6 ms·

Perhaps, but it’s losing everywhere else, including in Israel itself

by drgo 2y ago

weatherlite 2y ago
I don't know that Israel is losing everywhere else. A lot depends on what will happen in the next year, its still possible for Israel to turn this around and create a better reality both for itself and for Gazans. Israel took 2 major hits - one was the terrible loss of lives and the hostages situation on October 7th which traumatized and will continue to traumatize Israelis for many years to come. The other is the diplomatic hit and Israel's image in the West which now seems to have stabilized in the current low its at. Both of these are not terminal hits, depending a lot on what Israel chooses to do next and what will transpire. Israel never had great alternatives after October 7th happened, it could have tried fighting more surgically perhaps but would have paid with this war lasting much longer and many more soldiers dying. Hamas is so entrenched above and under the ground in Gaza this doesn't really seem feasible. Or, Israel could have avoided going to war with Hamas altogether and tried to release the hostages with a deal by giving in to all of Hamas demands (after suffering a huge massacre). This is obviously a bad choice and would have only postponed this war a few months or years ahead since Hamas is bent on bringing Israel down by force. I can't imagine any other country on earth taking that option - should the U.S have negotiated with al qaeda after September 11th? So long story short this is a complete mess but its very early to declare winners and losers.
- runarberg 2y ago
  > Or, Israel could have avoided going to war with Hamas altogether and tried to release the hostages with a deal by giving in to all of Hamas demands [...] can't imagine any other country on earth taking that option I do wonder whether history backs up this statement. When I hear about hostages taken by terrorists in the news, most of the time, if they are released, and if I remember accurately, they are released via negotiations. I think I hear politicians talk about not negotiating with terrorists, but in reality I think hardly any nation has that as an actual policy, and do in fact negotiate the release of hostages. Even Israel falls into this camp. I don’t think we have any examples in recent history of a country going on a genocidal rampage to free hostages. So I do in fact think that most—if not all—other countries would have indeed reacted in different ways here, and negotiated to free at least all the civilian hostages within a few months, and the military hostages over the next year, and I do think most—if not all—countries would have done so with exactly 0 civilian casualties.
  - weatherlite 2y ago
    You are ignoring the fact that Hamas wants to bring Israel down by force, it explicitly said it would repeat October 7th. So getting back the hostages is only a part of the problem, there is the issue of existential threat to Israel. And this is all speculation anyway, who knows if Hamas would have been willing to free all hostages - why would it, it could have kept humiliating Israel right after massacring its population and released only small numbers of the hostages. As for examples from history - we have the allies bombing of Germany, the allied reaction to September 11th, Afghanistan etc. Almost no one considers any of them 'genocidal rampages' although they all left millions of dead, we save that rhetoric only for Israel.
    - runarberg 2y ago
      The allied bombing campaign and the US war on terror are hardly patterns in history (and neither were responses to hostages). A much more common pattern is what we saw e.g. after the Madrid train bombings in 2004, or the recent Moscow concert hall attack, where there is increased police presence and perhaps domestic political persecution of some groups by the police and with discriminatory laws. Nothing close to a genocidal rampage. There are plenty of terror groups which the rulers of plenty of countries say are existential threats to those countries, some of them even take hostages, Israel alone responds to those attacks with genocidal rampage. I think the closest behavior to Israel here is ironically Turkey who engages in brutal military campaign against Kurdish communities on a regular basis. But those reactions don’t come anywhere close in scope as the Gaza genocide. EDIT: And just to flip the narrative here a little bit. The terror attacks by Hamas is actually something we see quite often in history. Occupied peoples usually resist, and if political means of resistance is not available, they almost always use violent and armed forms of resistance. You want to make the case that Israel’s behavior is to be expected. I don’t believe that, but if you do that, you should also apply the same logic to Palestinian resistance.
      - weatherlite 2y ago
        > There are plenty of terror groups which the rulers of plenty of countries say are existential threats to those countries, some of them even take hostages, Israel alone responds to those attacks with genocidal rampage. Such as ? When the U.S felt it was under existental threat it definitely responded. The Madrid/London attacks don't resemble at all the situation between Hamas and Israel - even if Spain wanted to go to war against the terrorists - where would the war happen? Who would they attack? Hamas is right on the border, hell bent on recreating October 7th again and again (their words). And its not just their words Hamas has built an entire army with whatever means they could find, and had fired rockets on Israel repeatedly throughout the years. Madrid and London was one or more sophoisticated terror cell, without knowing what happened there in detail I find it hard to believe it was more than a hundred people involved. Hamas has/had tens of thousands of members, rpgs, explosives, tunnels and tens of thousands of rockets (low quality, but still). Not to mention the fact Israel was immediately attacked by Hezbollah and later on Iran. This comparison to Spain or the UK is simply silly. You simply choose to view Israel as uniquely evil due to your political ideology/own biases and thought processes.
- NomDePlum 2y ago
  Israel is now in a similar position to South Africa in the '80's for a considerable population of the world. Defending actions that others find indefensible. Enshrining societal culture and positions that for most is extermely unpalatable, at best. I don't see how Israel come back from it's current position, even with U.S. backing. Deliberately killing and maiming children and the vulnerable in the many thousands is not something that a lot of people can overlook, regardless of what type of context is provided.
  - weatherlite 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - NomDePlum 2y ago
      You are right few societal/cultural choices are irreversible, the case of South Africa being a case in point. They are just extremely rare to occur. I do think you miscategorise those that have misgivings. The US and Israel are very isolated currently. The challenge for Israel is that there appears to be few limits on what they are prepared to do. Putting aside more recent examples, the decades long encouragement of settlements and displacement of the Arab population and accompanying violence is something I'm not sure how Israel reverses. I'm not sure most, or even many, people see Israel as the root of all evil. Where does that perception come from? Unfortunately the actions Israel is involved in now most would classify as evil and deliberately so. Rightly, or wrongly they are perceived to have the backing of the majority of the population, which is what makes me think that Israel is not going to fully recover from this period, unless of course they can change course in a similar way to South Africa.
      - weatherlite 2y ago
        > I'm not sure most, or even many, people see Israel as the root of all evil. Where does that perception come from? I think there is a huge proportion of Muslims world wide who believe this is the case and also a pretty sizable amount of left wing (especially 'Woke') people in the West. Unfortunately some of these people don't even make a full distinction between Israelis and Jews, so it became bad news to Jews everywhere. I can go on and give a bunch of news stories and anecdotes (your own comment - the words you choose to use btw kind of reinforces my theory) but I don't think anything I write here will change your mind.

