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There are no new strategic options today that didn’t exist yesterday. That has always been the problem. Egypt doesn’t want Gaza for obvious reasons. An occupation would be unimaginably bloody, expensive, permanent and occupy a huge amount of the IDF’s attention when there are other threats to the north.
They can’t trade for the hostages because I can’t imagine the public will support them doing so now. Hamas will demand every single relevant prisoner Israel has, and that’s not politically viable and would be extremely stupid from a security perspective. They’ll have to go in, eat the casualties, and accept the inevitably brutal videos and pictures of the resulting civilian deaths.
KSA will performatively pull out of negotiations (exactly as Iran wants, presumably) but will continue dealing with Israel behind the scenes. Maybe Biden can offer more help in Yemen to save some face but the situation there is complex and it’s unlikely. The most important thing for Israel is that it moves toward firing squads and summary execution of perhaps 10,000-30,000 fighting age men in Gaza, as well as the entire political leadership, mercilessly but quickly and professionally. But then again, I’m a Zionist.
Summary executions for prophylactic purposes aren't exactly going to endear one to the international community. I'm generally pro-Israel but if that happened I'd have to concede to my tankie friends that yep, they were right all along, Israel sucks. I suspect most politicians with the exception of some on the American right would agree with me, and Israel would lose whatever special status it has in the international community, if not become an outright pariah state. Next you'll have rocket attacks coming from the West Bank with Jordanian support, and the West won't be there to force them to Lebanon, or Tunis, or wherever.
I think Israel has been remarkably restrained since the mid-90s, and I’d like to see technological superiority used to kill at least a substantial number of violent young men. Retaliation would be limited, and in any case could be met by more destruction. Having been radicalized by the footage from today, I don’t consider these people’s lives to have substantial value.
Israel has been restrained because it is indeed fighting for the subjugation of a population with a size equivalent to its own. The alternative to restraint is not killing "at least a substantial number of violent young men", it is genocide. The definition of "violent young men who might take up arms against Israel if provoked enough" is "99% of Palestinian men". In a society like Palestinians intentionally or unintentionally killing someone is enough to convince a dozen of their male relatives to swear an eternal oath of revenge against you and genuinely pursue this.
I generally sympathize with Israel much more than Arabs instinctively because I perceive them as civilized people dealing with barbarians (a specific type of Islamic barbarity that I personally have reasons to specifically hate). If Israelis become another tribe of barbarians engaged in genocidal clan war then I simply do not care.
Thanks. I think you raise a very important point, which is that there is no such thing as partial humiliation. There is only absolute, total humiliation and total conciliation. Given that the latter is obviously politically impossible with regards to Palestinians, the former - which I agree is a poor option - is the only option.
Drone production, heavily automated surveillance including via facial recognition, all these things can, as Dase said earlier, make effective repression easier. I think it possible.
Yes there is serious potential in this direction. It is not even unique to the Israel/Palestine conflict situation. This might become the testing grounds for a new type of government model for this century where AI developments drones and digitalization makes it viable to implement a degree of totalitarian control over human populations never seen before in human history.
I sense a hidden enthusiasm among some posters here for such a future for Palestinians. I hope they realize that their own governments won't shy away from imposing it on them in a couple decades either.
While people here have some outside-the-overton views, a lot of the eg. problems with things like mass immigration and ‘justice reform’ policies could be solved by this kind of police state. My primary issue with modernity is anarcho-tyranny. A replacement with simple but effective CCP-tier tyranny would be acceptable, if not the best solution.
What makes you think such a situation would be incompatible with anarcho-tyranny? "Regime clients do as they want while unfavored groups are trapped in the perfect surveillance state" is the most likely outcome of such a situation. East Asian people are genetically and culturally averse to random criminal acts so this is not an issue in those countries, but then they still have massive criminal triads as well as regime connected corrupt businessmen type of people who will use the state security tools to confiscate your property, violate your person and family.
Hmmm, maybe, but I think it’s so easy to use this tech to solve violent crime as an issue that it will happen.
