… I noticed that FBI Chief Christopher Wray warned about increased terrorist attacks in the US over our support of the Israeli campaign killing thousands in Gaza. Have we learned nothing from the Iraq/Afghanistan War?
intercst
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3 minutes of this was more than enough for me.
Anyone that thinks this war is the result of one side being guilty and the other being innocent, is just plain ignorant.
There is no one with bloodless hands in the Middle East.
Having said that, I think Netanyahu’s response has been abysmal and harmful to Israel’s interests. Killing innocent civilians and children is just plain wrong, regardless if they are Israeli or Palestinian.
An eye for an eye only leaves everyone blind.
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That’s the point. US policy is that we support a “2 state solution” as does about 50% of the Israeli population. Netanyahu and his right wing Gov’t have been working overtime to a make a “2 state solution” impossible. The US should at least be pulling back the $5 Billion/yr in foreign aid we’re sending the country in protest. Why is the US funding the building of settlements on the West Bank when we got people living in tents here?
intercst
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I have noticed vivid, and unsurprising, parallels with 9/11 and the resulting made-up wars.
-the notion that the triggering event came out of a clear blue sky, and, was, in no way, blowback from decades of actions on the part of the attackee.
-reports of hate crimes and intimidation against Muslims have nearly vanished from the USian media, while reports of hate crimes and intimidation against Jews continue.
-claims by Israel that they have killed dozens, maybe hundreds of boogymen. Just today, an Israeli air strike was praised for, supposedly, killing the planner of part of the October 7th operations, along with 40-50, or more, civilians living the the same city block that was leveled. How many hundreds of AQ or ISIS “leaders” did the US claim to have killed, in an update of the "Nam era “body count” mentality?
Steve
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And what do you think Hamas is doing?
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Netanyahu has been secretly backing Hamas for years, since their presence in Gaza makes a 2 state solution less likely.
For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces | The Times of Israel
intercst
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Sort of like how the US backed the Afghan Mujahideen, as long as they were killing Russians?
Steve
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Largely because we’ve determined that it’s in our national policy interests for Israel to exist as an ally in the region, rather than possibly fall to a military takeover by other regional powers. Over the decades, it’s mostly been a regional check against Soviet influence in the area; these days, it’s primarily a regional check against Iran’s emergence as a regional hegemon. Though, of course, we’re still concerned about Russian influence through its clients, mostly Syria.
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Because of course we’re the ones who get to decide how the region should be structured…
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We don’t have the power to decide how the region should be structured, but we do have the power to influence events there. To decide which countries are strategic allies that advance our interests, and which countries pose a threat to U.S. interests. Geopolitics exists, whether we like it or not - and whether we participate in it or not.
In a way, today Israel has an even greater importance after Bush43 upended the status quo with the invasion of Iraq. The elimination of Hussein’s regime removed a regional counter to Iranian hegemony. That dramatically increases the importance of Israel as a regional power, and (indirectly) had led to greater rapproachment of other countries with Israel as a check on Iran.
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And from Lebanon TV, Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas spokesman:
HAMAD: Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country because it constitutes a security, military, and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation, and it it must be finished. We are not ashamed to say this, with full force…
The Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth…The occupation must come to an end
Q: Occupation where? In the Gaza Strip?
HAMAD: No, I am talking about all the Palestinian lands.
Q: Does that mean the annihilation of Israel?
HAMAD: Yes, of course.
DB2
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This is nothing new. He’s repeating the primary tenet of Hamas: it’s not even about the Palestinian people so much as annihilation of Jews & Israel.
…but Israel should “cease fire.” Cease fire and do what? Nothing? Allow Hamas to refresh its armaments and escalate attacks? Gaza and Israel already had a cease fire on October 6.
Pete
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Well that’s the question isn’t it?
Other than retaliatory punishment, what does Israel plan to do?
It’s not like Hamas wears identification, so I guess Israel will keep shooting and bombing until their bloodlust is satisfied and then offer the terms.
