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Marenghi
Oct 16, 2008

Don't trust the liberals,
they will betray you

Irony Be My Shield posted:

That tends to happen when you commit such a wanton act of slaughter. I don't think that will change imminently either because more and more details are going to come out about the abuses visited upon the captives.

Israel has cut off water and power to Gaza. And bombed it's only operational hospital

What is that if not a wanton act of slaughter. The dead in Gaza when this settles will vastly outnumber the rave, but I doubt the media will consider the former.

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Barrel Cactaur
Oct 6, 2021

A reminder that Hamas maintains power by closing those other avenues. They want non violent resolutions to be impossible, the massacre is the point, not some tactic, though it serves several purposes. They are not interested in justice, their face value goal is to literally destroy Israel. They are inherently in violent conflict with any faction that wants peace, regardless of whether that peace would produce justice. They are also a convenient enemy for the Israeli right to justify atrocities. Staining religious terrorists is not praxis just because it involves US foreign policy being incredibly lovely.

Targeting civilians for terror attacks and ensuring they are harmed by reprisal is done to undermine peace, typically by factions who benefit from the conflict stretching out.

Look at the successful Good Friday agreements. Those were achieved by effectively proving that you could establish at least a negative peace by eliminating the open conflict. It took a long process to make that true, with political concessions from both sides. Hard line factions could be sidelined and prevented from major and official antagonistic behavior. Hamas has largely purged Gaza of non hardliner factions (I would be dubious that the elections are in any way free or fair with armed militants in power). Both sides in the Gaza conflict have huge conflicts of interest even in their civilian branches that were largely mooted the Northern Ireland conflict by modernization outside of the deal(IE recognition of fundamental rights, increasing economic prosperity, ability to elect representatives, universal freedom of movement). The major difference of course is that Israel occupies Palestine, whereas NI was an ongoing rebellion. Israel still has territorial ambitions that prevent it from ending the occupation of the west bank, and so cant let the west bank express independence and form a credible military or national police that would be the natural front for suppressing Hamas (or at least forcing a arms length separation between the political arm and the militia, a la Sinn Fein and the provisional IRA, which in the long term diverges mainstream political support form the militant faction, E: their was credible political opposition, legal and militant, to their goals in the populations affected), enable unburden political representation (the west bank isn't exactly free and fair either) and enable it to not be the face of the conflict.

Instead Israel are tying to cure fungus in a tree they aren't allowed to cut down by chopping out the rotten spot with an axe. Its not an effective method for fighting an idea, and only serves to discredit other ideas. All while their village wants the firewood.

Rigged Death Trap posted:

So the bloody, disproportionate reprisal and genocide by Israel is just an inevitable fact.
Despite Israel having all the power to end this, immediately, if they so wished.

It wouldn't end immediately (it might actually briefly suck in a worse but relatively selective way) but they would have to change their approach radically. Unfortunately its against the equilibrium of political power to do so, because the hardliners are able to form a government that lasts and occupies administrative and legal positions to lock in policy while reform factions have been unable to form effective coalitions. All on the back of the keep Bibi out of jail media and political circus. Apply boot won votes immediately when used as a policy, other policies could be ignored or papered over to a degree. It will take a long time to see if this shifts the political equilibrium of the system.

Barrel Cactaur fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Oct 9, 2023

Nebalebadingdong
Jun 30, 2005

i made a video game.
why not give it a try!?

Nenonen posted:

just a couple of weeks raid and bombing is not going to suffice.

right, an invasion is inevitable. hamas has various statements and mission goals or whatever, but it seems the only thing they can really DO is make the occupation unsustainable. hamas actually governing gaza isn't furthering that goal, so they are making israel take over and be directly responsible for all that happens there.

surely?

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Is there any good one piece rundown of what happened that isn't the standard American destitute news institutions repeating "100 Israelis killed 200 Palestinians dead" off the AP wire?

true.spoon
Jun 7, 2012

Stringent posted:

I mean, it's old news, but: https://www.businessinsider.com/israels-best-commanders-many-officers-killed-hamas-war-gaza-idf-2023-10?op=1

And apparently there were one or two general officers taken as hostages, I couldn't find a decent source for that.

Mostly looks like they whipped the IDF pretty quickly and moved on to targets of opportunity.

Sucks, but that's war I guess?