Perhaps, but it’s losing everywhere else, including in Israel itself

by drgo 2y ago

Perhaps, but it’s losing everywhere else, including in Israel itself

I don't know that Israel is losing everywhere else. A lot depends on what will happen in the next year, its still possible for Israel to turn this around and create a better reality both for itself and for Gazans. Israel took 2 major hits - one was the terrible loss of lives and the hostages situation on October 7th which traumatized and will continue to traumatize Israelis for many years to come. The other is the diplomatic hit and Israel's image in the West which now seems to have stabilized in the current low its at. Both of these are not terminal hits, depending a lot on what Israel chooses to do next and what will transpire. Israel never had great alternatives after October 7th happened, it could have tried fighting more surgically perhaps but would have paid with this war lasting much longer and many more soldiers dying. Hamas is so entrenched above and under the ground in Gaza this doesn't really seem feasible. Or, Israel could have avoided going to war with Hamas altogether and tried to release the hostages with a deal by giving in to all of Hamas demands (after suffering a huge massacre). This is obviously a bad choice and would have only postponed this war a few months or years ahead since Hamas is bent on bringing Israel down by force. I can't imagine any other country on earth taking that option - should the U.S have negotiated with al qaeda after September 11th? So long story short this is a complete mess but its very early to declare winners and losers.

