History suggests expunging determined, fortified, modern militants embedded in a civilian population never goes well. The expunger loses or gets a pyrrhic victory, even with a huge economic advantage.
Honestly, however dire the need, I don't see what Israel is thinking. If Israel, the US, Europe, China and Russia all held hands and invaded the Gaza strip together, they still probably couldn't route out Hamas.
Exactly, and in fact they will just create more radicals, and push the existing ones to even more barbaric extremes.
I'm starting to feel radical myself, and I have no connection at all to events, other than being able to spot a bully obviously about to carry out systematic barbarism in retribution.
Honest question — how else would you describe dropping a nuclear bomb each on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, cities full of civilians, causing "between 129,000 and 226,000" deaths (source: Wikipedia)? Those were not military targets.
.. a rush job to test two different designs for a new weapon, snuck in before the very same cities were destroyed much more cheaply with conventional heavy explosives and incideriaries, just as 72 Japanese cities had already been destroyed.
That answer because you asked about the nuclear bombs rather than the total destruction of complete cities in the European and Japanese theatres.
You can compare the death toll from the Tokyo firebombings to that in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, you can look up the names of the other 71 cities destroyed and you can find the full list of planned targets (now long forgotten save for H & N) in the archives.
Meanwhile Japan was killing that amount of Chinese civilians a week through only sheer willpower -- very kawaii.
How many Chinese victims and American servicemen (mostly conscripts) were you willing to sacrifice on this altar of stupidity/hindsight?
Not to even mention the fact MORE JAPANESE themselves would have died without the bombs being dropped and I really begin to question not just the morals of the OP but your intelligence as well. Get off YouTube and read some David Glantz if you want to learn what WW2 was really like.
Japan has committed many atrocities and had no moral high ground, nor would I have suggested so. I am not debating how many conscripts to sacrifice and so on, and you are free to question my intelligence however much you wish. I reject your framing of my answer to the OP and engaging with false implications and things I have not claimed.
More to the point, the bomb(s) could have been dropped on military targets away from civilians and still fully display their destructive power to the same effect of forcing a surrender. Did they absolutely need to be dropped on top of cities and murder so many civilians? This IS a display of barbarism and revenge, no matter how conducive to the goal of ending the war.
I'd say that in times of war, the goal is to win. The war continuing longer would cause far more deaths than ending the war quickly. More importantly for the US, the war ending in victory is more important than basically any other consideration, given what would happen if they lost.
That doesn't mean dropping those bombs was the right thing to do, neither militarily or morally. But at the end of the day, that's what war is, and people thinking differnetly is why Germany was able to conquery several countries in WW2 and trigger a war that caused 50million deaths.
Build an impenetrable DMZ, keep improving missile defence systems, continue forming alliances with neighboring Arab states, stop settlement expansion in West bank, crack down on settler violence, expel right-wing zealots from positions of power, iterate for 20-60 years, let the next generation figure it out. Get hostages out as a condition of a ceasefire agreement.
Things were looking optimistic during the Oslo talks, I don't see a reason why we can't get back to that state of affairs with enough steady work over a 30-year timeframe.
The alternative, an invasion, is also a multi-decade investment, by the way. You can't just remove Hamas and not occupy for decades if you don't want another Hamas to emerge.
Just from a military perspective, I'm not sure defense-only is a viable long-term strategy. Iron Dome's interceptors cost something like 50x more than Hamas' simple rockets, so it ends up being a cheap way for Iran to deplete their enemies' military budgets.
Even ignoring cost, a few percent of rockets get through, and the technological gap is narrowing thanks to Iran. I think the damage could drastically increase as Hamas starts using faster rockets and guidance systems.
So you want the right-wing zealots in power to eject themselves? Or you expect a ground swell of support for left candidates who would tend to favor making peace with an enemy who just attacked you? Best case is that Hamas is completely routed (who knows) and Bibi takes all the flak for the war crimes and what have you. What happens if Israel does what you say but are still suffering attacks? How much antisemitism exists there?
> So you want the right-wing zealots in power to eject themselves?
I want the US to force their hand to stop the invasion. Then Netanyahu's reckoning will come with the Israeli population. Likud needs this invasion to happen to distract the population from accountability. But if the US forces them to not invade, that reckoning can come sooner.
> What happens if Israel does what you say but are still suffering attacks?
That's where the DMZ and continued investment in missile defense comes in. Heck, get some security assurances from the US as part of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. There should be creative solutions.
There's no such thing as an "impenetrable DMZ" so I don't know why you bring that up. Even the most fortified borders can have gaping holes as the October 7 attack showed. The US can't force anything either. During the Yom Kippur War when the US was a lot more hesitant about giving aid the only result was Israel threatening to use nuclear weapons against the Arab armies.
> There's no such thing as an "impenetrable DMZ" so I don't know why you bring that up.
You know what I mean. I am obviously not claiming that a DMZ can be perfectly impenetrable. I'm talking about one that's actually manned, and one that is significantly better than what is currently in place, to the point that a repeat attack is sufficiently unrealistic.
> The US can't force anything either.
Yes they can. Israel relies on them for their security umbrella and trade relationships. US has an extreme amount of leverage, if only it would use it.
Depends on your definition of success. It only doesnt work if you care about infrastructure. It will work if Israel aims to flatten Gaza into the ground.
I don't think that's true and I don't think Israel has a choice. It won't get every single Hamas operative but it can get most of them and leave the rest in hiding. Israel needs to prove that it *can* do that otherwise it won't have the deterrence factor that keeps it safe.
The question is what will fill the void after Israel withdraws. Biden discussed something that sounded a lot like a marshal plan which I hope will help "kill" the Hamas by showing the Palestinians a better way of life and hopefully a Palestinian state.
> It won't get every single Hamas operative but it can get most of them and leave the rest in hiding.
When has this ever been a success in recent military history?
Hamas is dug in like a tick, in a big city, with international Patrons. Israel is not a superpower. Major powers have "gotten most of them" but unequivocally lost much more favorable insurgent situations.
The war against ISIS went well. Removing Nazis from Germany etc. But none of those are exactly the same as this. Israel has several advantages here, despite the recent failures Israeli intelligence in the region is still very robust. Israel is on the ground. Unlike the situation in Iraq where US forces had a difficult time, Israel knows the territory.
Furthermore, if this is coupled with a peace process, Israel can get help from Palestinians who despise the Hamas.
It wouldn't be the first time they occupy Gaza but the war is a short term measure. Long term they need to transfer the control to the PLO or an Arab coalition.
Honestly, however dire the need, I don't see what Israel is thinking. If Israel, the US, Europe, China and Russia all held hands and invaded the Gaza strip together, they still probably couldn't route out Hamas.