Sure until tomorrow when they transfer their beliefs to some secular utopian ideology they can get zealous about. And they'll eventually get to killing each other unless some arbitrating power - whose decisions they agree to adhere to - is in place. The lack of that civil structure is more the issue than religion.

Still, the sole cause of the ongoing violence in the ME is do to the losing parties failing to adhere to the conditions of their surrender. Same pattern: attack, lose, sue for peace, renege on terms. I think that aspect is definitely religious. Question is, secular or not, how do we deal with those beliefs or more apt can we?

This.

Whatever was the original dynamic in the 1920s-1970s, I think it foolish to discount the religious dynamics in 2023, when most of the Muslim world is more or less using extreme religious rhetoric likening this to a holy war, and invoking Allah as the moral authority justifying any and all actions. And although most of Israel is secular, they give their religious right too much moral authority to be discounted.

If nothing else the religious dynamic makes it much harder to back down or compromise. Once moral authorities declare it is your Godly duty to fight Israel to the finish, it is hard to back down from that position for a more pragmatic, productive course.

Regardless of where anyone stands on this...Marc Levin brought up a good point last night: Only one middle eastern party involved in this entire conflict has nuclear weapons. Only one party has the capability of ending this literally tonight. Israel.

I'm pretty sure that if the tables were turned and Israel was without the bomb but Hamas/Hezbollah/Iran had it...Israel would already be gone.

I think this position is certainly fine as a starting point. But there also has to be some reasonable plan that acknowledges Hamas cannot remain in power and everyone involved in the planning and execution of the terrorism must be held to account. At this point I think it is very reasonable to say any "plan" that involves a ceasefire that just allows Hamas to stay in power, rearm and plan their next attack is a non-starter.

If anyone has any great ideas how to accomplish this with minimal collateral damage (keeping in mind incurring collateral damage is the actual goal of Hamas), I would love to hear it.

I am getting a lot of accusations of Israel, but no alternatives offered.

Here's my two:

BB took a page out of W's book.

And ... whatever happened in Israel starting from the religious right takeover, the judicial conundrum and now this terrorist massacre is just a foreshadow for whats to come in the USA. our (USA) palestinian equivalents are republican religious right wing proud boy nra crazies. These people really aren't much different from hamas. They're capable of mutilating babies and burning families alive in their homes. Mark my word...

I never thought I would agree with any of your posts, but here we are.

The Squad being silent after the Pogrom and then anointing themselves official knee cappers of Israel's response is a little bit galling.

And I don't think a ground war in Gaza is going to end well... for the Israelis.

Pretty sick one scientist with a vial can do more damage than 100,000 soldiers with Tanks and Machine Guns..

might be worth considering for Israel if things are looking dire.

I don't think there is anything wrong with calling to minimize civilian casualties.

But when one sides govt is actively trying to get as many of their own constituents as possible killed for PR purposes, and the other side would have to incur a lot of extra casualties on their own end to thwart this plan; this isn't a great incentive structure to actualize this.

And it also doesn't help the people you are tasked with trying to somehow save from their own govts intentions to martyr them were recently cheering in the streets because a bunch of your civilians were brutally murdered.

Like what ?
Beliefs on things that do not exist aint the same as beliefs on ideology.
Ideology is based on set of ideas from reality which probably would put threshold on crazy nonsense about superpowers and gods forcing people to do idiocies

Science is a great example on how it’s been used in secular society .
It doesn’t make people do insane stuff on bad intel like religious do .

Agree

AOC/Ilhan have firmly established themselves as anti Israel... All about the Benjamins, voting against the Iron Dome etc..

If there is going to be a call for Israel to be temperate in their attack it should come from someone who has not established themselves as an enemy of the Jewish State.

lol, do people even pay attention to them? What a non event they are.

God forbid we strive for accuracy and not just rage bate in an emotionally charged situation. I'm glad you agree that it's terrible when an innocent child is murdered, no matter the means. Anyway, back to shrugging over the ones currently buried in rubble that Israel had no choice in murdering.

https://twitter.com/MattWallace888/s...83366254006621

Sounds like Israel is gonna get its Bodies..

Do you think it would be fair for Israel to only release Food and Water and Power when Hamas releases all the Hostages?

if Hamas refuses to do so than the Innocent Blood is on their hands as much as Israel.

Well, from a military point of view, going into Gaza as is now would most definitely lead to an enormous amount of Israeli casualties. Enormous. Even if they accomplished their objectives in the end, the toll it would take on their populace would likely change them forever.

This exact scenario has repeated itself countless times through history. Siege warfare is standard when a direct assault would no doubt lead to significant loss of life and - most likely- a failed mission.

As you elude to and the Israeli's themselves have brought up: Hamas could just release the hostages now. Nothing is stopping them from doing that. They clearly don't want to deescalate the situation and are absolutely begging for a ground war with Israel. Obviously, the entirety of Gaza is defensively reinforced to the max with mines and booby traps everywhere. Once again, the natural course of action here is to just overwhelm the enemy with airpower while conducting a blockade/siege. That's exactly what Israel is doing. So, all of this is completely textbook when it comes to the history of warfare.

Anybody who actually believes that the Geneva Convention's rules of war are really ever observed in a conflict is incredibly naive. They're not.

Looks like all the countries in the region that support Hamas need to start sending supplies to the Egyptian border.

It won't do them any good. Egypt has closed their own border to prevent any refugees from coming in. Further, when Egypt talked about your plan and how they would drive convoys of supplies into Gaza, the US said they would airstrike any convoys headed into Gaza from Egypt. So...that plan's out.

For all their faults, the British managed to get through the troubles without carpet bombing or starving the entire population of Belfast. Can you imagine the outrage if they had? Can you imagine the revulsion at the excuse that it was just the reality of war? Why don't police just bomb and seige ghettos in Chicago and St. Louis to clear out the criminals? You'd save a lot of cop lives that way. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if many of the same people excusing Israel would think this is acceptable. Maybe I'm just weird, but I think the brave people who join the military should be willing to take all possible steps to avoid killing civilians, even if that means a greater risk to their own lives.

why would you want to risk your life to save someone that is going to grow up and try to murder your family.

Right, once again Muslims are inherently evil and guilty at birth and Israel's actions play no role at all in shaping what they become. Very convenient for your conscience. Meanwhile, your peace loving brethren who only want to be left alone and are only defending themselves from Hamas murdered people at a funeral for people who were also murdered by your peace lovers:

https://news.sky.com/story/israel-ga...#liveblog-body

We are enemy combatants at war. It is ridiculous to ask us to risk our soldiers lives to save their citizens. Did US soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan or Japan or Vietnam risk their lives to save civilians before they carpet-bombed the villages,

War is hell and when your military strategy is to use your citizens as shields so when Israel defends itself, libs like you can attack us, then there will be a ton of Innocent lives lost.

Which sucks but war is rough. No easy answers.