Does Israel have a “winnable solution”?
Today I spoke with a Christian missionary based in Libya who said that if Israel forced Gaza to buckle under siege, that would be perceived by the man-on-the-street Muslim as unfair collective punishment.
Me: “Then is there no winnable solution for Israel?”
Him: “If the IDF invaded Gaza, went house to house, and specifically went after Hamas and spared civilians, that would be considered fair.”
If he’s right, then there’s no winnable solution for Israel that is not also extremely costly.
I’m always puzzled when I hear reasoning of that general sort: “If Israel did x, the Muslim street would get angry; but if Israel did y, the Muslim street would be okay with it.” I’m also puzzled by suggestions that Israel do what is literally impossible to accomplish, such as going house to house and killing not a single civilian but only Hamas members.
I’m not based in Libya. I’ve never even been there or to any Arab country. Nor am I a Christian missionary, or even a Christian. But it seems glaringly obvious to me that the Muslim street considers everything Israel does to protect itself to be not just unfair but an evil abomination. Also, the Muslim street does not consider anything Israel does to protect itself to be fair. If a single Muslim is killed by Israel, that is unfair and evil – and in fact if no Muslims are killed by Israel, Hamas and others will lie and say that they were. If a single Muslim’s home is destroyed even if no one is in it, that is unfair and evil.
If Israel exists, that is unfair and evil.
I’m not saying that every Muslim in the world thinks that way; of course that’s not the case. But it’s not required that every Muslim in the world think that way – or even the majority of them – for things to be extremely dire, because a huge number of Muslims do indeed think that way. And they are willing to kill for it and die for it and lie for it. In addition, much of the Western world seems to have been convinced that they’re correct to do so.
So even though I don’t think that Bill K’s missionary friend is correct, I think that Bill K himself is much closer to being correct when he writes, “there’s no winnable solution for Israel that is not also extremely costly.” In fact, I can’t come up with a “winnable solution” for Israel, period. Fortunately, no one is depending on me for strategy.
The soldiers Israel would lose in Gaza in the house-to-house strategy are going to be needed to fight hezbolla. They shouldn’t do it.
Jericho II
read the ot
The Arab world should consider this with respect to the position that they are placing Israel in:
When one is in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation, you might as well do.
If Israel is going to be accused of war crimes and genocide anyway, why not go ahead and adopt a “scorched earth” policy and eliminate all vestiges of Hamas in Gaza once and for all? If I’m gonna do the time, I may as well do the crime.
Especially if it will eliminate or severely reduce one of the many threats I’m facing.
I believe most Muslims do think that way, albeit to varying degrees. But the degree of variation is irrelevant. The point is, most feel that way. And even those who are presently on the moderate end of the scale will applaud if and when the hardliners enjoy success. None will, or do, mourn Israeli deaths and condemn Muslim atrocities. I am unaware of any Muslim public intellectuals speaking out against Hamas and in sympathy with murdered Jews. Also irrelevant is the fact that “not all Muslims” are in favor of the destruction of Israel and the Jewish genocide destruction would require. The truth is, most are in favor of these courses of action.
Some contributors to this forum know that for the past several years I have been working with the Christian Assyrians Iraq to defend themselves and build up a military capability to prevent their extermination at the hands of Iraqi Muslims. My experiences in this endeavor has given me that Muslims will stop at nothing to eradicate non-Muslims. Given the means and opportunity they choose genocide every time. Islam requires this of them, and they are quite willing, even eager, to fulfill this aim.
For Jews, and Iraqi Christiqns, it is and always will be war to the knife. They must fight to survive. Survival is the only metric for winning.
Ryan McBeth did an interesting analysis of IDF and Hamas force structures (military stuff) but closed with a false final warning that for Israel the war in Gazaland is unwinnable because if even one Hamasite is left alive the war on Israel will inevitablly continue. Does that presume that Gazamites and Palestinians are incapable of learning from bad outcomes?
Today the offical count of captive hostages in Gaza has risen to 222.
The unofficial count is roundabout 9,000,000, give or take 50,000.
Now King Joe will have the Israeli War Cabinet repeat after him: “Hostages. Hostages. Hostages.”
“Say it with me again now, this time with feeling! Hostages. Hostages. Hostages. That is all you know and all you need to know.”
