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Few Good Options as Israel Weighs a Ground Assault on the Gaza Strip
(www.bloomberg.com)
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this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Olmert was working on a plan to withdraw from West Bank next.
If militant Palestinian leadership were willing to live in peace with Israel there would be peace. They've refused so many opportunities to become their own independent state because it requires allowing Israel to also exist in peace.
We've all seen what happens when Hamas breaches the border now. That's why the border and checkpoints are there.
Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 wasn't an "empty political gesture". Far from it. So far from it.
It was met by violence. It was met by the rise of Hamas.
And now that Hamas have told you very clearly exactly who they are, believe them. I know you won't listen to Jews, so look at the utter barbarity and scale of the atrocities Hamas carried out. Look at that honestly and listen to what Hamas is telling all of us about who they are.
Can you do that and still maintain they should have free run of Israel? They slaughtered 260 kids at a music festival for peace. Their charter calls for the slaughter of Jews OUTSIDE of Israel as well as within. And you want Israel to give them open access so they can fulfill it?
So you don't grasp WHY the blockades are in place then? How graphic do I need to get in explaining that they are there to reduce terrorist incursions into Israel and to reduce militants' missile capability. You have seen what militants do when they breach that border, and yet you want that border open?!?!?
Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 wasn't an empty gesture. It was a unilateral move towards peace which was violently rejected by Gazans. That part of it doesn't fit your IsraelBad narrative but it's vital to understanding the full picture. You have the luxury of ignoring it. You will still be safe. Israelis don't have that luxury. Palestinian terrorists make sure they can't forget.
Do you honestly think Hamas and the other militant groups have no power in this at all? Ok, so maybe you aren't aware of how shitty Hamas is in running Gaza, how much aid money Hamas' leadership skims off for their own wealth, how they keep some Gazans in poverty so they can be exploited in anti-Israel PR, their whole cult of martyrdom and jihad.
But now you've seen how little Hamas cares for human lives. You cannot deny the immense ruthless barbarity of their actions Saturday. They will sacrifice Gazan lives too, because, until the slaughtering rampage last weekend, that is and always has been their most effective weapon against Israel. Hamas, PIJ, Muslim Brotherhood, they will sacrifice civilian Gazans, celebrate them as martyrs and keep on doing it.
How the eff do you counter that peacefully? Please tell me, cause I would love to know.
You've made up a whole hell of a lot that I DIDN'T SAY.
So you're way to counter an impossible situation peacefully is to make up crap about me, list things Israel's done and hasn't done (cause some of what you're citing is jihadi propaganda and make up complete shite about genocide. Yes Israel could wipe Gaza out entirely. They haven't.
They haven't.
Israel is in an impossible situation. They contribute to it, but they didn't create it. ISRAEL CANNOT SOLVE IT ALONE. Any attempt to do so is considered by Palestinian militants a sign of weakness to be exploited. That's the reality. Deal with it.
But oh no, put all the fucking blame on Israel for not managing to walk an impossible line in an impossible situation.
WRONG.
WRONG.
ALL Israeli settlers WERE removed from Gaza in 2005. That's a really big mistake to make. Can't say I'm surprised though given how many other errors you're making here.
WRONG. Palestinian extremists hold the most important card. And before them Arab extremists and the armies of Arab nations which refused to recognise the state of Israel. Unilateral withdrawal from Gaza didn't bring peace. Nothing has. This crap that it's entirely within Israel's power ignores this reality. You have the luxury and safety to remain in that ignorance. Israelis don't.
Hamas isn't Palestine.
It would be so lovely if it were possible to open up Gaza whilst still containing Hamas. Do you have a proposal for how to do that? Don't forget the containing Hamas part. You might not want to accept it but you've seen what Hamas will do if they have free access to Israel.
And we've seen the over 500k Palestinians that have been killed by Israel since 2010 due to Israeli occupation. You may not want to accept it, but you're just justifying ethnic cleansing of a land this is very successfully being ethnically cleansed. And now the 2.4 million who remain are going to pay in blood for crimes they didn't commit. Is this what you want? Is this what you believe is deserved?
