Hamas attack on Israel

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Purple said:
It's the total absence of a strategic response that I find striking. There is certainly a tactical military response but there is no response that leads me to think that there is an end goal in mind. When planning it's a good idea to ask the "and then what?" question three times. I don't think the Israelis have asked it once.
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Expelling the population of Gaza is the end goal.

Also intensifying the expulsion of people from the West Bank at the same time, while the world's attention is on Gaza.

www.bbc.com

Palestinians under attack as Israeli settler violence surges in the West Bank

Palestinian families say they have been intimidated and displaced in the wake of Hamas's attack on Israel.
www.bbc.com
 
cremeegg said:
There are thousands of dead Palestinians up to half of them children. https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-health-ministry-health-death-toll-59470820308b31f1faf73c703400b033

Or if you don't trust the AP try the radical Financial Times, some of the pictures are horrific.

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Here is an extract

As of October 17, satellite image analysis shows damage to large areas of south Rimal, including around hospitals, universities and schools. Some entire neighbourhoods have been destroyed.

Residents say such devastation in an area that is home to Gaza’s better-off has a particular symbolic impact, showing that no area is safe. Often known as the heart of the Gaza Strip, it attracted visitors from across the territory and is noted for markets and street food vendors, along with its green space, port and beach.
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I'm not questioning the amount of damage caused by the Israelis firing back at Hamas launch sites. I'm not arguing that Israel hasn't targeted the homes of senior Hamas terrorists. I'm pointing out that to suggest that Israel is carpet bombing Gaza is nonsense.
Carpet Bombing: Carpet bombing, also known as saturation bombing, is a large area bombardment done in a progressive manner to inflict damage in every part of a selected area of land.
You can't carpet bomb with missiles. It is done using bombers and bombs. If Israel was carpet bombing Gaza there would be far higher casualty rates.

Do you think that Israel should stop firing missiles back at Hamas launch sites and just let them keep on firing at Israel?
 
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cremeegg said:
Expelling the population of Gaza is the end goal.

Also intensifying the expulsion of people from the West Bank at the same time, while the world's attention is on Gaza.

www.bbc.com

Palestinians under attack as Israeli settler violence surges in the West Bank

Palestinian families say they have been intimidated and displaced in the wake of Hamas's attack on Israel.
www.bbc.com
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Expelling them to where? The Egyptians don't want them, any more than the Jordanians want the people from the West Bank.
 
Purple said:
I agree with your post but I'm firmly of the opinion that they don't want it. Imagine it's 1985 and the IRA of the was running Northern Ireland after winning an election and murdering the main SDLP and Unionist politicians. Imagine of they had destroyed the economy, enriched themselves, controlled the media and were still committed to the destruction of this State, viewed members of out Police, Parliament, armed forces and judiciary as legitimate targets and were actively trying to kill them. They had also openly stated that they regarded anyone who supported any of those institutions of even the existence of this State as worthy of death. Imagine that they still wanted to take us out of the EU (EEC), were isolationist and ethno-nationalist... In that circumstance would you support them and want them running this country?
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I’m not sure about the Irish analogy.

This was recorded in June 2022, obviously, before the Hamas attacks. It was in the context of Gulf States normalizing relations with Israel. Part of the conversation – circa 16:32 minutes – was about Palestine.

Question. “In all of these conversations, including ours, we touched on this, but you don’t hear much from these countries about Palestine anymore. Is that the sacrifice for the financial gain?”

Answer: “I think part of the problem and you hear this from people across the Arab world and you hear it from Palestinians as well – part of the problem is that there’s plenty to talk about in Palestine right.

There are the major atrocities, the wars in Gaza. There are the day-to-day indignities and atrocities that come with an occupation. There’s plenty to talk about in Palestine. But the Palestinian leadership has no direction for how to deal with any of this.

So, you have this divided, atomized Palestinian community with no political leadership. And what you hear across the region is people saying, “I want to talk about Palestine but what am I advocating for, what am I pushing for when there is no, essentially, direction for the Palestinian cause because you have this collection of, essentially, failed old men who are in charge of it.”

Prior to the Hamas attacks, the Arab world had, to an extent, washed its hands of Palestine, not because it had given up on the cause but because it tired of Palestine’s successive ineffectual leadership.
 
@Sophrosyne, I think we are making different points. I agree that the Palestinian people are and have been failed be their leaders. Their options have been the corruption, theft and ineptitude of Arafat and his successors or the death cult that is Hamas. That is a common occurrence in poor Muslim countries, particularly those in the Middle East where corrupt client tribes of Western powers were installed in the post First World War era and before it in order to undermine any ambitions towards pan Arab Nationalism.
 
If anyone is looking for an example of how anti Israeli RTE are this utterly biased history of the conflict is a good example. It's an appalling piece of journalism.
 
Purple said:
If anyone is looking for an example of how anti Israeli RTE are this utterly biased history of the conflict is a good example. It's an appalling piece of journalism.
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What upset you most? It seemed to be a reasonable summary of the facts - if they are indeed facts. Possible bias, for example he makes out buying up land to be akin to genocide. I think much more should have been made of the Six Day War. That was an attempt by the Arab world to eliminate Israel and has contributed to their siege mentality ever since. Though I didn't realise the settlement issue was so serious, the Israelis seem to be to blame there.
 
