And there are moderate Israelis who will hold their government accountable for giving Hamas millions of dollars to keep the Palestinians divided. When moderates from both sides take control of their governments, there will be peace.
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Killing everyone would be genocide.
Making them so miserable/desperate that they leave under their own power, is ethnic cleansing. I have heard Israeli officials suggesting they all move into a refugee camp in Egypt, and plenty of Israeli troops (according to the interpreter) shouting slogans about Israeli occupation of Gaza, while they blow up buildings and infrastructure, making the area even more uninhabitable.
Steve
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They can certainly decide for themselves. Regardless of whether their choices result in a loss of U.S. support, they will be the ones to make their own choices. And they will not be especially concerned whether 90% of the world is upset, if they feel that their national security requires it.
As for the 9/11 equivalence, proportionally the attacks on Israel were much, much worse. Itâs a much smaller country, so while âonlyâ about 1.2K Israelis were killed during 10/7 compared to the 3K killed on 9/11, Israelâs population is an order of magnitude smaller. Which means that a much larger proportion of the population has a direct connection to someone who was killed, or someone who is the parent or child of someone who was killed - far fewer âdegrees of separationâ from the victims. To say nothing of the fact that Israel was attacked from right next door, not from halfway around the world.
Thatâs why itâs so fanciful to believe that our opinions on what Israel should do are going to have much bearing on their response. The trauma of the Israeli electorate is going to drive that - not what the rest of the world thinks.
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Absolutely! Israel is a wealthy country. They donât require US Foreign or Military Aid like some poor African nation. If Israel wants to conduct an ethnic cleansing or genocide campaign in Gaza, there is probably isnât much we can do to stop it. But US taxpayers shouldnât be funding it. Let Israel commit the war crimes on itâs own dime.
intercst
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That is true of all of the Middle Eastern countries. They do not want Hamas at all.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a no go.
It is nothing like that 90%.
It is 20% in the US that do not see the import in fighting for legal rights and free election in the Middle East.
Similar number in EU.
The problem with the crying over Gaza is how slow the same people are to discuss Yemen, Syria, Somalia, or Sudan. They just do not care.
The Middle East will not see any peace till the Muslims run their countries with legal rights and free elections. That includes freedom of religion. Not just as a legal issue but in spirit.
Between the military strongmen and the Muslim Brotherhood the Middle East will remain very violent. Do not blame anyone else.
True, but we donât give them military aid solely because itâs in their interest for us to do so. We do it to advance our own interests. The Middle East is enormously important, geopolitically - but we donât have a lot of western-aligned countries in the region. Itâs very advantageous for us for the one solidly western-aligned country to have a supra-normal military force.
Israel has higher military spending (per capita or percentage GDP) than nearly any other country; more than the U.S. They maintain a military force large enough, and advanced enough, to serve as a regional check against Iran and Syria, and thus against proxy movements by Russia (and to a lesser extent China).
Unlike in Europe and Japan/Korea, we project power in the area primarily not by having our own military forces there (though we certainly have a fair number of troops, especially after our recent forays in Afghanistan and Iraq). We do it by having Israel have a stronger military than they could achieve with their own resources. After the Iraq war, which eliminated the Iraqi military check on Iranian/Shiâa block power, thatâs ironically even more critical than ever (which is why Sunni nations were normalizing relations with Israel before 10/7).
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Then neither do Japan or Germany. Or a lot of other allies.
We do not actually give them money generally. We give them our military goods.
Hamas is a problem. There will be other wars if Hamas survives this. That would be the real cruelty to the Gazans.
Hamas cares but not really. Hamas certainly does not care about religious freedom.
Agreed. And allowing Israel to purchase advanced weaponry from US suppliers has been advantageous to our interests. Has.
The question today is: âIs it still to our advantage?â
Could the standing of the US improve in the eyes of some Arab and Muslim countries by cutting off Israelâs access to US weapons now? Those weapons are arguably being misused in Gaza to kill, injure, and displace civilians.
We canât stop Israel from using the weapons they already have, but we can keep them from getting more from us.
