• You may find search is unavailable for a little while. Trying to fix a problem.

How is Israel Going to Retaliate Against Hamas?

Status
Not open for further replies.
webfusion said:
Palestinian leaders of all stripes have said they want ZERO Jews in their future State.
When you hear the chants of "From the River to the Sea" the implication is that entire area will be an exclusively Arab Palestine State, and the Jews therein be damned.
By the way, how many Jews are citizens of Jordan? (A little feudal monarchy to our east that provides the death penalty to anyone selling land to a Jew).

I am not taking your suggestions seriously, simply because your comment about "**** the rest" is obnoxious, especially as we're currently at war with people who expressly say "**** 'em all" and want to execute that exact plan.

According to some personal sources of mine in Israel, the IDF is poised to enter Gaza within the next 24 hours. The ground forces will be composed of paratroopers landing by parachute and on board Yasur transport choppers; a naval contingent (including commandos); and an armored infantry push.
The objective will be to literally clear out entire sectors of the strip, depopulating and squeezing everyone down towards Rafiah and the Egyptian border, and possibly removing the border barrier at that zone (with or without Egyptian agreement) so that northern Sinai becomes reunited with Gaza, reversing the division of Rafiah that occurred in 1982.

P.S. - The Jerusalem Post news website is still offline, having been crashed with a cyber attack.
Click to expand...

"In recent days, the IDF has been instructing the population inside of the Gaza Strip to distance themselves from designated areas.

We emphasize that there is no official call by Israel for residents of the Gaza Strip to exit into Egypt."

https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1711698008708964472

This they say while apparently targeting the border crossing.

https://israelpalestine.liveuamap.c...target-the-rafah-crossing-the-area-separating
 
Shadowdweller said:
So do you think the IDF sends ground forces in, tries to free hostages, kills or captures a bunch of Hamas militants and/or destroys affiliated infrastructure and then... pulls out of Gaza again? Or...?
Click to expand...

I recall exactly where I was and how I felt when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005. I’m not claiming to be prescient, but it was a sinking feeling of “no good can come of this”. Of course, I wasn’t privy to all the information Israel had when making that decision. But still, the eventual outcome seemed inevitable.

Right now, my position would be, “We tried to coexist, and that clearly failed. The Gaza Strip is now part of Israel for Israelis - both Jewish and Arab. If you’re looking for your own homeland, we’ll certainly help expedite your relocation and coordinate with our neighbors to find land you can settle and call your own. A better life and future can exist for Palestinians - just not here.”

Simplistic and naive to be sure. It’s just what my gut tells me is the best path to a secure future for Israel and a way forward for Palestinians.
 
FastEddieB, your reply to me just proves how difficult it is keeping things straight in this mess.

"anyone-who-can-get-out-i-would-advise-them-to-get-out"https://www.businesstoday.in/latest...o-palestinians-fleeing-gaza-401346-2023-10-10

That sector, at Rafiah, is going to become a flash-point as hundreds of thousands of Gazans are displaced and seek some way to distance themselves from the onslaught.

It almost seems that Israel's leaders have chosen to pursue the NewState program, to be implemented after HAMAS leaders are buried and gone.
https://www.miryaminstitute.org/com...ate-in-gaza-sinai-the-real-two-state-solution
 
Last edited:
The Great Zaganza said:
Members of an organization can be killed.
Doesn't mean the organization dies.
Click to expand...

It does if you kill every member of the organization. And usually it doesn't even take that.

As I said, this can be difficult. But it is not impossible. Remember, you were trying to compare this to the war on drugs. It is not difficult to kill drugs, it is impossible. You can wage war against a specific drug cartel, but not drugs themselves.
 
Darat said:
You could just have said you are not interested in an actual discussion.
Click to expand...

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. If you want an actual discussion, ask questions worth answering.
 
Ziggurat said:
It does if you kill every member of the organization. And usually it doesn't even take that.

As I said, this can be difficult. But it is not impossible. Remember, you were trying to compare this to the war on drugs. It is not difficult to kill drugs, it is impossible. You can wage war against a specific drug cartel, but not drugs themselves.
Click to expand...

Then you're dealing with whatever comes after Hamas. It's not like Hamas astroturfed anti-Israel sentiment among the residents of Gaza.

