The doctor, who did not want to be named for fear of being targeted by the Israelis, arrived in Gaza with his wife and three teenage children three days before Hamas launched its murderous assault on 7 October, in which it killed about 1,300 Israelis and took more than 200 hostages.
Speaking hours before the Israelis imposed a communications blackout on Gaza on Friday, the doctor said that his and many other children who were all living in the same house had become so traumatised and terrified at night that they talked about wanting to be hit and killed by the next strike rather than have to wait until morning for the bombing to die down.
I can see how one could portray either or both as evil. There’s certainly a lot of history to cite as evidence on both sides.
The heart of the matter as I see it is the realpolitik situation. One side has all the cards, and other side refuses to fold. Hamas/Palestine has no path to peace that does not involve making significant concessions and pacifying themselves. They cannot hope to win militarily, and have tried unsuccessfully to wage war for the last century or so, losing spectacularly with every attempt. The alternative is to keep poking the bear until they are in fact left with nothing. These attacks might feel cathartic to those who harbor rage at the other side but they are counterproductive to their goals. Thanks to this most recent massacre, Israel has a blank check right now to do whatever they believe is nessicary to keep themselves safe.
When I imagine myself in each actor’s position, there are but a few viable options open to each. Israel must respond in a severe heavy-handed way if they are to dissuade any further attacks and keep their people safe. They tried the carrot when they unilaterally withdrew, negotiated, and gave Gazans more economic opportunity. That led to this massacre, so now they are trying the stick. Israel has always been willing to negotiate for their safety. Hamas can either stay belligerent and be responsible for more deaths and destruction of their infrastructure, and probably annexation of their remaining lands, or acknowledge that the only viable path to peace is surrender, pacification, and accepting peace terms they probably won’t like.
“Israel must respond in a severe heavy-handed way if they are to dissuade any further attacks and keep their people safe”
This newer works!
Simple as that. Look at the evidence, please. This always leads to further violence, and ultimately mass slaugther.
Deterrence via a show of overwhelming force never works? I strongly disagree, historically it has prevented significant numbers of wars and attacks, and I suspect it is the reason why in recent decades Israel has only been attacked via guerilla actions and not openly by hostile neighboring states. Pax Americana would not be possible if this didn’t work.
Will it work in this instance? Hard to say, Palestinian reprisals seem hard to deter given that they persist despite how many times they have been overwhelmingly defeated or how many carrots and sticks Israel provides. I think this time the goals might be different though, I would not be surprised at all if they level the north of Gaza and move the wall after they’ve taken out Hamas targets there.
The latest news about Israel’s intentions in Gaza seems unusual but not very specific:
I wonder what it means?
Deterrence and prevention are different from post facto responce, and show of force is different from application of force.
Consider what went wrong in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vitenam. Consider how many Indian lives it took to end the Indian wars the hard way. Consider the Black and Tans in Ireland. Consider what happened when the Nazis slaugthered whole villages. Consider the Sovietunion in that war (27 million lost out of a total population of 200 million)
Now find the cases, please, where actually sending the troops in helped in something like this.
And then take note of how limited the deployment were, or how special the circumstances.
Presumably Hamas was not completely finished with their efforts after October 7th.