2023 Israel Conflict - Ground Forces Enter Gaza

Anybody know of a good place to find these estimates?

Iā€™m incredibly saddened to hear this. Revenging a massacre by performing a 10x or more massacreā€¦

I get there is little rational thought here, but I shudder to think of what comes after. If Hamas is removed from the face of the Earth (surely an almost impossible task to begin with?), what will rise in their stead?

Revenge begets revenge begets revenge. If Israelies are hellbent on wiping Hamas off the earth in retaliation for Israelā€™s 9/11, whybwould we not think that a new group will rise up seeking revenge for Palestineā€™s 9/11 after Israel rises up with a disproportionate level of killing?

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And what will other actors in the region do? Hizbollah and Iran to start with.

Non-zero chance Iran is picking up the pieces after Tehran gets nuked.

Because if you kill enough of them off, theyā€™ll never be in a position to fight back. The Armenians donā€™t exactly like the Turks, but they arenā€™t really in a position to do anything about it.

That Rep that showed up in and IDF uniform in spite of being an American evangelical Christian and never served in the IDF, called Tlaib an Arab Nazi on a podcast today

https://twitter.com/metzgov/status/1713036665415983469?t=2HSqFLWXnzp5POgDI9iP-Q&s=19

Thereā€™s a difference between something being wrong, or immoral, or abhorrent, and it being irrational

So they have intelligence that Hamas was using the Hospital for some purpose so now they are going to turn it into a parking lot? Wouldnā€™t Hamas just move to another building in the future? Seems like the goal is to just make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable. I donā€™t think Europe has the appetite for 2m more migrants.

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I think the destruction of northern Gaza would be all of the above.

There is definitely a rationale behind it and while despicable and inhumane, isnā€™t necessarily irrational depending on what the objective is

A guy once told me that if someone were to murder his child, heā€™d kill not only that person, but his whole family. Iā€™m like what if he had a baby? You wouldnā€™t kill an innocent baby, would you?! Heā€™s like yep. That gene pool needs to end right there. This was also the thought process of feuding clans in the not too distant past. You kill off everyone so thereā€™s no one left to avenge

Isnā€™t this in many cases, the end goal of apartheid?

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If the objective is fewer Israels killed in the long run, I challenge the wisdom of demolishing north Gaza and killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Has this ever ended in anything but even worse groups rising from the ashes of, in this case, Hamas?

Even though international sympathy is with Israel right now, as before, I think youā€™ll see more pressure on Israel to cease and desist as their atrocities escalate.

If the goal is Bibi and his cronies surviving politically and escaping prison, then itā€™s logical.

The conclusion of WWII, which must carry a lot of weight in Israel, is likely the model for obliterating an enemy so badly that they are basically eradicated. Obviously we still have Nazis, but in the decades following WWII a new and better Germany did emerge from the war.

I suppose the difference is that there is at least a narrative that Allies in WWII didnā€™t actively try to exterminate every German. But a few hundred thousand German citizens did die.

Anyway, I am generally in agreement with you that a strategy of dehumanizing Palestinians then wiping out Gaza and blaming the civilian dead for ā€œnot getting out fast enough, we warned youā€ is a going to feed Islamic extremism. I am particularly worried about Hamas gaining support in the West Bank, and inflaming tensions there. Not to mention the risk of destabilizing the entire Middle East.

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Violence as a response to violence has never, and will never work. Itā€™s a bit of poor programming in our evolutionary software that we seem unable to eradicate. We have done a decent job of creating cultural counters to it in some parts of the world but so far seem unable to totally remove it.

There is no path for Israel using violence that will somehow result in long term stability in the region. Everyone knows it will certainly result in less stability but we canā€™t seem to recognize that when passions understandably run hot. It is completely understandable how Israel will respond even though we all know itā€™s doomed to fail in its supposed goal.

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As mosdef pointed out in the post before WWII is an instance where this did work.

This is a very complex question that would take more time to unpack than any of us want to spend. Obviously the invasion of Germany was just but whether it ā€œworkedā€ depends a lot on your temporal lens.

The goals with both Germany and Japan were to wipe out their governments and replace them them with western style democracies. Yes the world is still a shitty place but not because of budding resentment in Germany and Japan because those goals were reached.

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This is one of those things people say, but is obviously not true

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Making Gaza unlivable and having ~2m Palestines absorbed into other countries probably sounds good to Israel.

That would be probably left of center wish right now. On the right they want the same without letting them leave.