There will always be a ready supply of Palestinians willing to resist Israeli occupation in an organized, militant fashion unless a meaningful peace is reached. If not under the flag of Hamas, then another.
 
Last edited:
TurkeysGhost said:
Then you're dealing with whatever comes after Hamas.
Click to expand...

That's potentially true any time you fight a war. Doesn't make it not war.

There will always be a ready supply of Palestinians willing to resist Israeli occupation unless a meaningful peace is reached, if not under the flag of Hamas, then another.
Click to expand...

There will always be a ready supply of Nazis to resist Allied occupation unless a meaningful peace is reached, if not under the flag of Nazi Germany, then another.

If you want to solve the problem, you first have to accurately understand the problem. And that begins with recognizing that this is indeed war. Even your own rhetoric of "peace" recognizes this, though you claim to deny it.

How do wars actually end with lasting peace? Generally, then end with victory for one side or the other. Israel has to defeat Hamas, or no peace is possible. Yes, defeating Hamas isn't the end of it, but it is absolutely necessary. Nothing else will suffice.

As for what comes after, here's a harsh reality for you. I do not like that this is true, I do not want this to be true, but it is nonetheless. Furthermore, recognizing this as true isn't an endorsement of it. But here's the tragic truth:

Ethnic cleansing works.

I hope it doesn't come to that. I really do. It is within Israel's power to simply drive the Palestinians out of Gaza into Egypt, and level the entire area. Again, I don't want it to happen. But keep that reality in mind, because it means that if things ever get bad enough, that's exactly what's going to happen, regardless of what you or I want. I think things aren't that bad yet, but Hamas is playing with fire. Every success they have brings that possibility closer.
 
Ziggurat said:
That's potentially true any time you fight a war. Doesn't make it not war.



There will always be a ready supply of Nazis to resist Allied occupation unless a meaningful peace is reached, if not under the flag of Nazi Germany, then another.
Click to expand...

come now, you're arguing in bad faith. Hamas is more guerilla army than organized state.

Guerilla armies are famous for endlessly restructuring and recreating themselves to deal with decapitation attacks. If these Palestinian resistance groups could be totally derailed by military action the IDF would have accomplished it long before now. The IDF wins every battle and yet the war goes on and will go on forever, unless every Palestinian is killed.
 
Last edited:
I do not for one second honestly believe that you could give either side in this conflict what they claim they want now and they wouldn't claim to want more a year, 5 years, 10 years down the road.

Neither side wants the other side to exist. I don't see a compromise working long term.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I do not for one second honestly believe that you could give either side in this conflict what they claim they want now and they wouldn't claim to want more a year, 5 years, 10 years down the road.

Neither side wants the other side to exist. I don't see a compromise working long term.
Click to expand...

Better keep giving Israel unconditional support for a few more decades and see if that motivates them to change attitudes :thumbsup:
 
Last edited:
Ziggurat said:
It does if you kill every member of the organization. And usually it doesn't even take that.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's accurate.

Dead fathers still have children. Who now have a cause. And an enemy.

Documents, slogans and aims still exist.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
come now, you're arguing in bad faith. Hamas is more guerilla army than organized state.
Click to expand...

A guerilla war is still war.

Guerilla armies are famous for endlessly restructuring and recreating themselves to deal with decapitation attacks.
Click to expand...

Which makes destroying them harder. It doesn't make destroying them impossible.

If these Palestinian resistance groups could be totally derailed by military action the IDF would have accomplished it long before now.
Click to expand...

You have no basis for that claim. Some things are possible but not worth doing, if the cost of doing them is too high. Previously, that has been the conclusion the Israelis reached: the cost of actually destroying Hamas was too high to be worth paying. That calculus may have shifted this time. We shall see.

The IDF wins every battle and yet the war goes on
Click to expand...

Because winning battles isn't enough to win a war.

and will go on forever, unless every Palestinian is killed.
Click to expand...

There are other options available.
 
Because framing it as "Israel vs Hamas" instead of "Israel against the entire Middle East more or less" is dishonest.

Hamas or something that is functionally identical to Hamas (Ship of Theseus aside) will exist as long as the broader Middle East that doesn't want Israel to exist does.

Israel could carpet bomb the entire Gaza Strip and turn it to glass and a thousand totally new "Palestinians" would pop up tomorrow from neighboring countries pretending to have some deep connection to their "homeland."