That article doesn't show that "As far as figures from actual news sources go it seems the brunt of Hamas's attack was against military units." To make that statement you would need comparative numbers.The article does state that names of 44 killed soldiers have been released, which given the numbers of dead civilians reported, also doesn't support that claim.

Xander77
Apr 6, 2009

Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.



Per Egypt, their Defense Minister directly warned Netanyahu of a major breakout over a week ago. All over Israeli media, Bibi denies it as (of course) "fake news".

Main Paineframe
Oct 27, 2010

Darth Walrus posted:

Terrorising civilians can also be a military objective when civilians make up a significant part of your enemy's war effort. We just don't know yet how effective it was - if it materially weakens the West Bank settlement programme, for instance, then that's a big win.

One of the main reasons we have a system of international law in the first place is that 'unethical' isn't the same as 'useless', and there can be strong tactical and strategic incentives to murder civilians if murdering civilians is an 'accepted' part of the war.

That's generally not true. Targeting civilians is rarely directly useful to a war effort. International laws against massacring civilians weren't passed because massacring civilians was useful, they were passed because massacring civilians was easy. It's no coincidence that the Fourth Geneva Convention, the first international convention for the protection of noncombatants in war, devotes a majority of its text to the treatment of POWs and civilians in areas under military occupation. While it does ban killing civilians in combat, of course, it's mostly concerned with stuff like summary executions, reprisal killings, torture, ethnic cleansing of occupied territory, and other various depredations inflicted by an occupying power upon civilians in occupied territory. Which is, of course, a direct response to the extensive abuses conducted by various WWII participants (particularly the Axis powers) upon civilians in occupied territory, almost none of which had any real military purpose. Most of it was just a mixture of racist hatred, a desire to terrorize the civilian populace into obedience, and a way to vent anger and resentment from the war.

Since the start of the 20th century, the only real strategic incentive to conduct deliberate attacks on civilians in actual wars has been that massacring unarmed civilians is much easier, safer, and cheaper than fighting enemy soldiers, and it's therefore extremely attractive for military planners to try to come up with theoretical ways they might be able to win by just fighting civilians instead of soldiers. That's pretty much where strategic bombing doctrine came from, for example: its advocates dreamed of a war that could be won solely through overwhelming airpower delivered from above the range of anti-aircraft weapons, without ever having to put boots on the ground where the enemy would better be able to shoot back. And of course, international law has done basically nothing to restrain strategic bombing. The decline in mass area bombing has more to do with the utter ineffectiveness it demonstrated in Vietnam, as well as significant advances in anti-aircraft weaponry which have encouraged air attacks to focus on quality over quantity where possible.

Even anti-occupation insurgencies generally prefer to target the occupying military rather than occupying civilians, at least at first. It's only after one side establishes military superiority that the insurgency tends to shift to targeting civilians. If the occupier establishes overwhelming military superiority (to the point where they start to move their own civilians into the occupied area, confident in their ability to defend against attacks) and holds it for a while, committing various abuses upon the occupied populace, the insurgency will naturally radicalize and start searching for other options to maintain resistance despite being outmatched militarily. If the insurgents are able to inflict defeats on the occupying military, they'll hold off on the civilian massacres until they're able to establish de facto control over an area (even if only temporarily), at which point they'll have free reign to commit as many atrocities as they like. For example, while Zionist militias weren't particularly careful about sparing the lives of civilians during the battle of Deir Yassin, it's remembered today as a massacre because of what they did after they had defeated the military opposition and actually taken and occupied the village.

GABA ghoul posted:

The EU is freezing all financial aid to Palestine. It's $700 million per year and I assume a huge chunk of their GDP

https://news.yahoo.com/eu-freezes-aid-payments-palestinians-134955251.html

Wow, this is an absolutely bonkers bad idea. Hamas wasn't really getting any of that aid anyway; all this is going to do is destabilize and weaken the other Palestinian factions.

Pakistani Brad Pitt
Nov 28, 2004

Not as taciturn, but still terribly powerful...



Mean Baby posted:

It’s not even close to the single most mass casualty event in this conflict.

There are already more dead Palestinian children in this conflict alone.

Do you have a source for this? I fear Israel will push it there with this indiscriminate response but there were 260 people massacred at the concert and I'm not seeing that number reported for children anywhere

Stringent
Dec 22, 2004


image text goes here

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Hamas Spokesperson said so this morning. A Hezbollah spokesperson also said that Hezbollah had nothing to do with it and said it was Hamas and Iran.

