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Yeah; according to an IDF report on intercepted Hamas documents (so, both sides agree on this; nothing here should be controversial today and it was well-unders
by hedora 3y ago
Yeah; according to an IDF report on intercepted Hamas documents (so, both sides agree on this; nothing here should be controversial today and it was well-understood by leadership on both sides on that day):
- Hamas had a < 20% approval rating before the attacks, and couldn’t recruit. If no action was taken, they’d fade into obscurity, and the conflict would finally end in a few years.
- Their plan was to force Israel to do something so bad that it would escalate into a regional conflict, and allow them to recruit again.
- Hamas’ goal was to get Israel to level Gaza. They estimated that three days of slaughtering civilians would be enough to get Israel to do something unforgivable in response.
- Israel reacted after one day. At this point Hamas had won, and stopped their initial campaign.
- Hamas now has a > 70% approval rating, and can easily recruit, so things are going as well as they could hope, organizationally.
My opinion (I can’t come up with anything else that matches the facts):
The military leadership on both sides of this conflict should be tried and convicted for war crimes, including genocide. The conflict is happening because the military wings of both governments are trying to consolidate power and secure funding/resources.
The Israeli and Palestinian civilians (and Israeli conscripts — they still have a draft) are the victims here.
Their only hope is that they’d band together as part of a peace movement and replace their own governments (via an election in Israel), but, predictably, mob rule and fear have strengthened the right wing militants on both sides.
- everforward 3y agoNaomi Wolf is as prescient today as she was in 2007: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_America:_Letter_of_Warning_to_a_Young_Patriot https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_America:_Letter_o... The easiest way to build internal cohesion is to invent or create an external enemy and distract everyone with that. I tend to agree, though. The conflict feels manufactured by the respective militaries to distract from internal issues. It’s a waste of human life to cover up dysfunctional governing. How’s Netanyahu’s corruption trial going? Curious how that timing works out, haven’t heard much about since Israel started leveling Gaza… That’s not to say Hamas is better, I just don’t expect much of them. They’re not exactly shy about speaking their mind.
- nolongerthere 3y ago> How’s Netanyahu’s corruption trial going? Curious how that timing works out, haven’t heard much about since Israel started leveling Gaza… It's been going pretty poorly actually as the defense actually had time to build a case and the prosecution has been shown to be purely politically motivated with very flimsy evidence such as "he didn't say it but his eyes implied it". Basically there isn't a case and it turns out that he's about as guilty as your average politician in any western country. Which is... kinda guilty but also so is everyone... so if you're gonna treat him like enemy number one for accepting gifts from long time friends, then to actually make it fair you'd need to basically take out the entire elite-class in the entire western world in a french style revolution. Obviously there's no appetite for that, and all the people who will say "yea lets do that" don't actually think they'll be expected to follow through on dropping the guillotine or axe on any one's neck. So can comfortably pretend that they want "justice" when really all they want is their political rivals removed from power. Which is fine, but don't pretend you're actually looking to root out corruption, as we saw with trump. Both sides were only willing to call out the other side's president for being careless with classified documents, while making every excuse for their own political leaders "mishaps".
- cooloo 3y ago[flagged]