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The only thing that concerns me is that such a war is going to make elements of the left flip out at the Dems, most probably at the convention, and get Trump elected. Like, do they think that Trump, the guy who moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, would be better for the Palestinians than Harris?
Trump unironically probably would be better for everyone in the ME, including Palestinians (though not for the reasons that Democrats think). The worst outcome for Palestinians is that Hamas keeps using them as meat-shields in new conflicts they feel emboldened in starting because they're confident a Democrat administration will keep restraining Israel. That factor is lessened with Trump in power.
Of course, as I've said before, none of the people who claim to care about Palestinian lives really do. They're far more invested in killing Israelis.
I find it pretty ironic that most of the people on Reddit that are telling the Palestinians to just give up and leave are the same ones telling the Ukrainians to fight to the last man woman child and dog.
I think Palestinians have absolutely 0 plausible paths to victory through violence. Right it's looking like Ukraine won't regain its lost territory, but I wouldn't put the odds at 0. Plus Russia's been continuously slowly expansionist for the past two decades- if Ukraine just gave up no, I wouldn't be surprised if Russia tried to take it over again in twenty years.
"Incite hot jihad between everyone else in the ME and Israel" seems more plausible than "push Russia back to 2013 borders" to me. (not that either is very plausible, but there's clearly a non-zero chance that Israel could be overwhelmed in the unlikely event of a grand alliance against them.)
Hot jihad against Israel has been tried 3 times previously. It failed disastrously each time, Israel had decisive victories and ended with more land than they started with. Israel's international stance and its military is much stronger today than the past as well.
I think pushing Russia back to 2013 is unlikely, but back to 2015 is not impossible. Especially since Russia's having difficulties, they're going deep into debt and relying heavily on China giving them loans and buying oil.
Neither is it literally impossible that the Arabs get their shit together this time -- just that there's not much evidence that they will, and plenty that seems to point in the other direction. Much like the situation in Ukraine.
Their only >1% path that I can see is somehow convincing NATO to start WW3 -- and since Russia has a lot more nukes than Israel, and is fighting in a place that does not include their own holiest sites, the chances disproportionately skewed towards the 'ruling over radioactive rubble' side of things for them than the Palestinians.
I think it's completely possible the West keeps funding Ukraine, maybe pays for some private military companies to help it too to make up for the manpower shortage. Russia goes deeper into debt, eventually their economy collapses, Ukraine wins by default. I don't know what exact number I'd put on that, but if the West doesn't give up on Ukraine, I'd maybe give it a 20% chance?
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Maybe about the same as pushing Russia back to post-Crimean Annexation borders. Maybe less, considering I've seen no indication at all Egypt or Jordan is up for another round.
But inciting hot jihad between everyone else in the ME and Israel doesn't mean the Palestinians win; it doesn't even mean the Israelis lose.
Yeah I'm not saying it's a good plan (or that Hamas even has a plan) -- but it's a plausible path. Maybe the only one.
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Most NAFO types seem to not be too mad at individual Ukrainian men fleeing and often say they’d do the same thing. The people arguing stuff like ‘those men who flee the draft should be shot’ or whatever tend to be more ultra-hardline Eastern European/Baltic anti-Russian types, or indeed Ukrainians (who are present in some numbers on English-speaking discussions of these topics). Nevertheless, people throw their arms up and say “look, these people seem to want to die for their country”.
I haven't seen the same, though of course I'm mostly exposed to the local environments and saying one would flee if under Russian attack is currently pretty taboo here for obvious reasons.
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This is an absurd assertion. There's a notice you're blocking me so I wont go on ad nauseum as you won't see it anyway but for my own sanity I'll say my piece that it's farcical to pretend to forget that the Palestinians living there TODAY are the descendants of people who were living there during the TIME OF CHRIST and that hundreds of thousands of Jews invaded their country AT GUNPOINT in the 1930's and 40's
Would it matter to you if roughly half of the Arabs between the river and the sea are actually descended from recent Egyptian / Levantine work migrants, who moved to mandatory Palestine in the early 1900’s?
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How many Palestinians must die in hopes of restoring justice for the lands the Palestinians living now have never owned?
I'm not saying we should forget that Israel was established forcibly. I'm saying that it's unwise to refuse to take an L, and evil to throw your people in the grinder with promises of restoring what they never owned, while you chill in Qatar.
The chilling in Qatar argument started to look really ridiculous. A massive portion of Hamas leadership has died in the last year. Even the tiny fraction that is personally safe in Qatar are witnessing their family members killed en masse.
I also used to think that Palestinian resistance was futile and only harmed them more without any hope of liberation but events since the Hamas attack is making me reconsider that view. Israeli politics and society has been destabilised to an incredibly dangerous degree. If Netanyahu really forces an invasion of Lebanon it’s possible that we see the IDF reach its breaking point fighting on so many fronts, or at least have to make serious concessions on some of its fronts. Hamas tactics clearly have some hope of succeeding
Dead palestinians and destroyed houses do not advance any Hamas cause of annihilating the hated Jew. Hamas tactics only succeed in making Israelis feel bad about how much the rest of the world hates them. The Israelis would, in a world without Hamas or other Arabs explicating their genocidal intent against Jews, be the perfect example of the PFJ/JPF splits of Life of Brian.
