I never claim there was no attempt to take land (taking land in combat against an aggressor isn't stealing though).

After you attack you deserve to lose everything and end up much worse than you began with, in general.

Land is needed to protect Israel from future analogous attacks and so land will be rightfully taken, because after Hamas and Hezbollah attack everything they ever had is up for grabbing by Israel to compensate for the damage of the unprovoked attack and to prevent future attacks.

Gaza will need to stay militarily occupied for real this time for a very long time.

Lebanon still TBD, a lot of things can happen there

Btw victor Lebanon wasn't suffocated in any way.

You don't even change the claims when justifying actions by Hamas and Hezbollah , why?

I do not see how Israel taking land from Lebanon helps them in any way, especially if they plan to annex it.

Isn’t the best course of action for them to capture some land and then give it back to them in exchange for peace?

I don’t see why they would want to annex more land either, it’s not going to be a deterrent at all. Occupation of Gaza, I can see that, although I would hope it would not be the Netanyahu government doing the occupation seeing as how incompetent they have been, basically being responsible for this war.

It's harder to throw short range rockets if you have to throw them from further away.

And a permanent scar on society because of the rockets is a signal about stopping to mess with them.

Israel wants the Lebanese population to revolt against Hezbollah.

It's like cutting the hand of a thief caught stealing. Supposedly they will be disincentivized from stealing again, and anyway if they try it's harder for them to do.

If the strike campaigns are as successful as Israel is making them out to be, then taking any land is unnecessary. Israel is claiming that they are severely degrading Hezbollah's strike capabilities.

Occupying land in Lebanon opens its own can of worms, annexing that land is even more difficult and involves far more problems.



As far as the political reasons, and getting the population to revolt against Hezbollah, taking land does the exact opposite. In 1982 when the PLO brought Israeli retaliations, Lebanon was furious with them. When Israel outright invaded it united the entire country against Israel. Same thing happened in 2006.




Israel invading Lebanon would be acknowledgment that their strike campaign failed.

That's literally the argument you guys have been making

BGP the iron dome works today, but you can't gamble your citizens life on that, and on your opponent never learning how to overcome that.

Israel can take land and credibly promise to Lebanon the land will be given back to the country when they get rid in full of all Islamic terrorists.

I agree that annexing (if with that you mean putting Israelis to live there) would be a mistake

It’s probably not something Israel wants to do if it can be avoided, but at a certain point they need to make a decision between suboptimal paths. There’s basically never going to be a clear best option when you’re dealing with irrational actors. It’s impossible to predict no matter how much intel gathering and analysis you conduct. If Hez were rational actors, they probably would have given up already or agreed to a temporary ceasefire but that’s obviously not the case.

Who says I'm gambling any lives on that? Israel is claiming they can take care of the short range rockets through their strike campaign. If that is the case then entering Lebanon to take care of Hezbollah's short range rockets is redundant and likely sets Israel back against Hezbollah.

Hezbollah's reputation is at a low point in Lebanon, Israel does not want to galvanize the country against them.

I think Hezbollah leadership is more rational than Hamas on the ground (ie in Gaza) leadership, but they got paged so now I am not sure anymore.

Hez is getting paid big time by Iran to send rockets to Israel. It's rational for them to do so more than we can assess without taking that money into account

It's helps Bibi maintain the constant war footing he needs to stay in power. Plus, it's valuable land once they clear out the locals.

Not my argument, no. I have been very clear that targeting civilians is not ok. Civilian casualties are an inevitable part of war and people acting like it’s not are either insane, stupid, or disingenuous.

There is no valuable land in the whole area.

"Prime land" in the area is worth less than random empty spots in Sicily

I agree with the first part.

Mostly agreed, however I mean rational in that they can be relied upon to have some consideration for the well-being of the Lebanese people at the expense of any monetary incentives. Obviously, western countries do shitty things for the sake of money all the time, but plunging your citizens into a war you openly admit you cannot win is an extreme case.

Hez definitely seems more rational than Hamas but inevitably they’re answering to radical Islamists.