Wherever you got that 500k number from, get rid of that as a source. It is wrong by several orders of magnitude. Since 2010 it's 4,882.
Which of course is still 4,882 too many.
The only ethnic cleansing in Gaza was when all Jews were removed in 2005. It is not being ethnically cleansed of Gazans. I am not "justifying ethnic cleansing" in talking about the role Palestinian militants play in these deaths.
What I am trying to get through here is that Palestinian militants are complicit in and exploit these deaths because - until the barbaric rampage last Saturday - these deaths have the militants' most effective weapon against Israel. They provoke Israel, Israel responds, civilians die, militants continue. When they take a break from provoking, Israel stops too. This is consistent. It's observable over and over and over again, except it doesn't become news until Israel responds.
Hamas' provocation last weekend was so extreme the world sat up and noticed. Israel is responding. It's the same pattern. You've now seen it yourself. It is still true that if Palestine lays down their weapons, there will be no more war; but if Israel lays down theirs, there will be no more Israel.
So back to my question to you, how do you propose to contain Hamas without harming civilians?
If you don't have an answer, don't fall back on your old IsraelBad tropes or attacks on me. Recognise that it is an impossible line for anyone to walk. Hamas, who very intentionally embed themselves in civilian centres for the precise reason that attacking them means killing civilians, cannot be contained without harming civilians. That's not justifying or excusing their deaths at all. I am recognising the reality on the ground which must be dealt with.
My mistake, I was listing numbers off the top of my head and was admittedly overzealous, as happens in online discourse, and yes it was by multiple orders of magnitude. I will concede on this. The human toll for Palestine from 2008 through 2020 was 5,600 and 115,000 injured, while for Israel the death toll was 250 with 5,600 injured.^[https://www.statista.com/chart/16516/israeli-palestinian-casualties-by-in-gaza-and-the-west-bank/]
Israel has for years refused to honor their obligations to respect the human rights of Palestinians, including their right to freedom of movement through occupied territory and their right to enter and leave their own country.^[https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/14/gaza-israels-open-air-prison-15] The Gaza strip is the world's largest open-air prison, due to Israel's blockade. It's one of the most densely populated areas of the world, low life expectency with a median age of 18 years, and abysmal living standards. There's a lack of access to education and medical treatment due to years of Israel bombing schools and hospitals. Israel has now cut off this nation from access to water, food, fuel and electricity, which due to aforementioned blockade, largely comes from Israel.^[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/11/what-is-gaza-strip-the-besieged-palestinian-enclave-under-israeli-assault]
History shows otherwise. Perhaps there will be no more soldiers on the ground, but Palestine will continue to be denied their basic human rights, freedom of movement, sovereignty, education, and medical access. This is known because it was true before Hamas existed, and it is the reason Hamas has the power they do.
There are no easy solutions. Palestinians have been fighting oppression by killing civilians. Israel has been countering by killing civilians and further worsening conditions in occupied territories, which in turn makes Palestinians fight the increased oppression by killing more civilians.
Now, Hamas managed to break through the border, and kill several hundred Israeli civilians and take hostage of several hundred more. These are also real lives that matter, and I'm not going to downplay that at all.
But we're currently on a path towards completely destroying every life that's held on in occupied Palestinian territory. The solutions Netanyahu's far-right government will come to is poised to be "The Final Solution". There will be diplomacy. I'm not sure there's even room for diplomacy. But there needs to be another way.
So tell me, if you're not justifying the complete slaughter of all Palestinians in the region, what are you arguing for? If you're not advocating ethnic cleansing, what is it you're advocating for?
I'm not arguing that I have all the answers, I'm arguing that the answer the world's agreed upon is the wrong one.
If you're defending those committing ethnic cleansing in front of you, you are justifying and excusing those deaths. If not to justify, what purpose is there to defend? Why wouldn't you at least keep quiet so you can play the role of a complicit bystander, rather than speak up and become an avid advocate?
