Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[Rhea]

Some interesting questions and discussion from Josh Marshall at TPM:

Israel has long had a dense network of informants and collaborators in the territories. That’s layered over with signals intelligence and various forms of surveillance. And yet Israel appears to have been caught totally unawares and unprepared. It’s not just that they didn’t know something like this was happening today. They don’t seem to have known that an operation of this scale and audacity was even being considered.

That’s an intelligence failure that’s hard to overstate.

I had forgotten about that angle. Israel does indeed usually have excellent intellegence. And something this big?

Why Hamas did this also requires some explanation. A friend rightly described this as an organization-scale suicide operation.
[…]
But it seems certain that the reaction to today’s on-going attacks will dwarf anything we’ve seen in recent memory and have the goal not of ‘reestablishing deterrence’ but of destroying Hamas as a military force.

You can’t destroy an idea or an ideology with military force. But you can destroy an organization’s military capacity with military force. And that will almost certainly be the goal of Israel’s response. […]. I would have to assume that most of the key people in Hamas’s military chain of command will be dead in the next few weeks. The same likely applies to much of its political leadership and not just in Gaza.

Also good points to discuss. Yes, we expect Israel to throw everything at it, and if the populous feels threatened, for them to support that.

Sp how does that fit with the decision-making and strategies here?

 

[Harry Bosch]

Another twist.

It is in Israel's interest along with Hamas to perpetuate the conflict.

If peace is achieved and an independent globally recognized Palestinian state is created the Palestinians have the standing to sue Israel in international courts. According to the pundits. Palestinians would sue to get land back.

Israel clearly does not want peace, it is colonizing the west bank.

Peace and a stable Palestinian state disenfranchises the Palestinian extremists like Hamas. They lose power and money. They will never submit to democratic processes and rule of law.

There was a Palestinian civil war between Hamas and Fatah having nothing to do with Israel.

I would rephrase the above and say that clearly the Israel far religious right does not want peace with Israel. Unfortunately, this attack will embloden the far right; hurt the Israelis who want peace. Not that the Israelis who want peace had been all that successful in the last 10 years or so.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Some interesting questions and discussion from Josh Marshall at TPM:

Israel has long had a dense network of informants and collaborators in the territories. That’s layered over with signals intelligence and various forms of surveillance. And yet Israel appears to have been caught totally unawares and unprepared. It’s not just that they didn’t know something like this was happening today. They don’t seem to have known that an operation of this scale and audacity was even being considered.

That’s an intelligence failure that’s hard to overstate.

I had forgotten about that angle. Israel does indeed usually have excellent intellegence. And something this big?

Why Hamas did this also requires some explanation. A friend rightly described this as an organization-scale suicide operation.
[…]
But it seems certain that the reaction to today’s on-going attacks will dwarf anything we’ve seen in recent memory and have the goal not of ‘reestablishing deterrence’ but of destroying Hamas as a military force.

You can’t destroy an idea or an ideology with military force. But you can destroy an organization’s military capacity with military force. And that will almost certainly be the goal of Israel’s response. […]. I would have to assume that most of the key people in Hamas’s military chain of command will be dead in the next few weeks. The same likely applies to much of its political leadership and not just in Gaza.

Also good points to discuss. Yes, we expect Israel to throw everything at it, and if the populous feels threatened, for them to support that.

Sp how does that fit with the decision-making and strategies here?

I don't see the Gaza attack as suicidal in the least. They found some gaps, came in brutally killing civilians, getting exposure, and captured civilians. They will milk this for weeks and negotiate with the lives of the civilians. Israel will overreact (Americans would too); and this will cause great unrest in the middle east - killing the Israel/Saudi Arabia talks. The Saudi talks are a disaster for Hamas as it further reduces its bargaining chips.

 

[Bomb#20]

• Hamas, the group running the besieged enclave, said its surprise operation was in response to the desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque and increased settler violence.
• The operation comes after thousands of settlers in recent days carried out provocative tours of the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

"Florida man murders neighbor because other neighbor trespassed" would be one for the Totally Justified thread. Funny how one dead neighbor can be funny but four hundred dead neighbors, not so much.