The AP and WSJ also both have independent reporting on it.

The WSJ claims that Iran "gave the green light" and was deeply involved in planning the specifics. The AP report just says they found that Iran funded and was aware of the attack, but they can't confirm how involved they were in the specific details of planning it.

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/is...PwSyBrYpQVUPyM9

https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1711120355585089821

Yeah, that's what I saw, but it still seems pretty fuzzy?
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/08/politics/us-intelligence-iran-connection-israel-attack/index.html

quote:

But for now, US officials say there is no intelligence making the direct connection.

Asked during a briefing with House leadership Sunday evening whether there was any indication that Iran had direct involvement, acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said: “We have not found that connection, but that doesn’t mean we won’t.”

I know they want to find a connection, but just claiming there is one seems to be jumping the gun, yeah?

Beefeater1980
Sep 12, 2008

My God, it's full of Horatios!






Two groups of people want the same land and are willing to murder the gently caress out of each other to keep it. Morality doesn’t come into the picture. Whoever has the advantage from time to time is going to be the oppressor and inflict lopsided casualties. That happens to have been Israel since it was founded but the moment their power slips it won’t be.

If you’re in the middle of this, well done if you can look past that and keep trusting the other side despite the million reasons not to; the only way this stops happening on an infinite loop is when everyone else is so sick of the bloodshed that they start listening to you and your counterparts on the other side and don’t assassinate you like they did the last few guys. Or one side successfully genocides the other but that seems unlikely because it hasn’t happened in 75 or so years of trying.

For those of us watching from a distance, I think the only thing to do is feel sick at each atrocity, be welcoming to anyone who manages to GTFO, and otherwise mostly keep quiet.

Mean Baby
May 28, 2005

Pakistani Brad Pitt posted:

Do you have a source for this? I fear Israel will push it there with this indiscriminate response but there were 260 people massacred at the concert and I'm not seeing that number reported for children anywhere

Israel launched 1,000 strikes tonight into Gaza You just need to turn on Aljazeera…

Leon Trotsky 2012
Aug 27, 2009

YOU CAN TRUST ME!*


*Israeli Government-affiliated poster

Stringent posted:

Yeah, that's what I saw, but it still seems pretty fuzzy?
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/08/politics/us-intelligence-iran-connection-israel-attack/index.html

I know they want to find a connection, but just claiming there is one seems to be jumping the gun, yeah?

A Hamas spokesperson saying it seems pretty conclusive.

Basically everyone agrees (and Hamas/Iran have admitted) that Iran knew about the attack before it happened and funded it.

The dispute is over the WSJ piece claim that Iran "gave the greenlight" and was intimately involved in planning the specifics of the attack. So far, other sources have said they don't have conclusive proof about that yet.

Hamas, Hezbollah, the WSJ, the AP, and Egypt all agree on the connection, indirect aid from Iran for the attack, and knowledge of the attack before it happened. The WSJ is just the only one saying that their sources claimed that Iran was directly involved in approving and planning it.

His Divine Shadow
Aug 7, 2000

I'm not a fascist. I'm a priest. Fascists dress up in black and tell people what to do.

Stringent posted:

I mean, call a spade a spade. They're going to attempt genocide.

More like continue, perhaps accelerate.

Stringent
Dec 22, 2004


image text goes here

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

A Hamas spokesperson saying it seems pretty conclusive.

Basically everyone agrees (and Hamas/Iran have admitted) that Iran knew about the attack before it happened and funded it.

The dispute is over the WSJ piece claim that Iran "gave the greenlight" and was intimately involved in planning the specifics of the attack. So far, other sources have said they don't have conclusive proof about that yet.

Hamas, Hezbollah, the WSJ, the AP, and Egypt all agree on the connection, indirect aid from Iran for the attack, and knowledge of the attack before it happened. The WSJ is just the only one saying that their sources claimed that Iran was directly involved in approving and planning it.

I think you're projecting an outcome you want on really scant evidence, but that's what makes poker and horse races interesting so vOv.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Barrel Cactaur
Oct 6, 2021

Main Paineframe posted:

(a great post about why shooting at civilians is usually a terrible move,)

"the eu" posted:

Performative move.
Wow, this is an absolutely bonkers bad idea. Hamas wasn't really getting any of that aid anyway; all this is going to do is destabilize and weaken the other Palestinian factions.

