It unfortunately a sadly effective strategy and the only reason they can survive, hence the elevated innocent casualties.
As far as Israeli bloodlust goes (someone else mentioned that), I wager that the vast majority would quite happily kill every Hamas combatant with zero innocent fatalities. I think it’s evidently clear that Hamas has targeted 99% non combatants, unless I am missing something here. (Once again, last week).
Hamas is like an LTTE in this regard. Even being a terrorist organisation, they do have a government structure similar to what LTTE had in the past.
It will be difficult to differentiate between civilian and fighter in a lot of cases for the Israeli forces. There will be very high fatalities. You’re being optimistic. I’m being very cynical. And the fact that Israel has already bombed majority of the healthcare etc etc will only increase fatality rate
It breaks my heart that there are so many supposedly educated students (talking prestigious USA universities) that think Israel are 100% responsible for the attack on themselves. I know it’s not the majority of students, and only these stupid groups that seem to do no use other than spew hate. And you can add some professors to that list. Just so sad.
I personally think the majority of gaza, Lebanon and Israel population will quite happily, although begrudgingly coexist, if not for the influence of Syria and Iran. There will be no peace within my lifetime.
Israel does bear a some of the responsibility , as do Hamas , the gulf states and all the associated players. .
Not the citizens. But the government
For anyone still minded to think that Netanyahu might have somehow been complicit in the attack , and used it to shore up his position , then this should disavow you of that notion. There will be a reckoning coming very soon for Bibi.
But that doesn’t make it alright for Israel to do the same. Hamas are criminal terrorists, but we are led to believe that Israel is a civilised country.
If you condemn the indiscriminate murder of civilians you can’t then do the same thing.
Coexistence is out of the equation. Too much has happened for that to be water under the bridge.
It’s always a minority who bear these grudges. Unfortunately, that minority is in government in Israel.
That minority and also the minority within the Palestinians as well. A single state solution wouldnt be what makes them work either.
The easiest way is to give the Arabs in Israel a fixed percentage of seats to choose their leaders/representatives. Not large enough to endanger the Jews. But enough to balance the Jewish right to make more centric decisions. That in the essence is coalition politics
But an increasingly islamic rightwing and an increasingly Jewish rightwing voter base. That won’t be easy and I don’t see that working.
No attack that results in mass casualties and deaths of innocent civilians should ever be considered justifiable. The attacks on innocent Israelis last weekend was appalling. No buts about it.
I certainly don’t, but I don’t think the response from Israel is morally right either. It’s a proper shit show, in every which way you can conceive.
Ultimately, someone, somewhere has to. Someone has to have the political will and strength of character to grab the situation and take the first steps to resolution. Diffusion is the first part of that. That probably has to be someone external to it now
Israel won’t wipe Hamas out like this. All they’ve achieved is killing lots of people, probably strengthened Hamas’ resolve and destroyed lots of buildings. How long before we see another attack from Hamas? The cycle continues.
You can probably frighten them into submission for a couple of years. But the cycle will eventually continue.
Honestly, I’ll be honest if it lasts that long provided their equipment losses aren’t significant or take time to replace. Emotions are running high right now.
I think the intent is to render Gaza inhabitable forcing mass exodus.
Egypt will have to deal with the immigrants even if they’ve closed the border now.
Has anybody managed to put forward a sensible suggestion as to why Hamas did this? Is it really just to instigate mass murder and their virtual obliteration? The scene in deep impact springs to mind where the lady and her dad stand on the beach facing a huge tidal wave knowing their death is imminent.
They saw which way the wind was blowing with the SA/Israel normalisation talks and wanted to stop the entire Palestinian cause slipping into irrelevance.
SA have paused the talks , so I guess they’ve already achieved a measure of success.
It’s a pause. Nothing which can’t be resumed after a year or two.