 

[steve_bank]

During Netanyahu's reign in our media we have only seen his spokespersons. Netanyahu expertly played to Christian conservatives.

I looked at Israeli English language media, there are opposition voices to coloration of the west bank, but we do not hear them here.

In one exception I saw Fareed Zakaria on CNN had a vocal women from Israel who wrote a book against Netanyahu and the consecutive, and was labeled a traitor.

When I first joined the forum and got into Israel discussions I went through the time line and history.

You can debate agreements and the British Mandate, bit the bottom line is the Jews armed themselves, tactically illegally, and declared a state. They seized prime business and agriculture prophetess from Arabs without compensation.

In the first war Arabs recruited Palest inns to fight against Israel, and when they lost the war they abandoned them. Israel denied right of return for Arabs who had lived in Isreali borders.

After the followig wars which Arabs lost, Plaestinians had no options but terrorism. If Israel had been more magnamous they might have avoided the terrorism.

Isreal contunues to sieze Arab land handing it over to Jewish immgtants in Isreal.

Is real has a demographics problem. They have to offset increases in internal and Paestinian Arab population growth.

In te 90s Israel actually acknowledged a Jim Crow like opression on Arab acees to servces in Israel.

Netnayahu paints Isreal as a peaceful victim, but that does not fit the facts.

When Israel formed one of its priotues was nuclear wepons. The open secret is they have nukes.

In tHe Suez War wothout any provocatio Isreal joned the EBrits and French invading Egypt in exchge for arms. There was a cons[iracy between Israel, France, and the British.

Don't forget iniltally Israel invaded the Gaza Strip and controlled it. Then gave it up. I;d say Paestinins have valid grievances.

Israel is reaping what it sowed from the start. Its troubles go back to its founding.

Suez Crisis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war,[8][9][10] also called the Tripartite Aggression (Arabic: العدوان الثلاثي, romanized: Al-ʿUdwān aṯ-Ṯulāṯiyy) in the Arab world[11] and the Sinai War in Israel,[12] was an invasion of Egypt and the Gaza Strip in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and France. The aims were to regain control of the Suez Canal for the Western powers and to remove Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had just[13] nationalised the foreign-owned Suez Canal Company, which administered the canal. Israel's primary objective was to re-open the blocked Straits of Tiran.[14] After the fighting had started, political pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Nations led to a withdrawal by the three invaders. The episode humiliated the United Kingdom and France and strengthened Nasser.[15][16][17]

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Well if you read the Al Jazeera articles, that’s how they’re painting it. And we’ll get scant, if any information from any western news service.
I don’t mind people clipping a post when they are only addressing a specific point but the Al Jazeera articles are most relevant as to the religious disrespect perpetrated by these Jewish groups. They’re painting it as the spark for this attack.

1) How they're painting it doesn't make it so.

2) Al Jazeera is owned by terrorist supporters at this point. It is no longer a credible news source.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Except that's an excuse, not the root cause. Why should the Muslims have the right to exclude the Jews? Jewish presence at a Jewish holy site isn't a trigger for war.

Lets just say that "ultra" Conservative religions of all kinds are a huge problem.

Agreed. Islam is only the biggest problem because they're the ones where the fundies have the most power. MAGA would like to be as bad as they are.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Unprovoked in that it's not a response to Israeli acts. Israel doesn't restrict Gazan exports except in that they'll close the border crossings when Hamas attacks them. When you hear about Gazans not being able to export look to the real cause: Hamas.

Are you ignoring the cross border fire and increasing violence in Israel and the Occupied Territories from late Spring to early Autumn, or are you simply unaware of it and therefore think it didn't happen?

Hamas decides when there will be violence. Israel simply responds when there is.

And just how long ago must something have happened to no longer qualify as provocation? Were the rocket attacks against Israel in May a provocation strong enough to justify retaliation by Israel now, six months later? If so, then everything Israelis did during that same time period is recent enough, too.

This has obviously been planned for a long time. They simply wait for a proper pretext (or in this case, probably didn't even try--note the importance of the date) and launch their pre-planned actions in "response" to something that Israel supposedly did (often the claim itself is false.)

