The people who have a problem with Israels actions don't seem to be able to come up with any kind of alternative realistic plan that will disarm Hamas for good.
The bombing and invasion did not disarm Hamas for good, but it did kill tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. Is that the realistic part of that plan?
If you can't get what you want you'll have to settle for what you can get. Politics is the art of the possible. Its not an excercise in utopianism
So, you are saying that since Israel could not get the disarmament of Hamas they settled for killing thousands of civilians? That’s a political victory?
No, he's saying that the disarming of Hamas for good is a required goal in order for anyone who disagrees with him to be taken seriously, but that he expects to be taken seriously himself, despite falling short of that goal.
There's one rule for his policies, and another rule for anyone with the temerity to challenge those policies.
It's a very effective way for him to ignore the deep flaws in his position.
You can't come up with a realistic plan, so you should be ignored. He can't come up with a realistic plan, so he should be congratulated on his pragmatism and compromise.
Israel occupying Gaza and making it into a police state, is realistic.
Not as a method for disarming Hamas. Nor as a method for making Palestinians less keen to support or to join Hamas.
In a police state it doesn't matter what people think.
Unless you haven't noticed, Muslim countries tend to be police states. Clearly there's something about the culture that keeps pushing these countries towards these kinds of governments. When Egypt had a free and fair election the Muslim Brotherhood (=police state) won an overwhelming majority.
Cultures are different. Arabs are not Europeans. They have a different history. Different cultural norms. A different society. And a different culture. Cultures aren't monolithic and eternal. Cultures are continually evolving. I have no doubt that the Middle-East will eventually copy the western culture and become yet another western clone. But that hasn't happened yet. And until then we can't expect them to behave like westerners.
And seems to be the only viable option.
Towards what goal?
Stopping continued attacks against Jews in Israel. Rockets are expensive. I think, if Israel controls Gaza and south Lebanon, and Golan there's nowhere left for terrorists to launch rockets = win.
I think that's what they are doing. War is war. Ground troops are only deployed after artillery has done it's thing. That's how you fight a modern war. It's the Palestinians who chose to start a war in a dense urban environment.
Well, it's not like they had anywhere else they could have chosen.
Hamas chose to provoke a war. The vast majority of Palestinians were not consulted. And Israel didn't
have to respond to that provocation with genocide; They have been provoked many times in the past without doing so.
Interesting choice of words, genocide. Now I don't care what you think about anything. That choice of words gives you away.
That's not the fault of Israel.
Indeed.
IDF have no reason to unnecessarily risk the lives of their troops by walking into a Hamas death trap.
For sure. They could just stay home.
And just wait to be slaughtered a bit later? You really do seem to hate Jews.
This is not what I wanted. But if the Gazans are this committed to endless violence. This is the result.
The Gazans are not committed to endless violence. Hamas are.
Among Palestinian expats in the west, there's near zero Palestinian support for any peaceful solution. These people are not under any threat or pressure to support Hamas. Most seem to anyway. You can keep blaming Hamas, as if they're the baddies. But there's no way Hamas could stay in power if they didn't have a lot of Palestinian support.
Remember "Ship to Gaza"? The leaders of it were up to their eyeballs in ties to Hamas. Yet, these were the people western based Palestinians put forward to represent them. There's no Palestinian expat movement to speak of to get outside support to remove Hamas.
Somewhere surely we should be able to find some Palestinian movement out there who wants peace with the Israelis? There's nothing.
And so, it seems, are Likud (who are not Israel, nor Judaism; It is perfectly possible to oppose Likud policy without being antisemitic, and without being even anti-Israel, as the recent election demonstrated).
I oppose Likud's policies. I hate Netanyahu. I'm politically opposed to him.
BTW, this is not so much an ethnic conflict. The Palestinians are not one unified group. The Palestinians who live inside the borders of Israel aren't causing any trouble. They're not doing any suicide bombings. They're not radicalised. They're voting and have the same rights as the Jews. Palestinians in Israel are not second class citizens. This is NOT purely an ethnic or religious conflict. It's way more complicated.
Indeed. And yet you seem to think that lumping "Palestinian", "Gazan", and "Hamas" together as a set of synonyms is somehow helpful. It's not.
The quoted paragraph you replied to prove you wrong. I will refer to that.