Yeah the point of attack, at least immediately, is to trigger a political "DO SOMETHING" that ends up hurting their most critical enemy, other political factions in Palestine. The only real threat to the power of Hamas, other than Gaza being flattened with indiscriminate bombing, is that they will be displaced by a credible peace movement. Its basically why every political movement with a violent core ideology purges political moderates from their own party and government. Its why they openly plot to use any concession, aid route, or freedom of movement to launch attacks. The forever war is the goal, and end in and of itself.

Leon Trotsky 2012
Aug 27, 2009

YOU CAN TRUST ME!*


*Israeli Government-affiliated poster

Stringent posted:

I think you're projecting an outcome you want on really scant evidence, but that's what makes poker and horse races interesting so vOv.

What part are you talking about? The part with scant evidence is that Iran was directly involved in approving and planning the attack. Only the WSJ is reporting that and everyone else says they don't have definitive proof of it.

The rest (funding/knowledge of the event) has been publicly confirmed by a Hamas spokesperson, a Hezbollah spokesperson, several different newspapers, Iran, Egypt, the BBC, and others.

Civilized Fishbot
Apr 3, 2011

Barrel Cactaur posted:

Yeah the point of attack, at least immediately, is to trigger a political "DO SOMETHING" that ends up hurting their most critical enemy, other political factions in Palestine. The only real threat to the power of Hamas, other than Gaza being flattened with indiscriminate bombing, is that they will be displaced by a credible peace movement. Its basically why every political movement with a violent core ideology purges political moderates from their own party and government. Its why they openly plot to use any concession, aid route, or freedom of movement to launch attacks. The forever war is the goal, and end in and of itself.

This is why I can't stand the "how dare you tell the Palestinians what methods are and are not acceptable" line. This isn't "the Palestinians," this is Hamas, which like every political party/militia will always pursue its political needs even when it's not in the best interest of the people they represent.

Acting like Hamas is the natural, organic representative of the people of Gaza and their best interest only functions to cover up the role of Israeli intelligence, and Netanyahu in particular, in promoting these right-wing psychos over secular/socialist groups which operate with far fewer civilian casualties.

Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Oct 9, 2023

Stringent
Dec 22, 2004


image text goes here

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

What part are you talking about? The part with scant evidence is that Iran was directly involved in approving and planning the attack. Only the WSJ is reporting that and everyone else says they don't have definitive proof of it.

The rest (funding/knowledge of the event) has been publicly confirmed by a Hamas spokesperson, a Hezbollah spokesperson, several different newspapers, Iran, Egypt, the BBC, and others.

So Iran had knowledge of the event, but there isn't evidence that they planned or approved of it is what you're saying? That's cool, but like, what's your point? Just throwing shade on Mossad? Sorry, I don't quite get what you're getting at here?

Diet Crack
Jan 15, 2001

Mean Baby posted:

Israel launched 1,000 strikes tonight into Gaza You just need to turn on Aljazeera…

Using incendiary munitions on built up centres so not only do you have bombs but raging fires, no less. Totally not systemic genocide, no siree.

Neurolimal
Nov 3, 2012

Civilized Fishbot posted:

Acting like Hamas is the natural, organic representative of the people of Gaza only functions to cover up the role of Israeli intelligence, and Netanyahu in particular, in promoting these right-wing psychos over secular/socialist groups which operate with far fewer civilian casualties.

At one point Hamas was Israel's preferred leadership to undermine secular Palestinian governance & international sympathy. It is now 2023, Hamas is outmaneuvering Israel, and there is no alternative to governance in Gaza; you either have Hamas or you have nothing, and Israel has demonstrated that complete peace won't stop them from bombing Gaza.

"Neither Washington nor Moscow" resulted in a Washington victory, which was the worst option. You go to war with what you have, not the platonic ideal of freedom, and if Palestine wants to violently resist, only one of the two available governments is willing to do that.

Leon Trotsky 2012
Aug 27, 2009

YOU CAN TRUST ME!*


*Israeli Government-affiliated poster

Stringent posted:

So Iran had knowledge of the event, but there isn't evidence that they planned or approved of it is what you're saying? That's cool, but like, what's your point? Just throwing shade on Mossad? Sorry, I don't quite get what you're getting at here?