If Derec had said the attack was unprecedented, I doubt anyone would have questioned his statement. If he'd said it was unexpected, there probably would have been some discussion about always expecting violence in the Middle East. But calling it unprovoked is absurd. There has been near constant provocation between the Israelis and Palestinians for decades.

Yeah, but nothing on this scale. This is more than Hamas has done in their previous existence combined.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Nothing in your evidence directly condones any type of violence. Resistance need not mean violence.

Perhaps they do condone violence in resistance. But your post is long on inference and short in evidence.

Don't play stupid. This is obviously in response to Hamas' actions--virtually all of which constitute war crimes. They weren't engaging in combat, they were engaging in mass murder and hostage taking. There is absolutely no question about the hostage taking, do you support hostage taking?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

When you see longstanding conflicts like this there's always some form of outside money.

Yeah, like the US funding of the IRA.

But ultimately the conflict would continue even without funds from other countries. Oppressed people never stop fighting, they just get less and less effective as their funding dries up.

Yeah, we were guilty of not being hard enough on IRA fundraising.

You are wrong about it continuing, though. Look at the world--there are places much worse, but no resistance because there's no flow of money and weapons to run a resistance. And most of the ills in Gaza are perpetrated by Hamas--they have to keep their people in poverty to use them as cannon fodder. And to use them as dead bodies to show on TV. At this point Gaza is effectively ruled by an outside power: Hamas. The leadership lives in Qatar, not Gaza.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Democratic Socialists of America NYC chapter are endorsing and celebrating Palestinian terrorism, including indiscriminately shooting thousands of rockets at cities, murdering and kidnapping civilians, including children, among other atrocities.

The part in bold was made up by you, and wasn't said or implied by the Democratic Socialists of America NYC chapter.

Dishonest reporting isn't helpful in this conflict, any more than is excessive violence in retaliation.

Your approach here is part of the problem, and your indulging in it without taking on any personal risk from the violence it might provoke is an act of despicable cowardice.

They didn't say it but they had to know what has been happening.

Derec is simply pointing out the quiet part.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Several members of Congress, particularly members of the Squad, are also DSA members. AOC and Jamaal "Fire Alarm" Bowman are also from NYC. What do they have to say about all this?

I guess it depends on what your source of information is. One bizarre source claimed the following:

A barrage of 100s of rockets, including longer range ones reaching as far as Tel Aviv. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and the rest of the Squad must be rejoicing.

However, if we examine a different source, like one that merely hates AOC and the Squad, they quote them directly:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other pro-Palestine reps condemned the cruel terror assault but also called for all violence to stop as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Israel was “at war.”

“Today is devastating for all those seeking a lasting peace and respect for human rights,” AOC said in a statement. “I condemn Hamas’ attack in the strongest possible terms. No child and family should ever endure this kind of violence and fear, and this violence will not solve the ongoing oppression and occupation in the region.

“An immediate ceasefire and de-escalation is urgently needed to save lives.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), in part of her statement, also condemned “the horrific acts … against children, women, the elderly, and the unarmed people who are being slaughtered and taken hostage by Hamas” while calling for de-escalation.

Perhaps you could communicate with the former source to let him know it's a bad idea to make claims even worse than the NY Post would do.

Derec said the Squad would be rejoicing over the rockets hitting Israel. He didn't say they were rejoicing over the murders and hostage taking. Thus you are not rebutting him at all.

(This is not to say that he is right--I'm saying you utterly did not prove he's wrong.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A barrage of 100s of rockets, including longer range ones reaching as far as Tel Aviv. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and the rest of the Squad must be rejoicing.

IDF's response to this must he swift and heavy. Including going after Hamas and Islamic Jihad brass. And the Biden administration should not push Israel into a premature ceisefire.

Hamas and other terrorists must be taught a lesson. As must their masters in Tehran.

This is clearly Hamas's attempt to stop the Israel/Saudi Arabia normalization or peace deal.

This is an astute observation and it invites the "if so, then?" analysis and then it gets weird.

