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> It is just a true fact of the world that if Israel were to let down its guard even a little, many Israelis would be killed. We saw the proof of that on Octobe

> It is just a true fact of the world that if Israel were to let down its guard even a little, many Israelis would be killed. We saw the proof of that on October 7th. October 7th happened under the current approach, to assume it would be at least as bad under a 'guard let down' scenario begs the question. There are two competing factors here - hatred and control. The current regime maintains a fairly high level of control, but doing so engenders more hatred. If anything, I think high control-high hatred may be an attractor in policy space, but probably not a long term good one.

edanm 3y ago
> October 7th happened under the current approach, to assume it would be at least as bad under a 'guard let down' scenario begs the question. Look, I'm sorry, but that's wishful thinking. Israel left Gaza in 2005. Gaza elected Hamas who have been bombing Israel ever since. The current justification is "because of the blockade". What should Israel do? Not do a blockade and hope that Hamas decides to give up violence after 30 years, despite it promising to do so? There is just nothing that Israel can reasonably do given that its neighbor insists, rightly or wrongly, that it needs to invade Israel and kill all Israelis. Even if they are 100% right about all the historical injustices they've endured, and everything was 100% Israel's fault - it would still make no sense to "let down our guard", cause the direct result will be the death of multiple thousands of Israelis.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Israel left Gaza in 2005. Israel did not leave Gaza, though it made a show of doing so. > Gaza elected Hamas who have been bombing Israel ever since. Israel carried out a campaign directly aimed at discrediting Fatah and radicalizing the Palestinian population around the elections, and it paid off exactly as intended, with Hamas not only winning locally in Gaza, but an overall legislative majority. Israel has also acted to preserve the status quo they acheived in that election by obstructing subsequent planned all-Palestine elections.
  - edanm 3y ago
    > Israel did not leave Gaza, though it made a show of doing so. Just to be clear, what do you mean by this?
- arp242 3y ago
  > What should Israel do? Not do a blockade and hope that Hamas decides to give up violence after 30 years, despite it promising to do so? So what is your plan then? Keep millions of people in perpetual prison for all eternity? Because that's more or less what "blockade of Gaza" entails. It's important to emphasise just how small the Gaza strip is: roughly the size of Dublin (smaller if you exclude fairly large "forbidden zones" near the wall). No city that size can be self-sufficient, it's physically impossible. Gaza is set up to fail. Not intentionally as part of some plan, but that doesn't change the fact of it. Hamas has hinted at some moderation over the years such as recognising Israel's right to exist, and they have basically been ignored or rebuffed at every turn. Israel hasn't even tried with Hamas. They just said "fuck these elections" in 2005 and that was that. I intently dislike Hamas, but Hamas is the reality that exists, so it's what you'll have to deal with. Simply giving up and saying "well, Hamas are a bunch of religious nutjobs, so we're not even going to try" is a huge part of why things have escalated in the first place. Note how Hamas-levels of extremism doesn't have wide-spread support among the Palestinians on the west bank. If you grew up in Gaza and are in your 20s now then you hardly remember a time before the blockade. What do you expect from the people of Gaza? After a life-time of desperation for them to come to an epiphany