Israeli troops are fighting with Hamas militants on the edges of Gaza City, as the Palestinian death toll rises above 9,000. U.S. and Arab leaders are raising pressure on Israel to ease its siege and at least briefly halt its attacks in order to aid civilians.
I like the fire Netanyahu part.
So keep the status quo, allow Hamas to stay in power, and improve the infrastructure of an actively belligerent enemy? Wow what a reward you’d give them for slaughtering your people, maybe they should do it again next time they need infrastructure.
Maybe if Israel actually allowed Gaza to hold elections, Hamas wouldn’t be in power 🤔 instead Bibi needed a bad guy on his doorstep to keep in power, and he was too busy engaging in ethnic cleansing in the west bank to actually secure the “border” (i.e, the walls of the open air prison Palestinians are kept in) with Gaza.
Israel is never going to have true security keeping a group of people trapped, without political rights, with strict controls on their access to basic goods. Fuck Hamas, but violence is the predictable result of depriving people of political rights and basic freedoms. Today it’s Hamas, tomorrow it’s some other group, it will keep happening. Building a better cage will only do so much good, desperate people are dangerous. Until that is resolved, Israel will have no real security.
They did hold elections, Gaza elected Hamas and then Hamas did a coup and ensured an election has not been held there since.
I think they recognize this, given their recent statements. Hamas has made it clear they will not surrender or negotiate for a viable peace no matter how much worse Israel can and will make things. I suspect for this reason we’re probably going to see a forcible regime change and/or some annexation in Gaza very soon.
I was specifically referring to the 2021 elections and Israel’s refusal to allow East Jerusalem to vote after Israel annexed the territory. But you probably knew that. Palestinians dislike Hamas, an election likely would have removed them from power, but Israel gave Hamas the bullshit excuse it needed to stay in power. Great job!
I don’t know if you have reading comprehension problems or were specifically ignoring the point, but I was explicitly talking about what comes after Hamas. You have 2.1 million people in a cage for decades. You cut off their food and water for weeks, kill 10,000 people, over half children, and you think even after you kill every Hamas leader and solider that the citizens that left are just going to go back to living in their cage without human rights? This is something the US learned in Afghanistan, you kill one civilian, you create two new terrorists. The same will happen here.
I also agree that Israel intends to engage in illegal ethnic cleansing. Glad we’re on the same page about that at least.
Actually I am unaware of this, time for some reading, thanks for mentioning it. Any sources besides Wikipedia you’d recommend?
Rage doesn’t change their realpolitik situation. At this rate they if don’t make viable peace their remaining land will ebb away. If they are left in charge, I wonder if PA might be more amenable to real concessions now that they see how bad massive civilian attacks combined with a refusal to negotiate or surrender has made things for Hamas. If nothing else this has shown things can always get worse for them if they choose not to pacify. Gaza is experiencing the stick, next Israel will probably offer Palestinian leaders willing to be reasonable a carrot.
That’s presuming Israel doesn’t annex the entirety of Gaza, they reportedly tried negotiating for Egypt to take in all 2 million Gazans.
Calling it ethnic cleansing doesn’t make much sense given that 20% of Israel’s citizenry is Arab. Israel is not ethnically homogeneous, but perhaps moving people who are actively trying to kill them and unwilling to surrender farther away from them violates some other international law their opponents can clutch pearls over:
Don’t forget that Netanyahu is responsible for said status quo. He’s the reason Hamas has as much power as it does. There’s ways to dismantle them peacefully. He’s done the opposite because he wants this dangerous group to give him pretext. Firing him and his radicals would go a long way toward a more peaceful solution.