A few years ago, when ISIS was rolling, a Christian Assyrian village in the path of the ISIS juggernaut hurriedly evacuated their young women and men to a safe(r) locale. They didn’t have the means or the time to evacuate everyone. So the old people, elderly men and women, volunteered to stay behind. They were all killed, of course. And of course, probably none here heard heard about this.
Hard times in war make for hard decisions. The Israelis are going to have to make similarly hard decisions about the hostages.
I regret the typos and misspelling in my 12:08 post. While typing my mind was clouded by anger.
Agree. The Arab street is never going to be satisfied with what Israel does. Israel needs to more concerned with Arab governments than with the Arab street.
The danger scenario I see is that if Israel ends up overcommitted. An Arab government or two might think that they can heed their “Arab street” and attack without consequence while Israel is distracted. Otherwise, as long as the Arab governments are deterred (and not in danger from their own people), then the opinion of the Arab street isn’t particularly relevant.
Also agree that any winnable solution will be costly.
well we can look at Raqqua the Capitol of the so called Caliphate, which has been quiet since 2018?
Also Mosul.
The “muslim man on the street” shrugs off worse violence by all other Muslim and Arab states. And is unlikely to ever view Israel’s existence as “fair”.
Methinks Mr. Missionary is projecting… and assuming these barbarians are “just like us” is what got the West into this predicament.
From David Warren’s latest column:
https://www.davidwarrenonline.com/
“There will always be more wars — among humans and the other killer apes — but they must be fought, with attention, one battle at a time, with an eye to victory and the extinction of the evil that must be fought. Wars can be quite unpleasant.
“But the good news is that they can generally be avoided by a side that has a reputation for winning them, quickly and decisively.”
this is an ancient evil, in new robes, the phoenicians, the canaanites, et al
Israel has only solutions that will keep it alive. At this time, that means cleaning Hamas out of Gaza to the extent possible, while keeping on the alert for attacks from the north and northeast. “To the extent possible” does not mean it will be able to make the hatred go away. It’s baked into the Islamic cake. They can render it inoperative for some years.
I think, once they get into Gaza, that some sort of incendiary gas attack on the tunnel network is the most effective way to either kill Hamas or smoke it out into the open. A large area of Gaza City may collapse over the ruins. Elections have consequences, Gaza.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1464343X12001410
Above link find “Geology, geomorphology and hydrology of the Wadi Gaza catchment, Gaza Strip, Palestine”.
“Kurkar”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurkar
Next link is a graphic crossectional representation :
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Salah-Ajjur/publication/339687565/figure/fig2/AS:865375952576513@1583333113843/Typical-hydrogeological-cross-section-of-Gaza-Strip-PWA-2003.jpg
“The Arab street reacts with rage”.
Ho Hum. What’s new?
The answer is to ensure that their rage is confined to their own streets.
I recently read that the Chancellor of Germany said, in effect, ‘we need to deport more aggressively, and quickly. There are too many people in Germany who do not belong in Germany’.
It will be instructive to see whether Germany can turn back the clock.
sdferr:
Thanks for the link.
Easy drilling, well sorted (uniform grain size) sand and sandstone. No gravels or boulders. Eazie peazie. Cementation of the wind blown sand may be a local thing (caliche zones) not throughout the sand.
There is a parable about those who build their houses on sand ….
“White House: Israel will decide on Gaza strategy, we’re just asking questions”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/white-house-israel-will-decide-on-gaza-strategy-were-just-asking-questions/
Yes, quite. Simple questions like, ‘Hey, nice country you’ve got there. Would you like to keep it?’ and ‘Don’t you think we’d be happy to ship you more of those vital munitions you’ll be needing soon? Why then, wouldn’t you like to help us keep our friends the IRGC on our side in this benighted region? What’s that you say?’
If you mean a solution where Israel gives up some territory and then lives in peace with its neighbors– no.
Narrative is reality these days. The reporting is almost completely one-sided.
“Gaza is an open air prison.”
“Israel is an apartheid country”
“Force Israel to negotiate a solution.”
This is the narrative. No amount military victory will change these narratives– only reinforce them. Alinsky on steroids.
Israel’s GDP is $480 billion, of which $82 billion is exports– 25% of which is to the US. Pressure will likely increase to divest and stop trade with Israel, especially in Europe regardless of the outcome, but more if the war is seen to be unfair to civilians, which is inevitable if the IDF invades Gaza given the strategy of imbedding Hamas among civilians.
