The leader of Hamas hangs out in Qatari hotels, sufficiently removed from the reality of what is taking place on the ground. I’ve a great deal of sympathy for the ordinary Palestinians who are bearing the brunt of clumsy Israeli aggression.
The fact is that Israel could almost afford to ignore Hamas rocket attacks altogether. The total number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas is 3 people. I looked up the road death statistics, it’s clear that more Israeli civilians died running a red light since 7 July than due to Hamas.
Hamas doesn’t do a good job of presenting itself as a rational agent. It doesn’t care about the fate of the people it purports to represent.
That said, Kalhed Mashaal narrowly survived an insidious assassination attempt ordered by Netanyahu in 1997. I wonder whether Mandella would have negotiated with De Klerk to end apartheid if the Nationalist Party had tasked their goons to squirt fentanyl in his ear.
I think Israel was doing the right thing with “Iron Dome” i.e. genuine military defence.
I suspect the tunnel digging could be sorted out with automated microphone or seismograph listening posts every 20 meters along the border. You might need 50,000 detectors along a 100km border at $2K each or so, but what is $100M in the scheme of things, versus the 1300-odd Palestinian lives lost? It’s growth stimulus spending, and no one has to die.
The only trouble here is that you could detect a tunnel being dug, but not those already constructed.
Interestingly, the UK government is sponsoring the development of quantum-limited accelerometers to the tune of £30M, in a joint enterprise of the MoD and the research councils. In principle it would be possible to detect the change in the earth’s gravity produced by the missing rock of a tunnel, thereby locating empty tunnels underground. Warfare is still driving technical innovation.
Eventually, Hamas will have to line their tunnels with lead to maintain constant average density…
Erm, I know you are joking, but permit me to be serious for a second. Most of the sides in this story seem to have a healthy dose of nationalism conflated with their fundamentalism.
I’ve met some Buddhists and Quakers on the fundamental end of their spectrums, and they definitely convey the belief that their god cherishes love and peace over war and murder.
That is complete nonsense, you can’t ignore 20 sirens going off in your major city every day. It scares the shit out of the population kills the economy and tourism and so on.
You can’t “live with” a constant stream of rocket attacks regardless of 3 vs 1000 dead.
I totally agree with @davide405 , Hamas are playing Israel and manipulating it into a horrible situation. Israel are falling into the trap. Its depressing to watch this and no one has a solution to this stalemate.
So basically carpet bomb/full scale invade the Gaza Strip in retaliation, not stopping until the Hamas leadership are either captured or kill themselves in their shelters, then install an Israeli military governor over the territory? Sounds quite harsh.
Snark aside though, I do agree that Israel is in a position of strength and could control the peace process without retaliating to every attack by Hamas, while simultaneously losing fewer Israelis. If the fighting can stop, maybe the moderates will have a chance to speak.
Give it more than twelve hours… maybe even a few days.
Let the Iron Dome do it’s work. It’s not too hard, given bleeding edge 21st century technology, to shoot down some dumb rockets based on early 20th century technology.
Show the world you’re better than the Hamas terrorists.
Hey wow, thanks for that - I didn’t know that I didn’t know that word.
That’s actually not a step further than my position, that’s it exactly! I love the {/halt process} method of dismissing the alleged concept entirely; that’s sweet!
If Drange’s definitions are accepted, ignostics are neither atheists nor agnostics. A simplified maxim on the subject states "An atheist would say, ‘I don’t believe God exists’; an agnostic would say, ‘I don’t know whether or not God exists’; and an ignostic would say, 'I don’t know what you mean when you say, “God exists” .
I’d still rate myself as a fundamentalist agnostic though, since I figure anyone who doesn’t try to apply the scientific method to evolving their paradigm and philosophy is a bit of a schmuck.
Having said that though, I’m quite interested in clever but idle speculation on the subject, like some of that mystic / shamanic jazz, or groovy SF scenarios that can give you a handle on a god-like concept, eg we’re in a simulation.
FYI Hamas is also a charity group that feeds people and runs clinics, that is mostly how they gained support. Obviously doesn’t excuse the other stuff but it’s important to keep in mind when people scream out for “destroying everyone in Hamas.”
Also don’t think Hamas leaders view the mass murder of their people as the objective. That is endowing them with a movie monster personality that ignores the decades of politically-induced trauma that shaped them, as well as their critical funding from foreign Wahhabi donors that is what drives their most extreme rhetoric.
The elephant in the room left out of US media is that Hamas accepts the “international consensus” of two states along something like the 1967 borders, while Israel rejects this. Hamas conditions it’s recognition of Israel on official Israeli recognition of Palestine as a real state.
Since Netanyahu is now claiming this should NEVER happen, the Israelis have no choice but to make a Palestinian state physically non-viable, through mass settlements on the best land in the West Bank and through siege and mass bombing in Gaza.
Viewed through the lens of that goal, Israeli actions finally “make sense.”
FYI Hamas is also a charity group that feeds people and runs clinics, that is mostly how they gained support.
BTW Hamas’ military wing are the guys responsible for the rockets. Obviously they are connected to Hamas, but whereas places like Israel and the US group them all in together, other countries (Australia included) differentiate between the groups.
No, but they sure as hell know that the mass murder of their people helps their objective.
Both sides (Israeli military / political, Hamas) exhibit psychopathic, sociopathic behaviour. Never forget - they’re blowing up schools. Schools! Children, parents, blown apart, maimed, traumatised, scarred.
I like kids. They’re fun. Blowing them up is un-cool.
It’s a power struggle of the Gods, with plenty of civilians caught up in the middle.
In no way whatsoever is it possible to say that either Hamas or Israel’s actions are in any way acceptable.
I get that you’re drawing a paradigm, a frame within which the contorted logic fits; but that conclusion cannot be magicked back from the abstract construct to normalised language.
It must not be stated. Things like that get repeated.
Israel has exhibited utterly disgusting behaviour, worthy of their most vile enemies over time - and all this when there are far less violent alternatives to resolving the issues.
I am deeply, deeply saddened; cyclically disappointed by the ongoing support demonstrated by both populations.
It’s savagery, brutality. The exact kind of behaviour that we must not stomach.
I like your comment, but I take issue with this bit…
I can see @lcl82’s point; he’s just illustrating the chain of causality, and saying his explanation fits the reality.
I find it eminently plausible, and it doesn’t seem to me to negate anything you’ve expressed except what I quoted. It strikes me as fundamentally wrong to ever say, ‘that bit of reasoning may be perfectly valid, but it’s off-limits’ for whatever reason.
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