I know it’s gone too far now…but wouldn’t the ideal outcome have been to return the hostages…obviously its a simple answer…but would this war have gone as far as it has…just asking…I understand its more political…but does anyone else think the same…
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Not when it’s now an excuse for an Israeli land grab.
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As I said…I understand that is a simplistic view…but just wondered if we would have got to this state of war if the they had been returned…
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Not sure if this got debunked or not, but wasn’t part of the issue with the last proposed ceasefire due to Hamas sending many of the hostages to other groups and not having kept track of them, so didn’t know where they were being held?
Frankly, I don’t see anything beyond hoping and praying.
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Hamas is a highly decentralized organization where the leadership doesn’t have total command over the activities of individual cells. Also there are other groups operating there alongside Hamas as well. There were many people who took part in the Oct 7th disaster , some of whom quite possibly might have been normal public as well. Hamas doesn’t have the control over them
Not sure which ceasefire proposal you are referring to (there’s been too many). Israel withdrew once because Hamas failed (or declined) to provide a list of hostages. But from what I know, that issue has been sorted.
Deranged, doesn’t even start to describe these fascists.
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Miliband: If the fighting doesn’t get them (Palestinians), the disease and hunger will.
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Well , no shit Sherlock. How long has this taken for him to realise the obvious ?
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On Sunday evening, as thousands packed the broad avenues around the Israeli parliament, Katia Amorza - who has a son serving in the Israeli army in Gaza - put down her megaphone for a moment.
“Since eight this morning, I’m here. And now I’m telling Netanyahu that I would be glad to pay one way ticket, first class, for him to go out and not come back anymore.”
Protester Katia called for Netanyahu to step down outside the Knesset building
“And I’m telling him also to take with him all those people that they put in the government that he chose one by one, the worst, the worst that we have in our society.”
Hopefully more voices like this one will raise now, in order to get rid of this government. It’s really up to the Israelis now. Their very own future is at stake now, because all the mindless violence which has been seeded by Netanyahu and his croonies since such a long time has already come back at them, and will eventually come back again at some point. Even more violence will result in more violence coming back at them in the future, and it could be terrible.
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All for Israelis to get rid of Netanyahu.
But my fear is that these Israelis are protesting against Netanyahu not because they don’t want war, but on the non-recovery of hostages amongst other relevant issues.
The worrying part in that is that Israelis by and large seem to favour this military action against Hamas.
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One official said in March: “This is a product of, if you will, commercialisation of the assistance; criminal gangs are taking it, looting it, reselling it. They’ve monetised humanitarian assistance.”
Yeah, dismantling UNRAW was as good a step as propping up Hamas to divide the Palestinians.
Aid officials said two convoys of food recently reached the north unscathed after a senior Hamas security official issued an order for their protection in the name of the “Palestinian security forces”.
Two days later, Faiq Mabhouh, the head of the operations directorate of Hamas’s internal security, who had been accused by Israel of organising terrorist attacks, was “eliminated”, the IDF [said in a statement].
Interesting. It’s as if Israel wants the chaos and sufferings to grow to force the Palestinians out.
That’s not really a surprise. They were attacked, after all, and in a way that makes it the most traumatic since the 1948 war. Israelis have little trust in the UN, and for about a generation have had no belief (or interest) in a peace process with the Palestinians. There is probably a firm majority in Israel that supports the idea of collective punishment, notwithstanding the UN Charter. Those images of jubilant crowds celebrating the bodies being paraded through the streets etched a level of hatred into many Israelis (and unfortunately, many Jews around the world).
What remains to be seen in this internal political upheaval is whether or not that translates into full support for how Netanyahu has prosecuted this war, without any real regard for civilian casualties, and probably more critically (sadly enough) without any real regard for Israel’s essential allies.
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October 7 is no doubt very traumatic for the Israelis. But the Israelis have to take responsibility for their conducts since 1967.
I read (before Oct 7) the interview of a retired Israeli general who later became the leader of a leftwing party. He admitted that the Israeli philosophy/strategy regarding the Palestinians is not just unsustainable but bound to backfire.
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At the end of the day , the Israeli strategy of a permanent managed conflict won’t have changed. What will have changed is the level of brutality that they are willing to employ and , like Arminius says , their now total disregard for their allies and also their absolute contempt for international institutions. It also hastens their progression from rogue to pariah state.
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That is a great way of putting it.