runarberg 2y ago
> Or, Israel could have avoided going to war with Hamas altogether and tried to release the hostages with a deal by giving in to all of Hamas demands [...] can't imagine any other country on earth taking that option I do wonder whether history backs up this statement. When I hear about hostages taken by terrorists in the news, most of the time, if they are released, and if I remember accurately, they are released via negotiations. I think I hear politicians talk about not negotiating with terrorists, but in reality I think hardly any nation has that as an actual policy, and do in fact negotiate the release of hostages. Even Israel falls into this camp. I don’t think we have any examples in recent history of a country going on a genocidal rampage to free hostages. So I do in fact think that most—if not all—other countries would have indeed reacted in different ways here, and negotiated to free at least all the civilian hostages within a few months, and the military hostages over the next year, and I do think most—if not all—countries would have done so with exactly 0 civilian casualties.
- weatherlite 2y ago
  You are ignoring the fact that Hamas wants to bring Israel down by force, it explicitly said it would repeat October 7th. So getting back the hostages is only a part of the problem, there is the issue of existential threat to Israel. And this is all speculation anyway, who knows if Hamas would have been willing to free all hostages - why would it, it could have kept humiliating Israel right after massacring its population and released only small numbers of the hostages. As for examples from history - we have the allies bombing of Germany, the allied reaction to September 11th, Afghanistan etc. Almost no one considers any of them 'genocidal rampages' although they all left millions of dead, we save that rhetoric only for Israel.
  - runarberg 2y ago
    The allied bombing campaign and the US war on terror are hardly patterns in history (and neither were responses to hostages). A much more common pattern is what we saw e.g. after the Madrid train bombings in 2004, or the recent Moscow concert hall attack, where there is increased police presence and perhaps domestic political persecution of some groups by the police and with discriminatory laws. Nothing close to a genocidal rampage. There are plenty of terror groups which the rulers of plenty of countries say are existential threats to those countries, some of them even take hostages, Israel alone responds to those attacks with genocidal rampage. I think the closest behavior to Israel here is ironically Turkey who engages in brutal military campaign against Kurdish communities on a regular basis. But those reactions don’t come anywhere close in scope as the Gaza genocide. EDIT: And just to flip the narrative here a little bit. The terror attacks by Hamas is actually something we see quite often in history. Occupied peoples usually resist, and if political means of resistance is not available, they almost always use violent and armed forms of resistance. You want to make the case that Israel’s behavior is to be expected. I don’t believe that, but if you do that, you should also apply the same logic to Palestinian resistance.
    - weatherlite 2y ago
      > There are plenty of terror groups which the rulers of plenty of countries say are existential threats to those countries, some of them even take hostages, Israel alone responds to those attacks with genocidal rampage. Such as ? When the U.S felt it was under existental threat it definitely responded. The Madrid/London attacks don't resemble at all the situation between Hamas and Israel - even if Spain wanted to go to war against the terrorists - where would the war happen? Who would they attack? Hamas is right on the border, hell bent on recreating October 7th again and again (their words). And its not just their words Hamas has built an entire army with whatever means they could find, and had fired rockets on Israel repeatedly throughout the years. Madrid and London was one or more sophoisticated terror cell, without knowing what happened there in detail I find it hard to believe it was more than a hundred people involved. Hamas has/had tens of thousands of members, rpgs, explosives, tunnels and tens of thousands of rockets (low quality, but still). Not to mention the fact Israel was immediately attacked by Hezbollah and later on Iran. This comparison to Spain or the UK is simply silly. You simply choose to view Israel as uniquely evil due to your political ideology/own biases and thought processes.
NomDePlum 2y ago
Israel is now in a similar position to South Africa in the '80's for a considerable population of the world. Defending actions that others find indefensible. Enshrining societal culture and positions that for most is extermely unpalatable, at best. I don't see how Israel come back from it's current position, even with U.S. backing. Deliberately killing and maiming children and the vulnerable in the many thousands is not something that a lot of people can overlook, regardless of what type of context is provided.
- weatherlite 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - NomDePlum 2y ago
    You are right few societal/cultural choices are irreversible, the case of South Africa being a case in point. They are just extremely rare to occur. I do think you miscategorise those that have misgivings. The US and Israel are very isolated currently. The challenge for Israel is that there appears to be few limits on what they are prepared to do. Putting aside more recent examples, the decades long encouragement of settlements and displacement of the Arab population and accompanying violence is something I'm not sure how Israel reverses. I'm not sure most, or even many, people see Israel as the root of all evil. Where does that perception come from? Unfortunately the actions Israel is involved in now most would classify as evil and deliberately so. Rightly, or wrongly they are perceived to have the backing of the majority of the population, which is what makes me think that Israel is not going to fully recover from this period, unless of course they can change course in a similar way to South Africa.
    - weatherlite 2y ago
      > I'm not sure most, or even many, people see Israel as the root of all evil. Where does that perception come from? I think there is a huge proportion of Muslims world wide who believe this is the case and also a pretty sizable amount of left wing (especially 'Woke') people in the West. Unfortunately some of these people don't even make a full distinction between Israelis and Jews, so it became bad news to Jews everywhere. I can go on and give a bunch of news stories and anecdotes (your own comment - the words you choose to use btw kind of reinforces my theory) but I don't think anything I write here will change your mind.