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I'm going to agree with you the standard of carefulness has been at times pretty low. If it moves and looks like it might be Hamas - shoot it. I was also not ha

by YZF 1y ago

I'm going to agree with you the standard of carefulness has been at times pretty low. If it moves and looks like it might be Hamas - shoot it. I was also not happy about that incident and others. There were also plenty of friendly fire incidents (where soldiers were killed by other soldiers) and the incident where hostages were killed by other soldiers. The level of "discipline" in the IDF isn't what it used to be and definitely the mood in Israel in the early days of the war was of revenge (though the military is not supposed to be thinking like that). The other side of this coin is when you fight this kind of fight, in a dense urban environment, where combatants intentionally blend with civilians, and use any imaginable tactic they can to attack you, and put weapon stashes in civilian homes, and tunnel entrances etc. Where the enemy may even want to increase civilian casualties on their side, and when you have infantry and armor fighting day in and day out with no sleep and under constant pressure. You are going to have more of these incidents. There might be some at the margin that are actually war crimes but many are just what happens in this kind of war and in this specific scenario. I'm not going to judge those people when I'm not in their shoes. Including the people who ordered the strike on that convoy. I am Israeli (who hasn't lived there in a long time, but I served in the distance past in the IDF) and I have spoken to people who have been in Gaza. So I know targeting an international aid group is not who we are. I also know that if it was decided that they were Hamas then they'd get obliterated, so that part is not a surprise. The other thing I do know for sure, is that Hamas started this war and that Israel can not accept Hamas in Gaza after the war and it can not accept Hamas holding hostages after the war. I'm not sure I see what Israel can do here in terms of Gazan perception of Israel or why it even matters. Many Gazans hate the Hamas but they have no control.

mitthrowaway2 1y ago
Thanks, that's a very reasonable comment on a sensitive subject, and I appreciate that. I don't disagree with you. But because this is a predictable result, it's also part of the calculus that Israel has to weigh as part of the choice to deploy its soldiers in those positions in the first place. I do think that Israel doesn't have to be fighting this fight; instead it could be playing the soft power game in Gaza much better, and it's barely even trying to. In my opinion the carrot almost always works better than the stick, and Israel should be throwing a Marshall plan at Gaza, literally truck-tons of money making Palestinians rich and happy, under the one condition that they turn over the hostages and any Hamas militants who don't surrender. All that would cost pennies compared to the costs of waging war (and the eventual rebuilding, and the next century of anti-terrorism policing, all of which Israel will undoubtedly be footing the bill for). Instead Israel is choosing to stir the pot in the West Bank at the same time, removing any chance of getting the Palestinian Authority as an ally against Hamas, and burning through what was left of the post-WW2 international goodwill that got it statehood in the first place. It's understandable and predictable but I think it's still deeply mistaken, and very sad for me to watch.
- YZF 1y ago
  There was a ton of money thrown into Gaza: "agencies spent nearly $4.5 billion in Gaza, including $600 million in 2020 alone. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, aid to Palestinians totaled over $40 billion between 1994 and 2020." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_aid_to_Palestinians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_aid_to_Palestini... This is not a problem that has a money solution. At least not at this point. One big misunderstanding of the "west" is that everyone wants the things that "they" do. Like a nice car, house, money, Costco, Walmart. Doesn't work like that. Oddly enough the Palestinian Authority is siding with Israel in that Hamas can not control Gaza after the war. They just made a statement to that effect. The PA depends on Israel, Israel supports the PA, the Palestinians don't always like the PA. The PA is arguably happy with the IDF going after Hamas and PIJ in the West Bank in places like Jenin ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenin_Brigades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenin_Brigades ) because Hamas wants to overthrow the PA just like it did in Gaza. The Israeli government makes a bit of a show of being against the PA while actually knowing very well it needs the PA and collaborating with the PA on security. OTOH the current government does not want the PA to get control of Gaza. The "west bank" problem right now is that the extremists amongst the west bank settlers have more or less free reign by the government to attack Palestinians (and sometimes other Israelis). This is a result of Netanyahu's brittle coalition and the war. The Israeli right wing has always wanted to make sure there can not be a two state solution. What they still haven't quite wrapped their heads around is that they will instead have a one state solution. Really that would appear to be the only solution of sorts. Oddly enough the international community is still stuck in this "two state solution" despite it being completely unacceptable to both sides in this conflict and having proven to not work.
  - mitthrowaway2 1y ago
    I don't think it's really worth going into the fine details here, because I'm sure we've both done our respective research on this, but I do again appreciate that you keep presenting reasonable responses on a charged topic. $40 billion over 26 years does certainly sound like a lot of aid money, but it works out to just around $300 per Palestinian per year, which is, I think, not even enough to counterbalance the economic damage that Israel imposes on Palestine (and especially Gaza) through movement restrictions and trade barriers and blockades. It certainly pales in comparison to the budget of the Israeli military (which, admittedly, obviously has more on its plate than just Palestine, and couldn't be entirely repurposed towards aid). At any rate it's not in the realm of what I contemplate as a Marshall plan approach. And for it to work, that aid all has to come prominently stamped "courtesy of your friends in Israel". International aid from other sources can improve living standards but doesn't build much goodwill with the neighbours. But I agree with you on the rest of what you say.