My suspicion is they will eventually offer some terms that involve them leaving Gaza again (while maintaining it as a refugee camp) but retaining the West Bank in its entirety.
Which does not address the problem of why Hamas exists, and the PLO existed before it.
Israeli officials say they want to kill everyone in Hamas. How do you sort out the “terrorists”, from the civilian population that is there because they can’t get out? Once upon a time, a commander of the Catholic Church’s army said of a town that had some Protestant “heretics” in it, among a population of “good Catholics” words to the effect “kill them all, God will sort them out”.
Steve
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With years of intelligence work, Israel certainly knows who is in the leadership cadre and, most likely, the neighborhood capos. They can be ejected, much like Arafat and Fatah were kicked out of Jordan and then Lebanon.
There are already discussions of a ‘multinational’ peacekeeper force watched over by Israel. But whose troops? They should be Muslim. The Saudis? There will certainly be months to figure it out, what with a lengthy ground campaign followed by an anti-insurgency phase.
Blumenthal [D-Conn] said the congressional delegation that he traveled with to Israel last month discussed the possibility of having Saudi Arabian troops in the force. He noted, however, that he hadn’t heard of U.S. troops heading to Gaza as part of the deliberations.
“There certainly has been discussion with the Saudi about their being part of some international peacekeeping force if only to provide resources, and, longer term, supporting Palestinian leadership and a separate state, obviously. Reconstruction of Gaza will require a vast amount of resources, which the Saudis potentially could help provide,” he said.
DB2
I supposed it is out of the question to provide any sort of compensation for the people who fled in fear, or were forceably ejected from their homes, in Palistine in 48 or 67? Just going to let the insult, and real, financial losses stand?
Steve
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Well, their stated intentions are to do to Hamas what we did to Al Qaeda after 9/11 - destroy the organization. Even though the members don’t wear uniforms (though many members are pretty open about belonging to the organization, including the government officials that are Hamas members that administer Gaza), they intend to eliminate the organization in its entirety.
That goal doesn’t involve “offering terms.” They’re not going to try to find a way to have a long-term or stable coexistence with Hamas, any more than we did with Al Qaeda. They’ve decided Hamas has got to be degraded to the point if incapability, and their intention is to prosecute a military action against Hamas until that happens.
Whether they can achieve that, it’s what Israel plans to do.
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That’s almost certainly one of the terms that could be discussed if the peace process ever got restarted. It’s a really thorny issue - the Right of Return has basically wrecked every other effort to move towards a long-term solution. Especially since Israel would probably want to seek some compensation for the hundreds of thousands of people who fled in fear, or were forcibly ejected from their homes, throughout the Muslim world simply because they were Jewish during the first few years after 1948.
After all, a sizable proportion of that initial, post-establishment Jewish population were refugees that had been driven out of the countries that they had been living in. For a millennium or longer. There were nearly 150,000 Jews just in Iraq at the time the UN adopted the partition - a community that dated back to the Babylonian exile - and within barely five years it was all-but-eliminated.
It probably is out of the question for those Jews to get any compensation for that - and the insult, and very real financial losses will have to just stand. Which I suspect will make it difficult for negotiations towards a just and lasting peace to look backwards as much as some parties would like.
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A former Congressman, and Air Force vet who flew tankers and recon aircraft in Afghanistan and Iraq, was interviewed on Amanpour tonight. He noted that, even though the US killed large numbers of Taliban, when the US left, there were more members of the Taliban than there were when the US first invaded, because the invasion and occupation spawned such hate for the US among the population.
A former US government official, noted that there appears to be nearly zero planning in Israel for what comes after the shooting in Gaza stops. There was near zero planning for Iraq and Afghanistan too, and we saw what happened. For reference, the US started planning for the post-WWII Germany and Japan in 1943.
Steve
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But there were fewer Al Qaeda…
DB2