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What happened to French Algerians in Algeria? Germans in Czechoslovakia? Germans in Poland? Germans in former Germany that then became Poland? Poles in former Poland that then became Ukraine? Or the other Palestinians who got kicked out by Israeli expansion? They absolutely can expel another couple million people by seizing their land, credibly threatening them with execution and kicking them out, it's within their power (provided the IDF gets their act together) and they've done it before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_expulsion_and_flight
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1949%E2%80%931956_Palestinian_expulsions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Palestinian_exodus
As you suggest, this has been tried in the past. It led to incredible amounts of chaos in Jordan and Lebanon. In the Lebanese case Israel then had to try to go and invade the country they chased the Palestinians to and get bogged down in a massive fiasco. Jordan came very close to turning into a radical Arab republic due to the Palestinian groups, similar to Syria/Iraq/Egypt at the time and this would be a catastrophe for Israeli security.
All of these expulsions you mention were carried out by absolute victorious states of massive bloody wars which had almost omnipotent control over the expulsed populations. This is not the case here and likely never will. Arab states played a very bloody and cynical gambit after 1948 by not allowing Palestinian populations to be resettled in a proper manner inside their countries. But in the long term it has paid off and Israel now has to deal with an insurmountable problem that constantly threatens to break the country. Why would Egypt/Jordan/Syria/Lebanon now give up and just accept a population of infinitely more radicalized Palestinians?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_insurgency_in_South_Lebanon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September
US bribery. Aside from Syria, the US funds them to be friendly with Israel. US foreign aid to Egypt massively increased after they signed a peace agreement with Israel and has stayed high since.
This is the path Israel chose. Territorial expansion is not without its costs, it makes a lot of people very unhappy if you come in and take their land.
What's the alternative, Israel returns to the former status quo of bombing Gaza every so often? Executing the fighting age men, as suggested above? I'm not confident that's a long-term, sustainable solution. They're hardly likely to engage in serious negotiations or stop building new settlements while they have a fawning superpower sponsor and their enemies don't.
Returning to permanent occupation of Gaza, probably.
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I don't know, it is certainly difficult to see one. In general I am a firm believer that making your very populous neighbor(s) hate you and basing your security arrangements around a distant superpower always favoring you is not a great idea overall (Israel is not unique in this regard, Russia's little neighbors also make this mistake). America might lose its power or interest at some point, but Arabs will always be right across the border. We have seen how much it freaked out Zionists when the US foreign policy establishment got the idea that perhaps normal relations with Iran is more beneficial to American Empire.
Note that Russia's little neighbors in general were already hated by Russia and trying to get some help from anyone else is preferable to getting better with Russia (which goes nowhere as Russia will invade you anyway once it will be judged as possible by Russia)
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The only alternative was to not found Israel in the first place, but the alternatives there were probably worse too. Once it existed, radicalization was inevitable, there’s no world in which coexistence with Arabs was possible, it’s not like the Baltics or Ukraine where they could conceivably decide to join the Russian sphere and accept the consequences. At best it would simply be a return to the pre-1920 status quo of being at the mercy of a hostile, lower IQ foreign authority with zero leverage.
Probably yes. Perhaps if the first generation of Palestinian refugees in camps did not grow up in such horrible conditions with constant reminders of their humiliation, then things could have been different. My understanding is that they drove almost all of the radicalization in the conflict. But that is not entirely on Israel either. The hosting Arab states almost deliberately didn't allow the refugees to have normal lives and kept trying to use them as geopolitical chips..
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What are you referring to?
Territorial expansion by Israel and progressive taking of Palestinian land.
What territorial expansion? Are you talking about Israeli settlements in the West Bank?
Yes. Also other things, for example wall building effectively annexed more land.