That was an straightforward bit of overzealotry to demonstrate. You're far from the only one who does it, it's VERY common and abetted by a significant disinformation system. You get caught up in emotions, exaggerate - here by 495,000!!! - and use that as if it were justification and substantiation of your arguments. Other people do it too, and you'll have been persuaded by those exaggerations. The internet makes it worse but it's been going for longer than Israel has existed as a modern state.
How many times do I have to write this before it gets through? The blockade is entirely due to militants (Hamas and all of the other groups, with a collective history going back to the Ottoman Empire) and the terrorism they bring to rid the entire land of infidels/Jews and enact sharia law. Yes, the blockade sucks. Yes, it hurts civilians. Perhaps you haven't heard or seen what Hamas actually did - a level of barbarism Israel has NEVER done - beheading babies, raping dozens of women, parading their bodies through the streets, do I have to go on with this sickening list for you to recognise the depth of atrocities committed? They fucking beheaded babies. But the information is out there now. Trying to prevent this is why there is a blockade.
Recognition of Hamas' agency in this. Recognition of militants' agency in this. Recognition of non-combatant Palestinian extremists' agency in this. Recognition of other Muslim agency in this. Recognition that every de-escalation by Israel has been used by militants, not to build Palestine but to regroup and rearm. Recognition that Israel cannot fix this unilaterally and that there is no one for Israel to negotiate peace with.
And we come full circle in your post, where you start by recognising your overzealousness in getting the number of Palestinian deaths you're accusing off so enormously, egregiously wrong, to you overzealously accusing me of this enormously, egregiously wrong sort of crap.
Your emotions have run away with you. However justified in those emotions you might feel, they're leading you to thoroughly unjustifiable errors.
No. You've been wrong on so many points, including your assessments of me.
Your blockade comment above shows your lack of understanding of what I've written. This week's atrocities from Hamas are the undeniable evidence of what the blockade had previously prevented. Very different. The blockade only exists because it is necessary to reduce Palestinian militants' ability to slaughter Israelis. Some of those militants have shown you in undeniable terms how barbarously far they will go. That you were unaware of their intentions before Saturday doesn't mean they sprang into being recently.
Yeah, you're continuing to be clouded by emotion. I'll stand by that.
"Withdrawal" can be really misleading, here, because it was very much not disengagement aka leaving Gaza alone: The moved the prison guards from inside the strip to the wall surrounding it and then closed the gate and enacted a blockade, for 16 years straight now. About 50% of Gazans are 18 or under, growing up under those conditions, 80% are reliant on humanitarian aid.
You can certainly make arguments that an arms blockade is warranted. But concrete? Starving the city of water? Yeah that's very much not leaving people alone.
Yeah, it's pretty shitty inside Gaza for some people. (There are also luxury shopping malls and much wealth. Vloggers share that part of it on Arabic-language social media, quite different from the idea of universal poverty presented on European-language social media.)
Israel can't force the PA or Hamas to distribute aid money evenly. They can't force Hamas to run the Gazan economy better. Israel does not have all the power here.
Militants use the concrete to build underground bunkers for themselves and tunnels into Israel. If they didn't do that, there wouldn't be a restriction on the amount of concrete allowed in. Israel isn't limiting it to be cruel or pissy. Every restriction is an attempt to reduce violence and terrorism.
When militants destroy infrastructure for bringing electricity, water and other supplies in, Israel rebuilds it. The siege is horrible. I do not deny that at all. But Hamas only listens to force. Signs of perceived weakness (including Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005) are taken as a signal to increase attacks, that the infidel opponent is weak and can be destroyed. Hamas is so emboldened by what they "achieved" Saturday, of how weak they made Israel, they're not going to stop until they are forced to. Why is this aspect of their militancy so hard for westerners to see?