by YZF 1y ago

mitthrowaway2 1y ago

Thanks, that's a very reasonable comment on a sensitive subject, and I appreciate that. I don't disagree with you. But because this is a predictable result, it's also part of the calculus that Israel has to weigh as part of the choice to deploy its soldiers in those positions in the first place. I do think that Israel doesn't have to be fighting this fight; instead it could be playing the soft power game in Gaza much better, and it's barely even trying to. In my opinion the carrot almost always works better than the stick, and Israel should be throwing a Marshall plan at Gaza, literally truck-tons of money making Palestinians rich and happy, under the one condition that they turn over the hostages and any Hamas militants who don't surrender. All that would cost pennies compared to the costs of waging war (and the eventual rebuilding, and the next century of anti-terrorism policing, all of which Israel will undoubtedly be footing the bill for). Instead Israel is choosing to stir the pot in the West Bank at the same time, removing any chance of getting the Palestinian Authority as an ally against Hamas, and burning through what was left of the post-WW2 international goodwill that got it statehood in the first place. It's understandable and predictable but I think it's still deeply mistaken, and very sad for me to watch.

YZF 1y ago
There was a ton of money thrown into Gaza: "agencies spent nearly $4.5 billion in Gaza, including $600 million in 2020 alone. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, aid to Palestinians totaled over $40 billion between 1994 and 2020." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_aid_to_Palestinians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_aid_to_Palestini... This is not a problem that has a money solution. At least not at this point. One big misunderstanding of the "west" is that everyone wants the things that "they" do. Like a nice car, house, money, Costco, Walmart. Doesn't work like that. Oddly enough the Palestinian Authority is siding with Israel in that Hamas can not control Gaza after the war. They just made a statement to that effect. The PA depends on Israel, Israel supports the PA, the Palestinians don't always like the PA. The PA is arguably happy with the IDF going after Hamas and PIJ in the West Bank in places like Jenin ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenin_Brigades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenin_Brigades ) because Hamas wants to overthrow the PA just like it did in Gaza. The Israeli government makes a bit of a show of being against the PA while actually knowing very well it needs the PA and collaborating with the PA on security. OTOH the current government does not want the PA to get control of Gaza. The "west bank" problem right now is that the extremists amongst the west bank settlers have more or less free reign by the government to attack Palestinians (and sometimes other Israelis). This is a result of Netanyahu's brittle coalition and the war. The Israeli right wing has always wanted to make sure there can not be a two state solution. What they still haven't quite wrapped their heads around is that they will instead have a one state solution. Really that would appear to be the only solution of sorts. Oddly enough the international community is still stuck in this "two state solution" despite it being completely unacceptable to both sides in this conflict and having proven to not work.
- mitthrowaway2 1y ago
  I don't think it's really worth going into the fine details here, because I'm sure we've both done our respective research on this, but I do again appreciate that you keep presenting reasonable responses on a charged topic. $40 billion over 26 years does certainly sound like a lot of aid money, but it works out to just around $300 per Palestinian per year, which is, I think, not even enough to counterbalance the economic damage that Israel imposes on Palestine (and especially Gaza) through movement restrictions and trade barriers and blockades. It certainly pales in comparison to the budget of the Israeli military (which, admittedly, obviously has more on its plate than just Palestine, and couldn't be entirely repurposed towards aid). At any rate it's not in the realm of what I contemplate as a Marshall plan approach. And for it to work, that aid all has to come prominently stamped "courtesy of your friends in Israel". International aid from other sources can improve living standards but doesn't build much goodwill with the neighbours. But I agree with you on the rest of what you say.