Gaza N
This is an inspiring article, but one sentence makes me sad “Israel’s massive democracy movement is ready for war” The general inspiring story is that the massive movement trying to protect the Israeli judiciary from Netanyahu has temporarily shifted to protecting Israel from Hamas and helping internally displaced Israelis.
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a logical evolution, said Bressler, who now visits victims around the country and finds herself “at too many funerals.”
“We were fighting to save the country, and we are still fighting to save the country,” she said. “And this is what that means now.””
However, I was alarmed by one of the inspiring stories
“Nir Avishai Cohen is a deputy infantry battalion leader and 20-year reserve veteran who was shoved during demonstrations when he waved a Palestinian flag. But as soon as the attacks happened, he scrambled for a flight home from a business trip to Texas and went straight to his unit from the airport.
He sees no choice but to enter Gaza in pursuit of Hamas. “
If a guy who brought a Palestinian flag to a demonstration thinks they have to enter Gaza, they are going to enter Gaza. I am sure that is a mistake
TL:DR of these posts. They can pursue Hamas but they can’t catch Hamas because Hamas terrorists are terrorists who can pass as civilians and also Hamas is an ideology-movement not an organization and there will be new Hamas recruits who replace those who the IDF kills. Hamas can be defeated only by an alternative organization which offers hope to Palestinians. I’m afraid the alternative is probably the ultra-discredited Palestinian National Authority. I think they key is to give them lots of money to buy things for ordinary Palestinians (and hope they don’t steal all of it). Also use the tanker truck of Troy strategy.
I think the only thing that friends of Israel in the Biden administration can do is try to convince the Israelis to use targeted pinpoint strikes instead of rolling the tanks in. Lloyd Austin is doing what can be done.
I wish him luck (he needs it).
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I’d like to read a summary of the judicial dispute. I have trouble figuring out from the little I’ve seen about it. At least in my understanding of a US context, having a judiciary empowered to prohibit action by elected branches on a “reasonableness” basis would likely be thought of as anti-democratic. Shouldn’t the judgements on reasonableness of otherwise legal use of authority by elected officials be made by the electorate? Here I presume that reasonableness is only considered if the disputed actions are otherwise legal under Israeli law. Guessing that extending this concept to the Roberts court would not be embraced as a furtherance of democratic principles here. Heck even the major issues doctrine where the court steps in to restrain the executive on behalf of the legislature (whether they want that or not) is considered suspect by a lot of folks here. Is it possible that upsetting long held practices is the heart of the dispute rather than how democratic (or not) the proposed changes are?
“Precision airstrikes” can come in a lot of different flavors. The nature of the Hamas forces leads me to think that the prime military objective for Israel is to locate Hamas forces and kill them. It’s not to sink their fleet or capture a bridge or some high hill to force a surrender. They don’t have armored units that can be shot up to force surrender. Hamas could decide to surrender, but probably won’t, so killing them is the military objective. Hamas understands this and will stay as intermingled as possible with non-combatants. Let’s imagine intelligence is that around 15 are in the basement of an elementary school of 150 students. You have a precision, heavy ordinance payload ready to go. You can’t warn the school, because Hamas will simply leave with the kids. That would be a precision airstrike if tasked. But I agree that an invasion aimed at Gaza City now would be a mistake. Non-combatants need to get out of they way. They need to leave Gaza: Egypt if possible, Israel if not. Relief efforts that serve to keep them in place in Gaza do not contribute to peace.
Neither Egypt nor Israel is letting Gaza residents out. They are trapped.
That’s crazy. They need to get to safety and while there likely will be relatively safer parts of Gaza, the whole thing is likely to get engulfed in exceptional violence.
Eric:
A 105MM US Howitzer is good for 7 miles which is the width of the Gaza. A 155MM US Howitzer is good for 14 miles. Conventional weapons. Because Hamas picked a fight with the Israelis, Gazans will be punished. Where they going to go? Egypt does not want them. And Israel can reach out and touch them anywhere.
“In a Washington Institute poll in July, a 57 percent majority indicated a positive opinion of Hamas, but greater numbers expressed positive views of both Fatah (the secular party in charge of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank) and other armed groups. However, over 60 percent supported Hamas maintaining a ceasefire with Israel, and 50 percent said Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction and support a two-state solution instead. Other recent polling from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 77 percent of Gazans want new legislative and presidential elections in the Palestinian territories, but 67 percent of all Palestinians don’t see that happening anytime soon.”
New York Intellegencer
In 2014 Hamas and Israel fought and it was shown that Hamas could fight the IDF with the the skill of some of the best light infantry forces in the world. Throw in their ability to meld within the populace and an additional nine years of preparation and training then I believe Israel will end up having to turn the Gaza Strip into a new killing field. The risk may outweigh the reward. They would be wise to heed President Biden.
Robert Walmann, these are brave posts. Thank you.
Robert:
I can not add to this. Long time planning this event and Israelis caught flatfooted 50 years after an earlier event. Obviously early warning devices failed and few were at the border to detect an incursion into Israel. Someone screwed up.