Saudi money supports Palestinians and it goes to many various factions. We can assume this to be a fact. Just as not all Palestinian factions have the same goals, there are also Saudi factions and the Royal court does not control all money flowing to foreign causes. Rockets are expensive and secret rockets cost a premium. Someone paid extra the start this latest round of violence. It's probably easier to create a crisis to steer Saudi policy than to get into the circle that has the steering wheel.

What disadvantage does Hamas suffer if Saudi Arabia and Israel normalize relations? There certainly will be less money for rockets, but just as certainly more money for schools, sewer systems, and parking meters. This is bad news for the men at the top of the military food chain, but continued fighting means it's exactly these men who are the most sought target. A text message sent by one of their less well paid subservient soldiers can give a cruise missile all the information it needs to end his career. It's not totally irrational. A warlord, by definition has to remain at war in order to maintain power. The political instability that creates warlords requires this and there is no place for a warlord in a politically stable environment. It becomes a matter of greatly increasing the risk to one's life in order to insure survival. As I said, it gets weird.

Saudi Arabia is not the only source of warlord financing. Iran's interests run counter to the Saudis and also send money to Palestine. It would definitely be Iran's goal to sabotage any warming of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Iran wants to be the big brother in a Middle Eastern hegemony. The Saudis have always maintained this status by judicious distribution of money to European and American interests, not military power. This is probably a better deal all things considered, if one of those things is Sadam Husain.

The final "if so, then?" is stark conclusion that the money sources that fuel this conflict, have no interest in peace between Israel and Palestine, despite what anyone says in public.

I think you have it wrong here. I don't think it's Saudi money. Rather, I think it's Iranian--they're the ones that would be hurt the worst by normalization between the Saudis and Israel.

I do agree about the warlord issue--Hamas becomes meaningless if there were peace. Thus Hamas will not allow a true peace so long as they exist--and they'll exist (or a replacement for them will exist) so long as the money flows.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I would rephrase the above and say that clearly the Israel far religious right does not want peace with Israel. Unfortunately, this attack will embloden the far right; hurt the Israelis who want peace. Not that the Israelis who want peace had been all that successful in the last 10 years or so.

Does not want peace with Israel?? I think you've got something mixed up.

There is basically no peace movement in Israel anymore. Every attempt they make towards peace ends up making things worse, not better. Hamas doesn't want peace and thus ensures any attempts towards peace or better treatment of Palestinians fail, Israel has learned the lesson that they're safer by being tough.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Several members of Congress, particularly members of the Squad, are also DSA members. AOC and Jamaal "Fire Alarm" Bowman are also from NYC. What do they have to say about all this?

I guess it depends on what your source of information is. One bizarre source claimed the following:

A barrage of 100s of rockets, including longer range ones reaching as far as Tel Aviv. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and the rest of the Squad must be rejoicing.

However, if we examine a different source, like one that merely hates AOC and the Squad, they quote them directly:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other pro-Palestine reps condemned the cruel terror assault but also called for all violence to stop as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Israel was “at war.”

“Today is devastating for all those seeking a lasting peace and respect for human rights,” AOC said in a statement. “I condemn Hamas’ attack in the strongest possible terms. No child and family should ever endure this kind of violence and fear, and this violence will not solve the ongoing oppression and occupation in the region.

“An immediate ceasefire and de-escalation is urgently needed to save lives.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), in part of her statement, also condemned “the horrific acts … against children, women, the elderly, and the unarmed people who are being slaughtered and taken hostage by Hamas” while calling for de-escalation.

Perhaps you could communicate with the former source to let him know it's a bad idea to make claims even worse than the NY Post would do.

Derec said the Squad would be rejoicing over the rockets hitting Israel. He didn't say they were rejoicing over the murders and hostage taking. Thus you are not rebutting him at all.

(This is not to say that he is right--I'm saying you utterly did not prove he's wrong.)

What do you think the hundreds of rockets would do except kill people? Hamas are not StormTroopers.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You can debate agreements and the British Mandate, bit the bottom line is the Jews armed themselves, tactically illegally, and declared a state. They seized prime business and agriculture prophetess from Arabs without compensation.

The Jews declared a state on the land that was to be allocated to them but which the partition was being stalled.