Nah, that's it. Iran knew about it and funded it, but there is not currently any public evidence that they "gave the greenlight" or specifically orchestrated it. You said that there was no connection and I just wanted to make sure the specific facts were there/we were understanding each other.

The part of the WSJ's reporting that Iran was deeply involved in planning specifics and giving the green light hasn't been corroborated by other agencies, but the financial support and knowledge by Iran were confirmed by other groups - including Hamas itself.

Stringent
Dec 22, 2004


image text goes here

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Nah, that's it. Iran knew about it and funded it, but there is not currently any public evidence that they "gave the greenlight" or specifically orchestrated it. You said that there was no connection and I just wanted to make sure the specific facts were there/we were understanding each other.

The part of the WSJ's reporting that Iran was deeply involved in planning specifics and giving the green light hasn't been corroborated by other agencies, but the financial support and knowledge by Iran were confirmed by other groups - including Hamas itself.

"Funding it" is doing a lot of work here, but yeah, fair enough.

Willo567
Feb 5, 2015

Cheating helped me fail the test and stay on the show.
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1711419934356427052
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1711420051440415075
Feels like a ton of conflicting reports are coming out

FlamingLiberal
Jan 18, 2009

Would you like to play a game?



A ground assault in Gaza is going to be a nightmare for the IDF

Zzulu
May 15, 2009

(▰˘v˘▰)
They have no real reason to enter Gaza until it is bombed to oblivion. They have complete air superiority don't they?

Diet Crack
Jan 15, 2001

Considering they have a ton of US tech, aircraft and air defense systems.. yes.
Good ol' Proxy Wars.

Kagrenak
Sep 8, 2010

Zzulu posted:

They have no real reason to enter Gaza until it is bombed to oblivion. They have complete air superiority don't they?

Yeah I don't think that Hamas even really has a substantial stock of RPGs MANPADs or anything so they can probably even carry out rotary operations with impunity. It's going to be an absolute nightmare on the ground long before they go in on foot.

Kagrenak fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Oct 9, 2023

Raskolnikov2089
Nov 3, 2006

Schizzy to the matic
So as an outside observer, I'm curious, does this basically gift wrap Netanyahu's controversial judicial reforms for him?

At least in the US this would be the end of dissent. Everyone would rally around the flag.

Typo
Aug 19, 2009

Chernigov Military Aviation Lyceum
The Fighting Slowpokes

salartarium posted:

Nelson Mandela successfully fought apartheid by launching a campaign of terror attacks. I think violence is never the answer, but it has demoralized a lot of occupiers throughout history.

in this case it the actual result probably does come down to whether Hamas can keep doing operations like this on a regular basis, or is this a one-off

I"m kinda skeptical that they'll be able to, there's a reason why it took multiple decades for an attack of size to manifest, despite ongoing conflict

Canned Sunshine
Nov 20, 2005

CAUTION: POST QUALITY UNDER CONSTRUCTION



Diet Crack posted:

Using incendiary munitions on built up centres so not only do you have bombs but raging fires, no less. Totally not systemic genocide, no siree.

Yeah, it’s been depressing me since the news first broke, both with the needless assault of citizens such as those at the rave and innocents both inside and outside of Gaza, but also for the needless death and suffering about to come on pretty much everyone living within Gaza.

I think it also is just so frustrating because it “legitimizes” (for the Israeli government) any activities that the IDF and Israeli government wants to engage in. Basically, who knew that someday the Israeli government would look at the Nazi regime and say, “Hold my beer!”

Canned Sunshine fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Oct 9, 2023

Stringent
Dec 22, 2004


image text goes here

Raskolnikov2089 posted:

So as an outside observer, I'm curious, does this basically gift wrap Netanyahu's controversial judicial reforms for him?

At least in the US this would be the end of dissent. Everyone would rally around the flag.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meKhfr_CjQ0

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

This does not make sense when, again, aggregate indicia also indicate improvements. The belief that things are worse is false. It remains false.

Raskolnikov2089 posted:

So as an outside observer, I'm curious, does this basically gift wrap Netanyahu's controversial judicial reforms for him?

At least in the US this would be the end of dissent. Everyone would rally around the flag.

I believe Netanyahu has already gotten at least some of the reforms before this event, but if anything it's harmful to his political machine. The failure to anticipate or halt this attack wrecks the strongman protector rhetoric that has been at the core of his political identity. It won't necessarily end his career, but it's unlikely to strengthen him.