and lay down all protest and adopt carefully nuanced language in the hope that Israeli politicians will give them more freedom? All of that in spite of religious nutjobs currently in government who support Jewish mass-murderers and have expressed views that are just as extreme as Hamas and are nothing short of genocidal? That is just as naïve, if not more so, than expecting Hamas to immediately come to their senses after lifting the blockage. Hamas has blood on its hands, absolutely, but the idea that Israeli are poor victims who have never done anything wrong is just dead wrong.
  - edanm 3y ago
    > So what is your plan then? Keep millions of people in perpetual prison for all eternity? Because that's more or less what "blockade of Gaza" entails. First of all, I don't think that's an accurate characterization of life in Gaza. They're not literally in prison, their conditions aren't great (at all!) but definitely not the terrible conditions that that image conjures up. > Hamas has blood on its hands, absolutely, but the idea that Israeli are poor victims who have never done anything wrong is just dead wrong. I absolutely agree, Israel has not done anywhere near enough to improve conditions in Gaza and seek peace, especially in the last 15 or so years. But you asked my plan - I'm far from being knowledgeable enough to answer that, but here's what I think the general outline should be: 1. Destroy Hamas. At this point, given the damage they've done, to Israelis, to their own citizens, and to the peace process - this is a must-do. Not sure what this means in practice, but probably need to capture or kill enough of their leaders to make them unable to continue operating as an organization. 2. Someone else needs to step in and help manage Gaza. The US thinks a bolstered PA can do this - Netanyahu claims this won't work, and Palestinians mostly dislike the PA. So I'm not sure who can fill this role in practice, but someone needs to do it. (I trust Biden a lot more than Netanyahu, btw). As an aside, I think Israel should help rebuild Gaza, somehow, and help the people now stranded without a home. No idea how to do this in practice (I doubt anyone will be happy with Israeli contractors literally building buildings in Gaza, and don't think that'll be safe), but it's the moral thing to do. 3. Start making concrete steps towards peace. Start dismantling settlements, and find ways to bolster Palestinian voices for peace (instead of the reverse, which is what has happened over the last 15 years). Find other ways that improve the lives of Palestinians while maintaining Israeli security, I'm sure there are lots of ways that can be done. 4. Start a peace process. Any peace process, with anyone credible enough to do it. Israel cannot morally "give up" on peace, even if the Palestinians are currently unwilling to seek peace. That's what I think should happen. I have very little faith this will actually happen though, except for part 1 of that. > If you grew up in Gaza and are in your 20s now then you hardly remember a time before the blockade. What do you expect from the people of Gaza? After a life-time of desperation for them to come to an epiphany and lay down all protest and adopt carefully nuanced language in the hope that Israeli politicians will give them more freedom? I expect that, once Hamas is destroyed, many people in Gaza will start speaking up against Hamas and the destruction they brought on their own people. Some Gazans are already saying as much. Many countries have suffered defeat in war - Germany and Japan are good examples. They didn't all grow up wanting nothing more than violence because of the Allies bombing their countries. They became great allies of the US etc. I don't know why we think that Palestinians can't be the same, given that Israel actually takes concrete steps to repair the terrible damage wrought by this war.