As long as Israel exists Muslims are going to keep showing up demanding that they get this 25 mile stretch of desert scrubland that people should be fighting over who HAS to live there.
 
Last edited:
Pixel42 said:
What if every time you kill a member of the organisation, two sympathisers are finally persuaded that they should join it?
Click to expand...

I keep seeing this (or similar) claim made as an argument to not fight terrorists, but I've never seen evidence presented to back it up. It doesn't even really make sense. People are much more likely to join terrorist organizations when those organizations have battlefield success than failure. Sure, recruiting can replenish ranks to counter-act attrition. But recruiting in the absence of attrition can also grow ranks. This idea that the enemy only responds to you, that they aren't proactive on their own, doesn't make any sense.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Because framing it as "Israel vs Hamas" instead of "Israel against the entire Middle East more or less" is dishonest.
Hamas or something that is functionally identical to Hamas (Ship of Theseus aside) will exist as long as the broader Middle East that doesn't want Israel to exist does.

Israel could carpet bomb the entire Gaza Strip and turn it to glass and a thousand totally new "Palestinians" would pop up tomorrow from neighboring countries pretending to have some deep connection to their "homeland."
Click to expand...

I don't think thats accurate anymore. Jordan, Morocco, UAE, and Bahrain all have normalized relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia is (or was?) really close to normalizing relations with Israel. And once they do the flood gates will open.
 
lobosrul5 said:
I don't think thats accurate anymore. Jordan, Morocco, UAE, and Bahrain all have normalized relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia is (or was?) really close to normalizing relations with Israel. And once they do they flood gates will open.
Click to expand...

"Normalized Diplomatic Relations" and "Being on your side" aren't the same thing.
 
Ziggurat said:
I keep seeing this (or similar) claim made as an argument to not fight terrorists, but I've never seen evidence presented to back it up. It doesn't even really make sense. People are much more likely to join terrorist organizations when those organizations have battlefield success than failure. Sure, recruiting can replenish ranks to counter-act attrition. But recruiting in the absence of attrition can also grow ranks. This idea that the enemy only responds to you, that they aren't proactive on their own, doesn't make any sense.
Click to expand...

Northern Ireland is a good example of actually how to de-mobilize an entire population engaged in various degrees of mass unrest. The Good Friday Agreements lead to the total demobilization of the provisional IRA. While a few dead-end splinter groups like the Continuity IRA or Real IRA kept things going, their appeal was extremely limited and even among Irish nationalists they don't enjoy a great reputation and are largely seen as either hopelessly idealistic and/or little more than criminal gangs.

Seems exceedingly unlikely that Israel will be willing to bargain in good faith though, especially so long as they enjoy unconditional support from the rest of the world, especially the US, to run their Apartheid state.
 
At this point I'm confused as to how any conflict that's ever occurred in history has ever come to conclusion.
 
Pixel42 said:
What if every time you kill a member of the organisation, two sympathisers are finally persuaded that they should join it?
Click to expand...

That gives me a great idea. The current members of Hamas should all kill themselves, but make it look like the Jews did it. Instantly Hamas would double in size!
 
Brainster said:
That gives me a great idea. The current members of Hamas should all kill themselves, but make it look like the Jews did it. Instantly Hamas would double in size!
Click to expand...

I doubt they're having any recruiting problems at the moment.
 
JoeMorgue said:
At this point I'm confused as to how any conflict that's ever occurred in history has ever come to conclusion.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure they have - the killing ends but the hatred lives on - often for generation after generation after generation.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
Northern Ireland is a good example of actually how to de-mobilize an entire population engaged in various degrees of mass unrest.
...
Seems exceedingly unlikely that Israel will be willing to bargain in good faith though
Click to expand...

But Hamas will?

What rock are you living under? Hamas wants the extermination of the Jewish people. What exactly are you going to bargain for against that demand? A timetable for the extermination? You can kill all the Jews, but you have to pace yourselves?

especially so long as they enjoy unconditional support from the rest of the world
Click to expand...

That's the most delusional thing you've said yet. Antisemitism is rampant throughout the world. Israel doesn't have any support from most countries, let alone unconditional support. They are regularly targeted for unfair treatment by the OIC, the largest UN voting bloc. Even the US has pressured Israel into making concessions.

Your perception is so far off from reality, it's a wonder you can tie your shoelaces.
 