It might also be in our interest to keep our troops in the area safe. Weâre going to conduct a military operation in Gazan waters to build a pier. Those troops are at risk of attack from Israel. (And maybe Hamas.) What happens if Netanyahu or one of his generals decides that pier is being used to supply Hamas? (Remember, their decision doesnât have to be based on facts, just opinion - so saying itâs not going to be used for that is irrelevant. They only have to think its being so used. Or even could be so used.) Theyâre going to destroy it, likely with no regard to who is on or near it. And if they come to that decision during the construction phase, itâs going to be US troops that will suffer.
As to comparisons to 9/11 in the US, I again agree those are quite appropriate. But to complete the comparison, itâs necessary to acknowledge that the US screwed up in a major way with our military response. We invaded Iraq, deposing and killing Saddam Hussein, based on lies. Iraq had little or nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. In hindsight, those military adventures may have hurt the US standing in the Middle East more than they helped.
Itâs not hard to envision the same thing happening with Israel and their response. A response to the attack is quite appropriate, both for the US and Israel. But the response needs to be in the right form and against the right people. We went after the wrong people. Israel is using the wrong form, creating a humanitarian crisis in the wake of their military goals.
Yes, Hamas is likely breaking the Geneva convention by hiding among civilians. And Israel can inflict more civilian casualties because of that. But that does not give Israel carte blanche to turn all of Gaza into a post-apocalyptic landscape.
If Israel is truly an ally in the area - and I firmly believe they are - we need to speak and act plainly and in the best interest of maintaining that relationship.
If Israel wants to continue their effort to root out and utterly destroy Hamas (an effort that I think is a foolâs errand, since you canât kill an idea with bullets) that is their right. But they donât have the right to use US weapons in that effort.
âPeter
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We killed how many people in Iraq? We killed how many in Afghanistan?
We killed how many ISIS as their women and children traveled with them?
Yet Israel has killed one militant per 3 people dead in Gaza and much of the rest are the families traveling with the militants.
War is hell.
Hamas wants multiple wars. What do you do about that? Just let an ally die because a crazy religious group wants to destroy a democratic country?
Have you thought about leaving NATO when anything seems a bit bad? Or leaving Japan if we do not want to face China?
We spend far more on Germany and Japan individually than on Israel. Israel fills Western tax coffers with innovative products. Israel gets less from the US than it exports in economic efficiencies.
Yemen, Syria, Somalia, and Sudan are worse than Gaza. No one who is saying their Ramadan is ruined ever cited those wars.
This is about freedom of religion.
Itâs almost certainly still to our advantage. Israelâs outsized military (and economic) footprint in the region serves as a block against Iranian hegemony and a counter to Russian allies Syria and Hezbollah. Meanwhile, the Sunni states are reorienting towards the western bloc in no small part because they also value Israelâs role in checking the growing power of the Shiâa states. Weâd much rather have them drifting into Israelâs security interests than their next best choice, which would be even closer alliance with China than the Belt and Road is already causing. Bad enough theyâre firmly in Chinaâs economic sphere, but weâd really rather not see them opening up to Chinese military power. All of those interests are threatened if the U.S. decides to draw down Israelâs military might.
While such a move might be popular in the street politics of the Arab and Muslim countries in the area, thatâs not necessarily the same thing as improving our standing in those countries. Partially because the governments of those nations have never prioritized the interests of the Palestinian people as much as their street has, and to the extent they have been interested itâs more in the Palestinian cause and not necessarily the Palestinian people. Nor are those governments big fans of organizations like Hamas, and arenât necessarily agitating for Israel to be stopped - particularly Egypt, of course.
And, of course, cutting of Israel from new shipments of U.S. military aid is not likely to materially interfere with their continued prosecution of the war. You canât always believe official pronouncements about future war plans, but Netanyahuâs statements that the Rafah invasion would last a little under two months doesnât seem too inconsistent with whatâs taken place so far.
Itâs natural to want to believe that humanitarian and practical goals align - that whatâs best for Israel and the U.S. is the same thing as what would reduce civilian casualties in Gaza. That way, weâre spared from hard choices. But thatâs not always the case. It may very well be in Israelâs best interests to invade Rafah and hit Hamas in a place where they have nowhere to fall back to.