Main Paineframe
Oct 27, 2010

Barrel Cactaur posted:

A reminder that Hamas maintains power by closing those other avenues. They want non violent resolutions to be impossible, the massacre is the point, not some tactic, though it serves several purposes. They are not interested in justice, their face value goal is to literally destroy Israel. They are inherently in violent conflict with any faction that wants peace, regardless of whether that peace would produce justice. They are also a convenient enemy for the Israeli right to justify atrocities. Staining religious terrorists is not praxis just because it involves US foreign policy being incredibly lovely.

Targeting civilians for terror attacks and ensuring they are harmed by reprisal is done to undermine peace, typically by factions who benefit from the conflict stretching out.

Look at the successful Good Friday agreements. Those were achieved by effectively proving that you could establish at least a negative peace by eliminating the open conflict. It took a long process to make that true, with political concessions from both sides. Hard line factions could be sidelined and prevented from major and official antagonistic behavior. Hamas has largely purged Gaza of non hardliner factions (I would be dubious that the elections are in any way free or fair with armed militants in power). Both sides in the Gaza conflict have huge conflicts of interest even in their civilian branches that were largely mooted the Northern Ireland conflict by modernization outside of the deal(IE recognition of fundamental rights, increasing economic prosperity, ability to elect representatives, universal freedom of movement). The major difference of course is that Israel occupies Palestine, whereas NI was an ongoing rebellion. Israel still has territorial ambitions that prevent it from ending the occupation of the west bank, and so cant let the west bank express independence and form a credible military or national police that would be the natural front for suppressing Hamas (or at least forcing a arms length separation between the political arm and the militia, a la Sinn Fein and the provisional IRA, which in the long term diverges mainstream political support form the militant faction, E: their was credible political opposition, legal and militant, to their goals in the populations affected), enable unburden political representation (the west bank isn't exactly free and fair either) and enable it to not be the face of the conflict.

Instead Israel are tying to cure fungus in a tree they aren't allowed to cut down by chopping out the rotten spot with an axe. Its not an effective method for fighting an idea, and only serves to discredit other ideas. All while their village wants the firewood.

It wouldn't end immediately (it might actually briefly suck in a worse but relatively selective way) but they would have to change their approach radically. Unfortunately its against the equilibrium of political power to do so, because the hardliners are able to form a government that lasts and occupies administrative and legal positions to lock in policy while reform factions have been unable to form effective coalitions. All on the back of the keep Bibi out of jail media and political circus. Apply boot won votes immediately when used as a policy, other policies could be ignored or papered over to a degree. It will take a long time to see if this shifts the political equilibrium of the system.

Hamas weren't the ones who closed off those other avenues, though. Basically as soon as Hamas won the Palestinian elections (and survived the ensuing coup), Israel cut off any kind of negotiations with them and blockaded Gaza completely. As long as Israel refuses to negotiate with them, though, they have no choice but to reject negotiation, since Israel is negotiating exclusively with other Palestinian factions that are hostile toward Hamas. In fact, Fatah actively supports the Gaza blockade and has opposed calls to lift it - the plight of Palestinian civilians in Gaza apparently isn't too important to them as long as Hamas is in charge there.

You're right to think that the elections weren't free and fair, but you're wrong about the reason - Hamas didn't take over Gaza until after the election. Instead, the reason the Palestinian elections weren't free and fair is that Israel actively put its thumb on the scale, carrying out mass arrests of Hamas candidates and campaigners while banning Hamas from campaigning in East Jerusalem. When Hamas won anyway, the US and Israel sponsored a coup against them, seeking to overthrow the result of the election by force.

Yes, those links about the election are seventeen years old. That is, in fact, the last time Palestine has held legislative or presidential elections. Following the Hamas victory and subsequent Fatah coup, Palestinian elections have been "delayed indefinitely", as none of the parties involved have been able to agree on how to hold them. Fatah and Israel don't want elections to be held unless conditions are favorable for a Fatah victory, Hamas doesn't trust Fatah to play fair, and Israel is easily able to upset any Palestinian agreement on elections since they control elections in East Jerusalem.