The IDF has plenty of spare capacity to prosecute a highly kinetic war against multiple parties simultaneously. The IDF is, like all militaries, unsuited to long term police actions to pacify a region. The presence of nonisraeli peacekeepers is supposed to be the win condition for Israel, like PA in West Bank and UNEF in Sinai pre-Six Day War (this point is debatable but it is in effect a standing buffer). That PA in Gaza and UNIFIL in Lebanon are such failures is proof of the difficulty of policing actions against an intransigent enemy with no regard for their own civilians, and the general incompetence of peacekeepers to begin with.
I didn’t say anything about dead Palestinians effecting Israeli moods. They are battle hardened enough to not care at this point. But endless war in Palestinian Territories and Lebanon very much does. A lot of people are conscripted and the economy is severely strained.
Modern IDF has not proven itself capable of fighting anything other than severely resource constrained urban insurgents. It failed badly the last time it tried to act against Hezbollah, which has much more in common with a proper army than an insurgent group. There is little indication that IDF’s ground forces have actually increased in quality since the last war.
Israeli military depends almost entirely on western supplies and cutting edge technology. Israeli diplomatic standing depends on Americans bribing the shit out of everyone in the region to be friendly towards it.
Mid 20th century Israel had an orders of magnitude level tech and competency advantage over its surrounding primitive Arab neighbours who were in immense political chaos and backwardness. It doesn’t have such an insurmountable advantage anymore so it has to be much more careful on allocating its resources.
The main problem with the Israeli political chaos is that Israel is making many suboptimal decisions, prioritising Netanyahu’s political survival and the populace’s thirst for vengeance over Hamas. It is possible that Israel is going towards a point where it cannot afford such decision making.
This is cope. Hezbollah losses were twice as high as Israel ones during 2006 according to wikipedia, and that's with Hezbollah hiding behind civilian shields, having an extensive tunnel network to hide and move around in, and fighting on home territory. They also don't have an airforce.
Israel has one of the most advanced defense sectors on the planet. Part of why the west sells Israel weapons is because they want to buy Israeli military hardware for themselves. The types of arms that Israel buys are often highly precision-based and used to minimize battlefield casualties. Cutting them off from that wouldn't handicap Israel war efforts, it would just make them a lot more indiscriminate.
This is concern trolling. There's no country on earth where it would be viable for a government to do nothing in response to an Oct 7th style-attack, or to the thousands of rockets Hezbollah keeps firing at them. Complaining that Israel's response is "suboptimal" is just a way to launder the actual wish for Israel to simply not respond at all and accept being constantly under siege.
This is cope. I applaud Israel's proficiency in killing Arabs. However in the real world wars are not won by kill/death ratios. Israel had to give up its military objectives and withdraw. They lost. Israel is not the kind of country that can stay mired in a 1/2 kd ratio war/occupation for long.
Yes it is advanced, and also it is wildly not self sufficient and in parts very specialised. It functions as part of the American defense cinematic universe. They make very precise bombs to be thrown from F35s, with the assumption that the US will rapidly resupply them of artillery shells when IDF is running low. Many similar examples. Ultimately we are talking about a fairly small country.
This means Israel's actions are heavily constrained by Western public opinion and American grand strategy considerations.
No I have several Israeli friends who had been conscripted since October that I keep in touch with. I like those guys and this is genuine concern. And you seem to entirely misunderstand where my concern lies. The world is more dangerous than ever for Israel and they are acting more stupid than ever.
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Sardonically, I think the Israeli government is answering that question for us right now
I think the Israeli government has answered with "as many as it takes for Hamas to stop poking Israel", and it is now up to Hamas to answer whether or not they'll stop poking.
Unfortunately, there is no incentive for Hamas to stop poking as long as their primary weapon against Israel, the eyes of Westerners on the pro-Palestinian media outlets, is working.
Does anyone really think the Israelis will just go 'yup everyone hates us lets just kill ourselves'? If the Arabs prove their eternal hatred of Israel and strike then Israel can accurately conclude they have no international support and will act decisively to protect themselves. Everyone wants to be safe, and if all my neighbours hate me entirely AND I have the capacity to annihilate them, then I will do so. Armenia definitely wishes they could burn Baku to the ground, and Afghanistan wishes to annihilate the cursed Tajiks and Persians and Urdus. Incapability is the restraining variable against decisive action (as seen by Russia), but the Israeli overmatch against everyone of its border neighbours is just hilarious. The Arabs have not stormed Tel Aviv because they cannot, the Israelis stopped outside Cairo in 1973 because they wanted to. A victory parade down Victory Square and putting a Kippah on the Mcdonalds facing the great pyramid will probably be the ultimate flex, and it is eminently more possible than a single Arab soldier holding territory in Israel for more than 24 hours (save for supreme success in Golan heights but that is pretty low probability too).
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