You canât kill an idea with bulletsâŚbut you can sure kill an organization. Iraq is a cautionary tale from our 9/11 response, but what happened to Al Qaeda an international Islamist terrorism is also an important lesson. Critics of the war foresaw hosts of volunteers replenishing those Islamist terror groups, growing their strength. And honestly, that didnât happen. We pretty much broke the back of international Islamist terrorism, crippling their capacity and interest in promoting attacks in the far corners of the world, and reducing their abilities and scope to local efforts. Israel canât kill the idea of a terror organization that wants to destroy the countryâŚbut they might be able to kill enough of Hamas so that they canât/wonât be that organization going forward.
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Looking at Egypt it is not popular.
None of them want the Muslim Brotherhood. Saudi Arabia, UAE, none of them. Does not matter how religious the Muslims are most of them do not want the Muslim Brotherhood.
Apart from decimating Gaza, Israelâs actions in the West Bank are only creating more animosity and anger among Palestinians. Even if Hamas is destroyed, there will be another extremist group to take its place.
Our enemies have learned that terror attacks only bring us together. Theyâve moved on to more surreptitious methods that divide our citizens against one another.
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You do not know that.
I think it is out in the open. I have even seen an ad last night online for Western Union sending money from America to an Arab family back home.
The Arab Muslims are not our enemies. The organizations that blame us really just want one religion. It has nothing to do with us otherwise.
The violence in four Muslim countries is a handful of little men, not power sharing. No one in their countries otherwise would go along with their crap.
I keep hearing how bad Ramadan is this year. So much for caring about Yemen, Syria, Sudan, or Somalia. Nonissues. Of course, those leaders are not listening to anyone.
The Ramadan stuff in the US matters. I have been with Turkish and Yemen families years ago celebrating Ramadan. I respect the holiday. I just think it should not be used as a front for a type of head-on religious intolerance towards every other religion. Lipservice about what the Quoran says concerning religions is not in common practice today.
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Currently, Israelis have killed over 30,000 Gazans while only suffering about 1900 total deaths (1300 civilian and 600 military) from Hamas and others.
After 9/11 US killed maybe 300,000 people in Middle East while US suffered deaths of 18,000 people (3000 civilians, 7000 military and 8000 contractors). US made many mistakes.
The equivalence isnât being offered to compare the size of the responses to the attacks, but to illustrate the effect of the attacks on the domestic population. You canât understand or predict how the Israeli government is going to react to the operations in Gaza without understanding how the Israeli electorate was affected by the 10/7 attacks. While thereâs limits to how complete that understanding can be, for Americans a useful frame would be to look at how our electorate responded to the 9/11 attacks, and what our electorateâs attitudes towards Al Qaeda were in the immediate aftermath. And pump it up a bit, because Israel being an order of magnitude smaller than the US means that the personal connections to the casualties of 10/7 run an order of magnitude broader into the population.
Seen through that lens, hopes that Israel might be encouraged to accept a permanent ceasefire are farcical. With or without Netanyahu, with or without a right-wing government generally, the Israeli electorate wants Hamas to face reprisals for their attack with the same (or greater) fervor that the U.S. electorate felt towards Al Qaeda. They want Sinwar to pay for his crimes the way Americans wanted bin Laden to pay for his crimes. Replace Netanyahu with Benny Gantz - or whoever - and that calculus doesnât change. Have Joe Biden threaten or not threaten, and that calculus doesnât change.
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see other thread. The Hamas Health Ministry is putting out only false numbers.
We all know that but our knickers are not in a knot about it. Israel gets a different treatment from some.
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And a better analogy would be the response after Pearl Harbor, with a defined, territorial state enemy rather than a band of terrorist hiding in the mountains somewhere. The goals became conquest of the enemyâs territory and unconditional surrender.
DB2
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What about the effect of Israeli attacks on the Gazan people. It surpasses the effect on the Israeli people by a factor of 15 or more. Will Gazans ever forgive Israelis?
Garbage! The UN, EU and US use the Hamas Health Ministry. They have been shown to be reliable. You and the Israelis are the doubters.