Barrel Cactaur posted:

Yeah the point of attack, at least immediately, is to trigger a political "DO SOMETHING" that ends up hurting their most critical enemy, other political factions in Palestine. The only real threat to the power of Hamas, other than Gaza being flattened with indiscriminate bombing, is that they will be displaced by a credible peace movement. Its basically why every political movement with a violent core ideology purges political moderates from their own party and government. Its why they openly plot to use any concession, aid route, or freedom of movement to launch attacks. The forever war is the goal, and end in and of itself.

On the other hand, it's not terribly unusual for insurgent movements with a violent core ideology to eventually moderate and pursue negotiations (even if they keep up an outward appearance of aggression) once they've done enough damage to the occupying power to apply pressure for actual concessions.

Israel and the US have effectively prevented that, though, by largely refusing to negotiate in good faith with Hamas. Even when they give in and negotiate a deal with Hamas, they quickly violate the deal, which has made negotiation very difficult.

For example, Hamas seems to have seriously hoped that the 2008 Gaza ceasefire would provide the groundwork for peaceful negotiation and an eventual improvement of conditions in Gaza. However, while Hamas was busting their asses trying to get groups like Islamic Jihad to comply with the ceasefire, Israel carried out a number of violations of the ceasefire, failed to fully comply with the other conditions of the deal, and it turned out that they had only offered the ceasefire as cover while they prepared for a major invasion which was launched a few days after the expiration of the ceasefire.

Mikojan
May 12, 2010

Discendo Vox posted:

I believe Netanyahu has already gotten at least some of the reforms before this event, but if anything it's harmful to his political machine. The failure to anticipate or halt this attack wrecks the strongman protector rhetoric that has been at the core of his political identity. It won't necessarily end his career, but it's unlikely to strengthen him.

I could see him overcorrecting on his mistakes by brutal retaliation. And after a week or so the EU and US will go "hey wow, maybe genociding an entire populace isn't very cool"

J33uk
Oct 24, 2005
Al Qassam are going to be broadcasting hostage executions soon so people may want to be very careful online in the next few days.

Typo
Aug 19, 2009

Chernigov Military Aviation Lyceum
The Fighting Slowpokes

Discendo Vox posted:

I believe Netanyahu has already gotten at least some of the reforms before this event, but if anything it's harmful to his political machine. The failure to anticipate or halt this attack wrecks the strongman protector rhetoric that has been at the core of his political identity. It won't necessarily end his career, but it's unlikely to strengthen him.

Not if he bombs gaza extra hard

Bush's approval hit the 90s after he bombed Afghanistan and nobody thought very hard to question him about why his administration failed to prevent the 9/11 attacks in the first place

humans are ultimately emotional creatures and "blood for blood" style tribal conflict seem to be wired into us

in the end the people who lose aren't gonna be Netanyahoo or hamas, it's mostly ordinary people caught in the middle and end up very dead

Typo fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Oct 9, 2023

Telsa Cola
Aug 19, 2011

No... this is all wrong... this whole operation has just gone completely sidewaysface

Zzulu posted:

They have no real reason to enter Gaza until it is bombed to oblivion. They have complete air superiority don't they?

There's a (admittedly very high) limit to which you can do this before people start telling you to stop, and after a certain point you are just moving rubble around with the bombs. Bombed out buildings and rubble piles can make pretty solid defensive positions still.

OctaMurk
Jun 21, 2013

Mikojan posted:

I could see him overcorrecting on his mistakes by brutal retaliation. And after a week or so the EU and US will go "hey wow, maybe genociding an entire populace isn't very cool"

There's been no pushback on cutting water and food to the entire population. I think Netanyahu has a blank check from the US.

Toxic Mental
Jun 1, 2019

Barrel Cactaur posted:

A reminder that Hamas maintains power by closing those other avenues. They want non violent resolutions to be impossible, the massacre is the point, not some tactic, though it serves several purposes. They are not interested in justice, their face value goal is to literally destroy Israel. They are inherently in violent conflict with any faction that wants peace, regardless of whether that peace would produce justice. They are also a convenient enemy for the Israeli right to justify atrocities. Staining religious terrorists is not praxis just because it involves US foreign policy being incredibly lovely.

Targeting civilians for terror attacks and ensuring they are harmed by reprisal is done to undermine peace, typically by factions who benefit from the conflict stretching out.

Turns out religious fundamentalists suck loving rear end and ruin everything, whether its Hamas or Shas.

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hawowanlawow
Jul 27, 2009

The bombs have already been sold by the time people start caring about how they're being used

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