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Duke of Marmalade said:
What upset you most? It seemed to be a reasonable summary of the facts - if they are indeed facts. Possible bias, for example he makes out buying up land to be akin to genocide. I think much more should have been made of the Six Day War. That was an attempt by the Arab world to eliminate Israel and has contributed to their siege mentality ever since. Though I didn't realise the settlement issue was so serious, the Israelis seem to be to blame there.
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The omission of the fact that Israel was attacked by it's Arab neighbours and that led to the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.
The omission of the fact that Jordan and Syria were set up by the same people at the same time as Israel.
The omission of the fact that Jordan had illegally annexed the West Bank and Egypt has illegally annexed Gaza a few years prior to Israel capturing them after being attacked.
The omission of the fact that most of the people who claim Palestinian heritage in Israel and Palestine can only trace their roots back to the start of the Jewish influx into the region.

It ignores the violent extremist fundamentalist doctrine of Hamas and the fact that there is no path to a peaceful settlement as long as they are in power in Gaza.
 
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Sophrosyne said:
From whom?
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It was Mandatory Palestine, an independent Palestinian State created by the UN in May 1948 under the same 1947 Resolutions and at the same time as the Jewish State was established. Jordan Annexed it officially in 1950 after it invaded as part of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. If they, along with Syria and Egypt and the other Arab aggressors, had not attempted to commit another genocide against the Jews (like Hamas want now) then the Palestinians would have their own country now.

UN_Palestine_Partition_Versions_1947[1].jpg

It was Arabs, not Jews, that denied Palestinians their homeland. Since then the Palestinians have been used as a political football by those same Arab States.
 
The increasing number of attacks by fundamentalist extremist Jewish settlers in the West Bank is alarming. The UN have been monitoring the attacks since the mid 2000's. Back then there was one violent attack a day. Now there are seven.
If the current extremist Israel government continues to allow the lunatics there to behave with impunity there is a high probability that it will escalate into an all out war. That significantly increases the chances of a regional war which is exactly what Hamas want and, I suspect, what the settlers and elements of the Israeli government want.
 
What does a call for a ceasefire really mean? For many it is just stop the killing, fair enough. But for our leaders it seems to be a sort of "you have already got more than enough revenge", we even have Leo acting like a father confessor saying the latest attacks look like revenge. This is seriously missing the point. I am sure there is an element of revenge as in any war. But this time a statement that "if Hamas attack us we will exact (more than enough) revenge", which has been the approach ever since Hamas took control of Gaza, is exactly what Hamas wants. That approach was meant as a deterrent but has seriously misfired. The suicide mentality of Hamas as with ISIS is not impressed by retaliation/revenge.
Hamas have now stated that the October 7th barbarity is the new strategy and will be repeated. (Dis)proportionate retaliation or revenge is now totally inadequate to the situation. The Hamas threat needs to be totally eliminated.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
What does a call for a ceasefire really mean? For many it is just stop the killing, fair enough. But for our leaders it seems to be a sort of "you have already got more than enough revenge", we even have Leo acting like a father confessor saying the latest attacks look like revenge. This is seriously missing the point. I am sure there is an element of revenge as in any war. But this time a statement that "if Hamas attack us we will exact (more than enough) revenge", which has been the approach ever since Hamas took control of Gaza, is exactly what Hamas wants. That approach was meant as a deterrent but has seriously misfired. The suicide mentality of Hamas as with ISIS is not impressed by retaliation/revenge.
Hamas have now stated that the October 7th barbarity is the new strategy and will be repeated. (Dis)proportionate retaliation or revenge is now totally inadequate to the situation. The Hamas threat needs to be totally eliminated.
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Yes, but the options are diplomacy and a functioning Palestinian State which is not run by a death cult or corrupt old men or the Carthaginian solution; a kill them all and salt the earth type ethnic cleansing.
What's happening now is of no strategic value to Israel.
The problem with the narrative espoused by the Irish Media, typified by Justine McCarthy's polemic in todays Irish Times, is that it presupposes that if Israel stops then Hamas will stop. That, of course, is nonsense. Justine's stunning ignorance and historical inaccuracy around the creation of the State of Israel is also typical of the popular narrative within the Irish media. 10 minutes on Wikipedia would have been time well spent before she trotted out the usual anti-Israeli trope about Israel only existing because of US and European guilt over the Holocaust.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
What does a call for a ceasefire really mean? For many it is just stop the killing, fair enough. But for our leaders it seems to be a sort of "you have already got more than enough revenge", we even have Leo acting like a father confessor saying the latest attacks look like revenge. This is seriously missing the point. I am sure there is an element of revenge as in any war. But this time a statement that "if Hamas attack us we will exact (more than enough) revenge", which has been the approach ever since Hamas took control of Gaza, is exactly what Hamas wants. That approach was meant as a deterrent but has seriously misfired. The suicide mentality of Hamas as with ISIS is not impressed by retaliation/revenge.
Hamas have now stated that the October 7th barbarity is the new strategy and will be repeated. (Dis)proportionate retaliation or revenge is now totally inadequate to the situation. The Hamas threat needs to be totally eliminated.
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Hamas has been a useful tool for Israel, allowing it to divide Palestinians. Hamas acted as a counter to the Palestinian Authority.

Netanyahu's strategy has been to keep Hamas alive so he could use them to weaken the Palestinian Authority.

The only way to stop Hamas in the medium term is to show the Palestinian people some hope for the future.

Raining bombs down on them only drives people into despair.
 
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