What is the point of Israel attacking Gaza?
Ethel_Fred
Posts: 34,127 Forum Member
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At the end of this some Palestinians will be dead or injured as will some Israelis.
Otherwise no change with the same to be repeated a few years down the line.
As Einstein (allegedly) said - Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Otherwise no change with the same to be repeated a few years down the line.
As Einstein (allegedly) said - Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
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Good question!
Its what happens when Hamas starts lobbing unguided rockets at any Israeli town they can reach. Politics is far more complicated than that - and in the Middle East its more complex, hidden, and sometimes silly still.
The Israeli view is that the only way they can stop the rockets landing is to inflict pain - personal, political and strategic on Hamas, and assorted other militant groups. Disarming them also has the same result. It will work evenually as it always has done, because at some point Hamas leaders start fearing for their lives, and see their political power and military capability being destroyed - and with it their ability to control Gaza, or threaten Israel again. .
The Israelis are going about this in about the cleanest way possible. When they hit targets that may have civilians living with the terrorist , or rockets stored in a house basement they are phoning up the occupants to say get out ,and then dropping a flare on it to make the point again, before dropping a precision munition on it. You can't do any more than that - when the problem is that Hamas is breaking the rules of war by hiding its missiles and command centers in houses. Most of the targets are rocket launchers and stores hidden underground in odd spaces between buildings - but you clearly can't just leave the targets that are more dangerous to hit. So far, the vast majority of Palestinian deaths have been terrorists. The problem is that there will always be accidents, and Hamas's response in some cases to getting a phone call to say a target will be hit, has been not to evacuate, but to get put any civilians they can onto the roof to try and stop it being bombed.
What on earth Hamas is doing is a much better question. They are firing rockets off randomly in the direction of any Israeli town. As they have announced they are targeting civilians, they have made themselves wide open to a war crimes charge. The usual roughly 30% of their rockets are fizzling out and landing on Gaza, 50% are landing in fields in Israel, and the other 20% are being shot down if they get near to an Israeli town that's defended. Its a lot of fruitless effort - done in the hope that something will get through and murder some Israeli citizen who is unlucky that day,
Its partly pointless machismo and partly political desperation. Its very, very unreal. Hamas, for example, have announced that their commandos have successfully stormed a nearby Israeli naval base - when in reality the group concerned was spotted, probably by an Israeli teen girl, on her CCTV screen, coming out of the water firing - and they were then obliterated by an Israeli helicopter, drone and patrol boat . Similarly, Hamas is claiming firing rockets at Northern Israel as a massive success , and not telling its own people none hit anything.
Which leads to the conclusion that Hamas is politically desperate - this time because its got no money to pay its men, or bribe its voters with subsidies. Egypt has closed its border with Gaza - stopping money and smuggling revenue coming in. Hamas offered a ceasefire with Israel - if Egypt ended the blockade of Gaza. Egypt refused. Hamas fired more rockets at Israel to apply pressure on Egypt. Egypt's intelligence chief flew to Israel and reported all this. The Israelis then had a green light from Egypt that talks were not going to work, and decided to end the rocket fire by military means.
Which leaves an odd situation. Egypt would like Israel to hammer Hamas. Israel needs to stop the rocket attacks on its civilians and is ramping up the pain on Hamas till Hamas stops firing. Israel doesn't want to destroy Hamas though - in case even more militant groups then take over. It also doesn't want to have to send ground troops in- because that will cause civilian casualties, and give Hamas the chance to kill a few Israeli troops and declare victory. But Israel may have to do that, and threatening to do it is a good way of making Hamas leaders fear they will end up shot in their bunkers Hamas wants to back down, but can't lose face, and its military people are delusional, so it has to keep on fighting - until it can declare a victory by killing some Israelis or it suffers enough damage to declare it has done so to save its people.
So you have what you have. Hamas is firing and Israel is deploying troops and ratchetting up the pressure on Hamas, while disarming it . Egypt will negotiate a ceasefire, but not at the price of opening its border with Gaza. Its all far from pointless, just very silly, self destructive, and futile for the Palestinian side. The only alternatives are for Egypt or Israel to occupy Gaza, and end the problem for once and for all , but neither wants to do that.
It keeps the machine going. Both sides hardliners need conflict to survive.