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French Algerians went back to France.Germans went to Germany. Poles went to Poland. There's nowhere for Palestinians to go, unless Israel really wants them in the West Bank. Moving them to another Arab state isn't an option—first, since Israel isn't wont to take advantage of strategic depth and starts building settlements on any territory they control, all this does is push the problem back geographically; instead of Hamas firing rockets from Gaza into Israel they're firing them from the Sinai into Gaza. More importantly, though, it pretty much closes the book on any rapprochement with additional Arab states. Since the last couple years of the Trump Administration, the US has been brokering deals between Israel and other Arab states in an attempt to undercut Iran's influence in the region. Driving Arabs out of Gaza and into Egypt would put those Arab states, whose populations are generally pro-Palestinian, into a situation where it would be difficult to move forward. There's already speculation that today's attacks were arranged by the Iranians for the express purpose of throwing a wrench into plans for Saudi recognition of Israel. A reaction such as you describe would only play into those schemes. Secretary Blinken is en route to Saudi Arabia as we speak to smooth over any problems these attacks may have caused. If the Israelis go the route you suggest then there's nothing he can say that will do that, not to mention that other states that already recognize Israel and are maybe even allies would find this course of action hard to swallow, the United States included. They'd diplomatically isolate themselves for short-term gain. I'm generally pro-Israel, but I'd seriously reconsider my support if they took this approach.
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Support that plan. Unfortunately the only way to deal with monsters is to show that you are the bigger monster and right now you are wearing a leash of your own making and won't it be wonderful if we are to put on both our leashes. Or else. Every Palestinian grunt and thug that has entered Israel today must die. Every part of the command chain that has approved - also. And the political leadership should be decapitated (figuratively, but literal is also acceptable). Then you go to the top survivor and ask nicely - you are now leader. Are you going to behave. If they refuse - shoot him and move to the one under him.
Given that there's a substantial portion of western societies that view Israel and the Jews as enemies, do you support them taking this approach to the Israelis or Jewish populations in their own country? You're already suggesting that Israel become "more of a monster", and this would dramatically shift the incentives and attitudes towards jewry in western countries.
I could see your approach working out if the Israelis were the biggest, meanest monster in the entire world... but right now I don't think that's the case. A return to bronze age mentality would absolutely not work out in Israel's favour - the USA, Russia and China are all bigger monsters than Israel after all. The biggest competition in that world would be the existing great powers deciding who gets to build a new Arch of Titus.
First - no western society views Israel as enemy. Second - Israel as a state hasn't done any atrocities in Europe, doubful even to have hurt anyone. Crimes and other violence committed by Jews are extremely rare. There is no outlook this to change any time soon.
But to answer your question - if Israel tomorrow launches attack on Poland and starts killing and raping Poles - yes I am totally ok with firmly but politely pointing out to them that Aushwitz is perfectly preserved.
In a way - don't remember that Israel knows in it's literal blood and bones that we are the bigger monsters. And they didn't even provoked us Europeans.
For this situation - Israel has blank check from me to do anything needed to make sure Hamas can never hurt a jew again. If they become too jolly I may be against helping them. But I doubt that there is anything that IDF can do to make me be against Israel in the current situation.
Officially no, but I read constant reports talking about the rise of antisemitism and I'm not even trying to be glib here - I can see antisemitic memes and rhetoric spreading among the general population in real and serious ways, and especially amongst the western political blocs that are in the ascendant and outside the establishment.
The dissident right absolutely believes that Jews are responsible for a long list of problems in their lives/societies. Crimes and other violence committed by jews are extremely rare, but the crimes that do happen tend to be extremely prominent and serious - Madoff, Epstein, etc. Antisemitism is one of the few areas the dissident right could plausibly work with the anticolonial/pro-islamic immigration left on (in the sense that the various muslim populations living in the west are now big enough to have a political voice). I'm not in any way suggesting that this is the case right now, but I think that assuming this state of affairs will last forever is dangerous. Even if they don't go invade Poland, there are enough people talking about the USS Liberty on the internet these days that it might not matter too much.
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The entire reason Israel was created was in anticipation of the world becoming hostile to their Jewish populations. Bronze age mentality is what Israel is for.