JoeMorgue said:
"Normalized Diplomatic Relations" and "Being on your side" aren't the same thing.
Click to expand...

They don't have to be on Israel's side to not be actively supporting Hamas. Staying out of it is an option. And frankly, given Iran/Saudi tensions, it's an attractive one for Saudi Arabia.
 
Ziggurat said:
They don't have to be on Israel's side to not be actively supporting Hamas. Staying out of it is an option. And frankly, given Iran/Saudi tensions, it's an attractive one for Saudi Arabia.
Click to expand...

Yes, this is a much different situation than the Arab-Israeli wars in the 1980's and earlier. The odds that any country DIRECTLY gets involved in this war against Israel is low. Iran indirect support from afar, and Hezbollah out of Lebanon are the only ones Israel really need worry about. Jordan isn't going to come rolling in from the west, or Egypt from the south.
 
Ziggurat said:
But Hamas will?

What rock are you living under? Hamas wants the extermination of the Jewish people. What exactly are you going to bargain for against that demand? A timetable for the extermination? You can kill all the Jews, but you have to pace yourselves?



That's the most delusional thing you've said yet. Antisemitism is rampant throughout the world. Israel doesn't have any support from most countries, let alone unconditional support. They are regularly targeted for unfair treatment by the OIC, the largest UN voting bloc. Even the US has pressured Israel into making concessions.

Your perception is so far off from reality, it's a wonder you can tie your shoelaces.
Click to expand...

The worst attack EVER by the IRA was a bombing that killed 29 people. And that was actually by a splinter group "the real IRA". The actual IRA generally stuck to military or political targets... though not always.


Compare that to what Hamas just did.
 
The Troubles came to an end when the people who advocated the use of violence agreed to stop and talk. All sides had to compromise. People regarded as terrorists had to sit down with government officials and negotiate.
 
lobosrul5 said:
The worst attack EVER by the IRA was a bombing that killed 29 people. And that was actually by a splinter group "the real IRA". The actual IRA generally stuck to military or political targets... though not always.


Compare that to what Hamas just did.
Click to expand...

Yes, the IRA was much more disciplined and conscientious about their targets. I find myself wondering if Israel regrets boosting Hamas as a competing organization to the PLO and PA.
 
The problem is both sides weren't utterly convinced that God had promised their ancestors the same 25 mile stretch of crap land to them in the English/Irish conflict.

There's a difference between fighting for land/territory in a broad, vague sense and being 100% sure that God himself declared this one spot on the planet belongs to some chosen people but told two groups they were it and God refuses to come down from the clouds and clarify which group of Bronze Age Goat Herders he was talking to thousands of years ago.
 
Last edited:
JoeMorgue said:
The problem is both sides weren't utterly convinced that God had promised their ancestors the same 25 mile stretch of crap land to them in the English/Irish conflict.

There's a difference between fighting for land/territory and being 100% sure that God himself declared this one spot on the planet belongs to some chosen people but told two groups they were it and refuses to come down from the clouds and mediate it.
Click to expand...

I agree a 2 state solution is doomed. There will never be meaningful peace unless there is a more secular 1 state solution in which Jews and Palestinians have equal rights and freedom of conscience. This will mean the end of a solely Jewish state, which is a non-starter for Zionist hardliners.
 
Well the problem is "Secular Israel" is a non-sequitur.

We can't pretend the entire concept isn't religious. We can't put THAT genie back in the bottle.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
I agree a 2 state solution is doomed. There will never be meaningful peace unless there is a more secular 1 state solution in which Jews and Palestinians have equal rights and freedom of conscience. This will mean the end of a solely Jewish state, which is a non-starter for Zionist hardliners.
Click to expand...

Israelis are probably looking at South Africa's downhill slide and deciding they want no part of that.
 
A two state solution won't work because both sides feel their it is their God given Holy divine right to put their "state" in the exact same place because God loves them and they are special.

It is totally absurd. Like go to Google Earth, look at this area of this conflict and them zoom out just a little. There is SOOOO much empty space. It really is comical.

There is plenty of space to put a dozen settlements within a days drive of Gaza. Same general area, same climate, same access to the Med. It's not a 'this town ain't big enough for the both of us" problem it's just petulant children who both want to sit in the same chair even though there dozens of chairs they could sit in but no they both want that one.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom