doesn’t go away. Resolution will take some hard thinking about basic human rights and how to protect them.
Israel is a little more complicated because both sides sincerely believe they are fighting for their ancestral homeland. In fact, one could argue that this is a problem that has been brewing since the Babylonians displaced the ancient Israelites.
Why can’t we just reclaim more of the Mediterranean and make more holy land for everyone? We have the technology.
Yeah. Its not victim blaming to point out this was a huge intelligence failure.
The really weird part is they have a massive intelligence net around the Gaza strip in terms of sensors and layered defenses.
This is what makes zero sense to me. How did that net miss this?
Actually, the Israelites were displaced twice. Once by Babylon, and again by Rome. I guess this really dates to the latter. And Rome drove out the Israelites for much the same reason the modern Israelis drove out Palestinians: domestic security.