Hamas has a real problem. Its got no money. It went into a government of national unity this year because it expected Fatah to pay for Hamas workers in Gaza. Fatah refused. it demanded Egypt stop blockading Gaza- Egypt refused. Its losing power in Gaza to more militant groups - so it has to look tough. The Hamas military leadership were also becoming more militant, and less under civilian control and seem to have got their own way now.
Israel doesn't seem very interested in Gaza. It certainly doesn't want to occupy it, Egypt is now helping to contain it, and Israel probably hopes it will just go away as an issue. The Israelis haven't stirred up this years attacks by doing anything much - they arrested Hamas supporters , but only after Hamas mounted the failed kidnapping. Hamas didn't hand over the murderers to stop things escalating, but instead increased rocket attacks that had started before anyway. Netanyahu also gave the Egyptians a very long time to get a ceasefire, got a lot of stick from the Israeli right for inaction, and only really started retaliating when the Egyptians gave up. If anything, Israel has a lot of pressure on its budget at the moment, and the defence budget was being cut when this all started escalating. I think its just an unwanted nuisance. for their government.
To test Israeli built weapons on live flesh before selling them to world as per usual?
Just look how "successful" the West has been with terrorism - PLO to Hamas to al-Qaeda to ISIS. Each group more extreme than the group before
Correct.
Which is how this all started.
Oh come on now. You're not trying to say that radical Islamists like Hamas and their supporters are intolerant of non-Muslims, are you? ;-)
Just look what ISIS and the like are doing in the region.
Hamas is born of the same ideology and many 'palestinians' have signed up for ISIS duty.
The Arab Muslims have spent decades and centuries mercilessly ethnically cleansing the middle east of non-Muslims. So much so, they're even cleansing the middle east of each other - depending on which branch of Islam they follow.
All minorities are persecuted and at the mercy of the Arab hordes.
Yet those pesky Jews in their little patch of land just won't be overrun by the Arab Muslim. And that's just too much for some of them and their grubby supporters to put up with, hence the anger it generates.
It's such an affront to them to have this little Jewish state in amongst their 'Islamic' middle east.
Even the 'palestinian' Christians have been driven out by their Muslims 'brothers'.
Watched a video just the other day of 'palestinian' Christians being stoned by their Muslim brothers.
They are a shambles of a people and so are their supporters.
Don't forget the supreme irony that Israel were partly responsible for the founding of Hamas in the first place, as a counter to the PLO, which they hated.
It's pretty obvious that the OP doesn't want to hear all this.
The bully would beat up the crazy boy and take his money.
Day after day this would happen, then one day the bully is about to beat up the crazy boy again when the crazy boy says "I don't want to hurt you".
The bully laughs, then touches his black eye where the crazy boy managed to hit him one day, the bruised ribs where the crazy boy had kicked him on another day, the bite marks on his hand where the crazy boy had managed to bite him...
It's the size of Wales only a few miles across at its narrowest point. It can be crossed by a Jet in 2minutes.
What use are nukes against the terrorist entity in Gaza.
What a ridiculous post
Oh well. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese were forced off their land for certain building projects.
Schools and businesses were demolished for the world cup in Brazil.
These things happen in every country.
Of course the Arabs are the masters of taking over other people's land. Half of Africa can attest to that.
Europeans aren't into strong Jews that can defend themselves. It's almost an affront to them.
Jews should be pacifists and eternal victims.
Those are the kind of Jews Europeans like.
Muslims are currently on a global rampage afflicting dozens of countries. Even the likes of China and Thailand are afflicted. Incidents like in Kenya and Nigeria are greeted with European denunciations.
When it comes to Islamists attacking Israel however.....err...it's a bit different for some people. A bit less 'wrong' if you catch my drift.
Islamists killing Nigerian girls - awful monsters.
Islamists killing Israeli boys - well, you see...what choice do they have....I mean...it's bad...but...they need to 'defend' themselves.
Repugnant people.
So that should be a lesson for them?
Attacking a superior force will always lead to more casualties.
Just like more Kurds have died than Turkish soldiers.
More Taliban have died than NATO forces.
So your thread title should have read the opposite.
"What's the point of Gazans attacking Israel"
Since 1) They will lose and suffer more casualties and 2) they started this latest round