Israel has to show itself as stronger than Hamas. Absorbing the losses without offensive reaction will lead to more and more and more death and violence. If only this weren't the case, but Israel has to deal with the reality of militant thinking. They don't have the luxury of internet sophistry like we do. I don't know how anyone could possibly handle this in terms Hamas, PIJ, Muslim Brotherhood, Iran et al will understand which also keeps civilian Gazans safe.
That, and it is an absolute tragedy, is part of how the militants work. They will sacrifice civilians, celebrate them as martyrs and exploit their deaths and suffering as part of their war to eradicate Israel and bring the entirety of the land - river to sea, not just Gaza, not just West Bank - under sharia law.
Their role in all of this MUST be understood.
Every restriction also breeds resentment and thus increases violence and terrorism.
There's one question I want to ask here, and it's not an easy one, and Israel will take a long time to come to a national consensus on it: Was it just money that Israel funnelled to Hamas to weaken the PLO, or also fighters?
Once you understand how you created that monster you'll also understand how to starve it. Minds can be changed, the mechanics of conflict and conflict resolution can't.
Yep. It's a double edged sword. It sucks. Absolutely sucks.
It also feeds militant goals for war and chaos and hampers everyone's efforts towards peace. It's an impossible line for Israel to walk. But you all would rather blame Israel than the militants 🤦
Oh fucking hell. Anything to hang Arab militancy - which has existed since before Israel re-emerged as a modern state - on Israel, eh?
So PRECISELY how does Israel starve Hamas, PIJ, Muslim Brotherhood, and that long history of anti-Jewish militancy? Stop existing? Jump into the sea? That would do it, if the land were finally Judenrein 🙄. Gazans in general might be open to a real resolution to the conflict which accepts the existence of Israel as a Jewish state but their leadership isn't. How do we remove dictators like Hamas from power? They're not going to go of their own accord. Israel showing perceived weakness emboldens them. Israel taking steps to reduce terrorism is condemned. It's an impossible situation and Palestinian militancy thrives on it.
Don't give me meaningless platitudes that are nothing more than substance-free word play. Deal with the complexity of the reality.
Israel is militarily, technologically, and economically far superior. That means you have options that Palestinians who want to de-escalate don't have, thus the ball is in your court. Or, well, practically all of the balls that can be played towards de-escalation are in your court. That's not a special yardstick we carved just for you, it's not about "who started it" or "who did worst" but "who is in a better position to end this".
Also y'all speak English and are on the internet. I could rant to you about Fatah corruption but what good would that do.
Hamas has more than one wing, all dependent on each other, and one of them you can right-out supplant. Heck it even meshes with security concerns: Instead of saying "Gaza can't have concrete because Hamas" say "We're going to donate concrete but because of Hamas we're going to do the pouring, tell us where you want those houses"
More generally speaking: You will need to be able to take a punch while showing that you can be an asset to your region of the world meaning internally, you'll have to make sure that forces who right-out enjoy having an external enemy to fuel their eternal war have absolutely no influence. Doesn't even need much, all the civil society needs to do is to be receptive enough to understand that Kahanites and Nazis are the same shit with a different coat of paint so that the Israeli Antifa will come back out of exile -- Berlin, I know, of all places. It's an excuse for a city they could've at least chosen Hamburg but I digress.
It won't be easy and it won't be quick, trust isn't built in a fortnight. There's no quick solutions, there's only approaches which breed resentment and those who don't, and one kind is perpetuating hatred, the other isn't. I know this kind of stuff can sound like platitudes but it really isn't. Being disciplined in that regard is the only way.
More concretely, right now, don't fucking blow the Saudi Arabia deal. If you need to stop the offensive to do that, do it.
Hamas and all of the other extremist militant groups have the crucial ball though. They're the ones who are in the only position to end this. No country alone can make peace when their enemy refuses to. That refusal is the ball that Hamas holds, the ball that Palestinian militants held before Israel existed as a modern state, the ball that Arab militants held when the word "Palestinian" most often referred to Jews.
This crap about Israel holding "all the power", it's just not true.