In the first war Arabs recruited Palest inns to fight against Israel, and when they lost the war they abandoned them. Israel denied right of return for Arabs who had lived in Isreali borders.

Note that most of them were refused return because they would not vow to continue the violence. In other words, traitors to the nation they were in.

After the followig wars which Arabs lost, Plaestinians had no options but terrorism. If Israel had been more magnamous they might have avoided the terrorism.

1) It started with insurgency, not terrorism. Terrorism came after 1973 when it became apparent that destroying Israel on the battlefield was impossible.

2) Israel has never had a meaningful ability to avoid the conflict. There's enough money to fund fighting Israel that there will be fighting.

3) The plight of the Palestinians is mostly due to their own leaders. At one point they were the most prosperous non-oil Arab nation in the world--and blew away 2/3 of their GDP by picking a fight with Israel.

 

[Arctish]

Unprovoked in that it's not a response to Israeli acts. Israel doesn't restrict Gazan exports except in that they'll close the border crossings when Hamas attacks them. When you hear about Gazans not being able to export look to the real cause: Hamas.

Are you ignoring the cross border fire and increasing violence in Israel and the Occupied Territories from late Spring to early Autumn, or are you simply unaware of it and therefore think it didn't happen?

Hamas decides when there will be violence. Israel simply responds when there is.

And just how long ago must something have happened to no longer qualify as provocation? Were the rocket attacks against Israel in May a provocation strong enough to justify retaliation by Israel now, six months later? If so, then everything Israelis did during that same time period is recent enough, too.

This has obviously been planned for a long time. They simply wait for a proper pretext (or in this case, probably didn't even try--note the importance of the date) and launch their pre-planned actions in "response" to something that Israel supposedly did (often the claim itself is false.)

If Derec had said the attack was unprecedented, I doubt anyone would have questioned his statement. If he'd said it was unexpected, there probably would have been some discussion about always expecting violence in the Middle East. But calling it unprovoked is absurd. There has been near constant provocation between the Israelis and Palestinians for decades.

Yeah, but nothing on this scale. This is more than Hamas has done in their previous existence combined.

You didn't answer any of my questions.

Were you unaware of the most recent instances of cross-border fire?

How much time must elapse before something can no longer be considered a cause for a certain course of action?

Operation Shield and Arrow happened on May 9th. Operation Revenge of the Free happened on May 10th. Do you believe that exchange of fire is part of the provocations that led to the current outbreak of open fighting, or do you think it doesn't qualify since it took place six months ago?

 

[Tigers!]

• Hamas, the group running the besieged enclave, said its surprise operation was in response to the desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque and increased settler violence.
• The operation comes after thousands of settlers in recent days carried out provocative tours of the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

"Florida man murders neighbor because other neighbor trespassed" would be one for the Totally Justified thread. Funny how one dead neighbor can be funny but four hundred dead neighbors, not so much.

One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic - attributed to Stalin.

 

[Tigers!]

Israel is reaping what it sowed from the start. Its troubles go back to its founding.

Perhaps if Europe (before anyone pops up - too many European nations in WW2 acquiesced in the Nazis treatment of their Jews) had not make their lands an unsafe area for Jews we would not be having this discussion.

 

[Harry Bosch]

I would rephrase the above and say that clearly the Israel far religious right does not want peace with Israel. Unfortunately, this attack will embloden the far right; hurt the Israelis who want peace. Not that the Israelis who want peace had been all that successful in the last 10 years or so.

Does not want peace with Israel?? I think you've got something mixed up.

There is basically no peace movement in Israel anymore. Every attempt they make towards peace ends up making things worse, not better. Hamas doesn't want peace and thus ensures any attempts towards peace or better treatment of Palestinians fail, Israel has learned the lesson that they're safer by being tough.

I don't disagree with you. But I said that the Israeli far right dosn't want peace. I have pretty low regard for the religious right in Israel. They want to expand their settlements, study their religious book, won't serve in the military, don't pay taxes, and yet drive all government policy. The people in Israel who want peace haven't had political power in 20 years or more. Having said that, it's not like the people in charge of Gaza want peace either.