Iran is busy beating up Iranian protestors calling for reforms (while western leftists who pretend to care about such things are remarkably agnostic); so they seem too pre-occupied to be instigating any direct confrontations with Israel at the moment.

Is this what you think the situation is-- that Israel aided Hamas ages ago and that was it?

I get lebanon being the current annoyance and that would certianly escalate first. But im am curious on some thoughts on how far this potentially could go and how far those in charge would be willing to take it. All major wars start out with a small kerfuffle.

In that analogy Israel also molested the guy when he was a kid to begin with.

Hezbollah has a massive arsenal, and Israel has had to abandon entire border towns as a result of the constant attacks. And good chance any attempt to stop these attacks will lead to an actual giant war with Lebanon. You dont seem to appreciate the gravity of the situation IMO. Not a small kerfuffle at all.

What do you think the situation is?

Why are my opinions thought and ideas invalid? Why does the sex of whoever I'm claiming is "wrong" matter?

(FWIW I am not telling CN she is wrong.)

It's one thing to have aid cross the border and another for how much actually got distributed. I think that Jose Andres situation kind of put a damper on things as one example.

Relatively speaking, i think we would disagree on that being a giant war compared to other possible scenarios that could happen.

Regarding the "anything to get rid of Hamas" argument:

Even if I were to accept that anything is morally justified to get rid of whoever threatens you (I don't, and even the people suggesting this argument have previously indicated they don't), that doesn't cover the reality of the situation:




What is the morally justified amount of civilian death to weaken Hamas while ignoring the "secured" areas and allowing Hamas to openly recruit again?



We've been over this before: the narrative being put forth that we just need to stomach a few more civilian deaths (100k+ by the current rate not taking into account recruitment efforts) and it'll all be over with Hamas (although not Hamas 2.0), does not reflect reality.

I think the aid has been a lot more recent and I also think they knew about the attack head of time and ignored all the warnings because they wanted it to happen.

yeah israel can't even defeat hamas, they're certainly not gonna win a war vs iran or anyone else

Ok. You have obviously dropped plenty of hints, but thank you for explicitly laying out what you think happened.

Obviously, we will have to agree to disagree. Without overwhelming evidence the other way, when it comes to governments (especially right wing governments), if one is asked to choose between incompetence or some 4D Machiavellian chess move leading towards a seemingly bad outcome, I think the correct move is to always choose incompetence.

I don't see how we're supposed to believe that some of the most surveilled people on earth got a sneak attack of this magnitude through.

Israel and Iran are separated by thousands of miles, and neither side has the capability to actually invade the other one. So not sure what "winning" would even entail for either side.

In a Democratic country with a free press, where a majority of the people and press dont even like the ruling party, I dont see how it would be possible to keep such a conspiracy hidden. Incompetence still seems more likely to me.

We know Israel was given warnings of an attack at an unknown date, and we know they publicly hand waved it away saying Hamas was incapable. Seems more likely it was just incompetence than some grand conspiracy to protect a ruling party that is extremely unpopular.

yeah i never looked into it at all, but i did see reports that egyptian intelligence warned israel that something was going on in the gaza strip before oct 7

They were given warnings from their own guards tasked with monitoring the border.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/survei...-before-oct-7/

I dont know if Israel is "ignoring" the secured areas. Seems they are selectively re-attacking those areas and killing and capturing lots of Hamas members when they do. I have heard it floated this might actually be an intentional strategy.

It seems their plan is just to weaken Hamas military capabilities. And there isn't much of a plan beyond that.

Agreed, "ignoring" is a poor choice of words on my part. They are not managing these areas in a way which would prevent Hamas from recruiting, and having to kill even more which will help Hamas's recruitment effort.




I agree, which was the point of my post. The narrative that Israel is going to eradicate Hamas if they're allowed to kill enough civilians is not what is going to happen.

And it doesn't excuse Hamas fwiw.

But when Israel creates all of the conditions where actual peace is impossible, then funds militants and ignores their attack plans, they then don't get to choose unlimited violence when the inevitable attack that they wanted finally comes.

In Formula's to catch a predator analogy, Israel creates the predator, sets them loose on the world, then sets them up in a sting operation. Yes the predator is a bad person but they were created to be bad.

If they go all Gaza on Beirut, that's not going to go over very well.

My understanding is they agreed to act as a middle man (cutting out Fatah) in dispersing UAE aid, for the purpose of weakening Fatah's leverage over Hamas. It is really stretching to call that "funding militants" IMO.

I mean, by that definition Israel is currently "funding militants" by allowing aid through right now.

I just want to remind everybody that if the "Palestinians" would have accepted the partition plan back in the day they wouldn't be in the situation they are in.

Entire towns have been abandoned with the people living in hotels for months because of attacks from Lebanon. It already isn't going well.

When dealing with Islamists who vow your destruction, who get carte blanche by the international community to do what they want while every action you take is held up to a microscope, there isn't a lot of options that are going to end up going very well.