The present campaign has been so comparably efficient (in loss of IDF life) to other historical campaigns that other countries are trying to figure out how Israel pulled it off. The death tolls should be at least a 0 higher if not more.

There's been so many "it can't be done" moments in this thing. Months back the American political system was saying it was impossible to evacuate Rafah. They did. Before that it was impossible to face Hamas on their turf. They have. Before that it was Iron Dome. It got built. Israel is just going to keep doing its thing.

NOW, the thing is doing closing the vulnerabilities in Rafah that allowed the import of everything that was used to prepare for Oct 7th, without exterminating the Gazans. They won't. And on it goes.

And btw you'll get no argument from me on the lengthy lists of errors Israel made before, during, and after Oct 7th. The whole country is talking about it.

lol in fairness they do have their own tourist industry. But the funny point is still well taken.

After the brutality of the attacks, the scale is straight-up puzzling. Mossad is exposed one way or the the other.

This is probably correct, but -- man -- did one success make an impact. This wasn't one bomb or an attack on one event. This was an onslaught, relative to what MOssad is supposed to be.

Good post.

They didn't have much of a choice.

They knew of the training camps but were told to dial down aggression and not to escalate without "provocation" beyond rockets.

The training camps were out in the open for all to see. Hamas calculated Israel couldn't strike proactively and they were right.

Yeah, terrible news for you, but I've been to many Jewish social gatherings where men and women are separated by a wall and cannot see each other whatsoever, and made sure to cover my shoulders and knees for the customary modesty. Conservativism isn't unique to Arabic religions, friend.

Have you seen it on a university campus though? I have not. I've seen it in synagogue.

I've seen it outside of synagogue settings where the hosts of the parties were orthodox. Several bar mitzvahs with friends, and the banquet halls were split down the middle with separate dance floors etc, the whole nine.

The most difficult aspect for me was accepting men refusing to shake my hand when being introduced, but I learned to recognize them based on dress and now expect it.

Ok so we agree, not at universities. I'd not ever heard of that (other than like a Yeshiva )

I'm not sure why that matters.

Fwiw, when I was in college, numerous religious groups met weekly on campus. My roommate frequently invited me to the Korean Christian gathering. How that made sense, I'm not sure, but they existed and if I were to attend one I would adhere to the customs of the group I went to visit. Of course, my university would be considered a liberal elitist institution for wokeism by many here.

What is the ask here? Y'all want the university to enforce wokeness codes for student organizations?

He raised the case of a public university. You replied with religious people hosting things in their home.

You seem like a person who cares about being precise. That's all I'm doing too.

It was a pretty dire intelligence failure, considering the known threat of incursion, the limited area in question and the amount of unchallenged technical observation available to the Israelis. Not only did they not see it coming, they didn't seem to know it was happening for a while even when it was happening.

yeah so either they let it happen, or they're incompetent. i don't really see a 3rd thing, but i'm sure the rafikis have one somehow

In any case it means Israel need a political solution as much as anyone else does.

Which is why their current actions is so stupid as well as so monstrous.

My understanding is Dave Chappelle did a standup set in Abu Dhabi. There was no recording allowed, but eyewitness reports are he briefly touched on the subject and his analysis was Israel is the bad guys, but antisemitism puts Jews in a corner where they dont really have a choice but to support the bad guys.

Always good to hear deep and searching political insight from millionaire stand up comedians.

I dont know exactly what he said, nor am I saying I would endorse what he said; but generally good comedians have good insight into human psychology, which is part of what makes them good comedians.

It is also why you will never really find a good comedian who is an ideologue one way or another. Because dogmatic ideology (whether religion or progressivism or MAGA or whatever) is anathema to insight into the human condition.

sure genocide is bad, but on the other hand, antisemitism exists. you know what will surely help with the issue of antisemitism? the one jewish country doing a genocide of muslims


lol abu dhabi dave

Like I said, I dont know what Chappelle actually said, and I doubt I would even agree; but it is pretty wild that acknowledging antisemitism is part of the problem is receiving so much hostility. Kind of makes the point.

It's obviously part of the problem because Israel was created as a reaction to anti-Semitism.

Never seen sarcasm before I suppose?

I'm pretty ignorant about these things. I assume we all are though.

However, I don’t see how "Hamas are doing training. And some are using hang gliders" is enough info to necessarily prevent the attack easily.

I guess Hamas is often or always doing training exercises. The fact that they might try using hang gliders is just a minor clue.

Maybe there was a screw up. Maybe Israel prevents this 99% of the time and this was the 1%. But there is a big leap from Hamas got some hand gliders to, they will be attacking a rave on Oct 7.

Israel is a fairly peaceful country when there are no Intifadas and Jihad stuff going on.

The most likely answer is Mossad is an extremely competent, albeit flawed, intel organization operating under a lot of constraints and Hamas finally slipped through a crack.

For the record, we are all pretty agnostic that a political party in Lebanon is promising to destroy Israel, and is launching repeated attacks into Israel to the point they have had to abandon entire cities.

But the usual suspects will be completely indignant and outraged if/when Israel actually responds to attempt to stop the Lebanese calling for their destruction and attacking them?

Correct?