If that's the case then you are making an argument for the immediate extermination of all Jewish people outside of Israel. If we're going back to Bronze age norms, AIPAC et al would simply just not exist in very short order. Why should the rest of the world press the co-operate button if Israel proudly announces that they are always going to pick defect every single time they can?
I'm not making an argument for it. I'm making an observation that the foundation of Israel is built on the belief that it will happen inevitably, like it or not.
To be honest, seeing the way crowds have rallied to cheer this sickening violence makes me think they might have been right.
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Wouldn't executing childbearing age women instead of men be a better solution in the long term?
In a friction-less vacuum to be sure, but you also have to factor in the dirty bits of human nature and optics.
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Terrible optics. And they are hot. You have to be merciless, the punishment must be inescapable and inevitable, but as least cruel as possible. Also if Israel wanted genocide - they would have done it by now. All of gaza strip depends on Israel for their survival. Their goal is to break the will of hamas to attack israel. Not to wipe the place clean.
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The aversion we have to executing women is once again an example of how the environment our intuitions developed in means that some of them are maladaptive in the modern world.
It absolutely makes more sense to execute the childbearing age women instead of fighting age men. The men you just need to hold in jails for 20 years after which they will age out of violence, however the women will continue pumping out more kids who eventually grow into either fighting age men or new childbearing age women who can then pump out more fighting age men and so on.
I think we have an aversion to executing such women (and I too have this aversion, my limbic system makes me feel a visceral repulsion to this that I don't feel towards executing fighting age men) because in the olden days the victors would take the women as spoils of war for themselves after executing the men, and doing so would allow the winning tribe to grow faster than it would do if it had just killed the women, hence favouring the development of a revulsion to killing women that isn't present for killing men. These days we rightfully frown on raping/taking as additional wives captured women and so this benefit to the winning society is no longer present, but the downsides are still there. Hence in the modern system it does make more sense long term strategically to eliminate the women (akin to economic damage through bombing factories in a war) more so than it does to eliminate the men (akin to killing enemy soldiers on the frontline).
However this line of thinking makes even me go "ick" deep down and I wouldn't want to see it happen at all. My estimation of Israel as a polity would go down a lot if they did something like this. Alas, I too am human, all too human...
Male disposability uber alles; our hindbrains tell us that women are wonderful, innocent, and have inherent value.
Women can be easily integrated into a neutral absorbing tribe, such as Ukrainian women merrily living their best Tinder lives in Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic.
This would perhaps only go double for a hostile conquering tribe. It’s been well-hypothesized that the female propensity for Stockholm Syndrome is an adaptation for better war-bride acclimation.
No coercion or rape even needed.
I believe there’s a 4Chan screenshot (a most rigorous citation) that pointed out, historically and prehistorically, women would see their boyfriends, husbands, brothers, fathers killed in war, but then shrug it off and have the children of the conquerors.
French women with German soldiers in WW2 could be an example.
It might be their pre-war wish, isn't an argument that integrating hostile Palestinian women would be easy.
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That's some extraordinary biopolitics.
If Israel ever stoops that low and in a visible way (it won't), I'll at least get the pleasure of watching American Christians indignantly mutter something about justified retribution or whatever when I ask them why forced sterilization in Xinjiang by godless Chicoms is wrong but this isn't.
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The women have less of a choice, I’m not without any morality.
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Not sure this would be worth it for Israel in the long run. I think it would cause a diminishment in foreign support for Israel and would also likely cause many of the more liberal kind of Israelis, including many of its brightest minds, to leave the country.
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While I appreciate this candor and show of true colors from a Zionist, it's incredibly unsettling to hear the casual avocation of genocide. I can't see this happening in this day and age though, not with cameras in every persons pocket and social media. I would hope that if Israel would do something like this, it would spark it's neighbors and Muslims around the world into a great Jihad.
Killing 30,000 people out of 2 million is not genocide. As for cameras, I understand Hamas has them, and has been publishing their own atrocities.
What was described above would be.
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I agree that it won’t happen for various reasons.
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