edanm 3y ago

> October 7th happened under the current approach, to assume it would be at least as bad under a 'guard let down' scenario begs the question. Look, I'm sorry, but that's wishful thinking. Israel left Gaza in 2005. Gaza elected Hamas who have been bombing Israel ever since. The current justification is "because of the blockade". What should Israel do? Not do a blockade and hope that Hamas decides to give up violence after 30 years, despite it promising to do so? There is just nothing that Israel can reasonably do given that its neighbor insists, rightly or wrongly, that it needs to invade Israel and kill all Israelis. Even if they are 100% right about all the historical injustices they've endured, and everything was 100% Israel's fault - it would still make no sense to "let down our guard", cause the direct result will be the death of multiple thousands of Israelis.

dragonwriter 3y ago
> Israel left Gaza in 2005. Israel did not leave Gaza, though it made a show of doing so. > Gaza elected Hamas who have been bombing Israel ever since. Israel carried out a campaign directly aimed at discrediting Fatah and radicalizing the Palestinian population around the elections, and it paid off exactly as intended, with Hamas not only winning locally in Gaza, but an overall legislative majority. Israel has also acted to preserve the status quo they acheived in that election by obstructing subsequent planned all-Palestine elections.
- edanm 3y ago
  > Israel did not leave Gaza, though it made a show of doing so. Just to be clear, what do you mean by this?
arp242 3y ago
> What should Israel do? Not do a blockade and hope that Hamas decides to give up violence after 30 years, despite it promising to do so? So what is your plan then? Keep millions of people in perpetual prison for all eternity? Because that's more or less what "blockade of Gaza" entails. It's important to emphasise just how small the Gaza strip is: roughly the size of Dublin (smaller if you exclude fairly large "forbidden zones" near the wall). No city that size can be self-sufficient, it's physically impossible. Gaza is set up to fail. Not intentionally as part of some plan, but that doesn't change the fact of it. Hamas has hinted at some moderation over the years such as recognising Israel's right to exist, and they have basically been ignored or rebuffed at every turn. Israel hasn't even tried with Hamas. They just said "fuck these elections" in 2005 and that was that. I intently dislike Hamas, but Hamas is the reality that exists, so it's what you'll have to deal with. Simply giving up and saying "well, Hamas are a bunch of religious nutjobs, so we're not even going to try" is a huge part of why things have escalated in the first place. Note how Hamas-levels of extremism doesn't have wide-spread support among the Palestinians on the west bank. If you grew up in Gaza and are in your 20s now then you hardly remember a time before the blockade. What do you expect from the people of Gaza? After a life-time of desperation for them to come to an epiphany and lay down all protest and adopt carefully nuanced language in the hope that Israeli politicians will give them more freedom? All of that in spite of religious nutjobs currently in government who support Jewish mass-murderers and have expressed views that are just as extreme as Hamas and are nothing short of genocidal? That is just as naïve, if not more so, than expecting Hamas to immediately come to their senses after lifting the blockage. Hamas has blood on its hands, absolutely, but the idea that Israeli are poor victims who have never done anything wrong is just dead wrong.
- edanm 3y ago
  > So what is your plan then? Keep millions of people in perpetual prison for all eternity? Because that's more or less what "blockade of Gaza" entails. First of all, I don't think that's an accurate characterization of life in Gaza. They're not literally in prison, their conditions aren't great (at all!) but definitely not the terrible conditions that that image conjures up. > Hamas has blood on its hands, absolutely, but the idea that Israeli are poor victims who have never done anything wrong is just dead wrong. I absolutely agree, Israel has not done anywhere near enough to improve conditions in Gaza and seek peace, especially in the last 15 or so years. But you asked my plan - I'm far from being knowledgeable enough to answer that, but here's what I think the general outline should be: 1. Destroy Hamas. At this point, given the damage they've done, to Israelis, to their own citizens, and to the peace process - this is a must-do. Not sure what this means in practice, but probably need to capture or kill enough of their leaders to make them unable to continue operating as an organization. 2. Someone else needs to step in and help manage Gaza. The US thinks a bolstered PA can do this - Netanyahu claims this won't work, and Palestinians mostly dislike the PA. So I'm not sure who can fill this role in practice, but someone needs to do it. (I trust Biden a lot more than Netanyahu, btw). As an aside, I think Israel should help rebuild Gaza, somehow, and help the people now stranded without a home. No idea how to do this in practice (I doubt anyone will be happy with Israeli contractors literally building buildings in Gaza, and don't think that'll be safe), but it's the moral thing to do. 3. Start making concrete steps towards peace. Start dismantling settlements, and find ways to bolster Palestinian voices for peace (instead of the reverse, which is what has happened over the last 15 years). Find other ways that improve the lives of Palestinians while maintaining Israeli security, I'm sure there are lots of ways that can be done. 4. Start a peace process. Any peace process, with anyone credible enough to do it. Israel cannot morally "give up" on peace, even if the Palestinians are currently unwilling to seek peace. That's what I think should happen. I have very little faith this will actually happen though, except for part 1 of that. > If you grew up in Gaza and are in your 20s now then you hardly remember a time before the blockade. What do you expect from the people of Gaza? After a life-time of desperation for them to come to an epiphany and lay down all protest and adopt carefully nuanced language in the hope that Israeli politicians will give them more freedom? I expect that, once Hamas is destroyed, many people in Gaza will start speaking up against Hamas and the destruction they brought on their own people. Some Gazans are already saying as much. Many countries have suffered defeat in war - Germany and Japan are good examples. They didn't all grow up wanting nothing more than violence because of the Allies bombing their countries. They became great allies of the US etc. I don't know why we think that Palestinians can't be the same, given that Israel actually takes concrete steps to repair the terrible damage wrought by this war.