It's something we could agree on, you know. Not sure why you wrote this? Do you think I'm unaware of it or how it contributed to the election of Hamas in 2006? I lose count of how many years into his four year term Abbas is, working on 19 years now I think. We could talk about how much current violence in the West Bank is Hamas trying to undermine Fatah there and gain power for themselves.
If only it were that simple. Hey, let's present Hamas with official Israeli workers to kidnap and kill. What could possibly go wrong? 🤦
If only it were that simple holds for the rest of your propositions. If only.
Who the fuck said anything about neglecting security and being naive?
No. That's an excuse to avoid being creative and if you'd reflect about it you'd see it. It's social conditioning saying "we're the victims, always".
What's your plan for the future? Continue the Otzma Yehudit way of "antagonising until they give up"? That's what got you into this position in the first place. It's the reason the IDF wasn't near Gaza and Hamas saw an opening because the IDF was busy in the west bank backing settlers harassing Palestinians. Realise that there's portions of the Israeli society who want this to continue, whether they admit it or not, because it is convenient for them, because a scared populace can be way more easily convinced to vote for them. Don't be complicit in that.
Of course precautions would be taken. Short of going in with significant military protection, it wouldn't be enough. Hell, going in WITH significant military protection still wouldn't be enough amongst people who believe in martyrdom and jihad. Israel going in with military protection wouldn't be seen as a safety measure, it would be seen as provocation. Folks like you would be ranting against Israel for doing so and claiming that the deaths of the construction workers was justified cause, you know, Israel.
You're the one who's naive if you hadn't thought that through.
I have reflected on this a great deal. My position is considered, informed and grounded in a very unfortunate reality I wish was different. I've not said that Israelis are the victims, always. You've not understood if you think that. Recognising the agency of Hamas, other militant groups and the infrastructure which supports them in and outside of Gaza is very different.
How little you've comprehended if you think that I am.
I don't have a plan for the future. Hamas and the other militant groups aren't going to recede any time soon. Quite the opposite now, they will be emboldened by their 'success' in brutalising Israelis. Israel can't attack Gaza hard enough to eliminate the militants. If Israel does less, it will be perceived by militants as a sign of weakness in Israel and continued evidence, not of Israel being strong or any other good quality, but of what the militants forced them to do. If Israel does less, the militants will do more.
It's an impossible situation. I don't have an answer. I do know that continuing to blame the entirety of blame and responsibility of Israel doesn't move us closer to any sort of resolution.
What about handing the cement over to Palestinians you can trust (and you know very well they do exist), or international aid organisations, and watching the whole thing with drones?
You seem to be keen on using your creativity and imagination to show how things can't work. That's not bad, that's providing security. Where it becomes a problem is when it replaces thinking of ways how it can work.
Indulge me, suspend your disbelief for a couple of minutes and apply yourself to coming up with something that can be done. Hamas is using pipe sections to build rockets? Fine, tank trucks and canisters exist. Logistically inefficient? Yes. Unviable? Hell no. Then you can say "because of Hamas you now have to carry your water", not "because Hamas you now have no water". In one of those two you come across as guarded, but friendly, in the other as heartless.
Who the fuck cares about the perception of militants. Worry about the perception of the rest. Worry about Palestinians seeing Israel as the bigger problem than Hamas, worse, as a fucking ally of Hamas.
And blaming everything on Hamas and demanding the impossible -- that fascists magically deradicalise -- is moving us closer to resolution? That's the absolutely least likely scenario, yet you declare it to be the only possibility when you say "the ball is in Hamas court".
Maybe, in this all, we're looking too far ahead. Would you oppose a Smolanim government that would not giving up on passive security, but stop all the antagonising? The settlements, the turning of PLO territory into Swiss cheese, the "fund Hamas because Fatah is too reasonable" approach? Because if anything should come out of this then it's wide understanding that the right's approach to security failed even more than the left's. Yes maybe Rabin was too naive, people were too hopeful back then (I certainly was), that doesn't mean that moving to annex the west bank will bring security.