The most Israel can hope for is to learn new lessons about the treachery of Hamas and fortify itself to the extent possible.
And UN resolution 2334 will continue to create an impossible situation for Israel.
From a recent Reuters article: “Moscow said that a proper negotiation was necessary to provide for the creation of an independent Palestinian state within the borders of 1967 with a capital in East Jerusalem.”
Wish I could be more positive.
French President Emmanuel Macron proclaims: “Look People! I Can Fit My Whole Head Up My Ass! And Keep Breathing!!”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/macron-to-push-for-resumption-of-peace-process-on-israel-visit/
Israel needs to more concerned with Arab governments than with the Arab street.
I think that’s exactly what Israel is concerned with. If “the Arab street” matters at all it’s in so far as it influences governments and organized military forces, not simply in terms of what Arabs in the streets may think or feel.
IrishOtter49 — I do not remember that particular event, but there were so many horrors that never got reported here. My anger then and now is so deep. The “Moslem Street” — I don’t care. For the most part, in Moslem countries, they get their news through the approved channels. There are individuals, I am sure, who happen to be Moslem who are relatively liberal (i the classical sense of the word.) Great for them. But as a whole, the “Moslem Street” distrusts the West, hates Jews, despises Christians, and pretty much every other religious group: Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, Bahais… In most Moslem countries, Christian girls are kidnapped and forced to convert and forced into marriage. And they are not allowed back to their family because apostasy warrants the death penalty. In Pakistan, this happens to Christian and Hindu girls, but mostly Christian girls. What about the Nigerian Girls who were kidnapped? The main reason we don’t read this too much about Jewish girls is because their families wisely fled decades ago. How often does the “Moslem Street” decry any of that?
I do have to say that the news clip I saw of some Saudi newscaster interviewing the Hamas guy was interesting. It was as if she though that Hamas was wrong. That gave me SOME optimism for maybe the “Moslem Street” joining modernity.
Tablet Mag, Gadi Taub, “Biden’s Three Nos”: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/bidens-three-nos
Al Arabiya under current management, the video portion of Arab News is quite sensible,
If this thing ends in a seven year treaty, that ought to catch a few people’s attention.
If somehow in the wheeling and dealing a new Jewish Temple gets allowed to be built, that really ought to catch a few people’s attention.
When the Romans destroyed the last Temple, it was a prophetic certainty, both Old and New Testament, that at some point another one would be rebuilt.
collective punishment
DEI #HateLovesAbortion
There’s no winnable solution for Israel as long as they keep taking the knee to the corrupt US government.
Of course Israel will lose the PR war, but facts on the ground will prevail in the long term. A Gazan population freed of Hamas, exposed to free information, will over a couple generations (let’s be realistic), flourish and grow somewhat pluralistic, robbing the activist left of a key piece in its global chess game.
And as for the war, flooding the tunnels with Israeli sewage should turn the tide pretty quickly.
When ISIS rampaged through Kurdish Iraq and into the Nineveh Plain, where the Assyrians reside (and have resided for over 5,000 years), they encountered the Yazidis, a very ancient Iranic people who are adherents to a similarly ancient pre-Zoroastrian monotheistic religion. They are harmless, inoffensive, few in numbers, and a threat to no one. So, naturally, Muslims want to eradicate their community and wipe them off the face of the earth. They live both near and among the Christian Assyrians of the Nineveh plain, and the two peoples get along quite well, to the extent that Yazidis serve willingly in Assyrian military units. Of course when ISIS came to Yazidi villages they typically massacred of the inhabitants. Very little of this was reported. What was reported does not begin to convey the horror of what ISIS did to the Yazidis. I know what happened to the Yazidis through my work with Assyrian military operators, in particular the commander in chief of the Assyrian military. I saw videos and photos of the aftermath of ISIS atrocities. They are literally indescribably. The Assyrians lost many Yazidi friends to ISIS. One Assyrian elder with a huge white moustache and a shock of white hair took me firmly by my arm and stared into my eyes with his own depthless piercing black eyes and said, quietly but earnestly, “letting Muslims into your country is like letting a wolf into your home.”
The Israelis must crush Hamas regardless of the cost and the conesquences. You cannot let the murderers of 1400 of your countrymen and women go unpunished. There must be vengeance, punishment, retribution. Israeli national honor and individual honor is at stake and demand nothing less. And, yes, I do believe that national and individual honor are worth going to war over.
n.n.,
Put a sock in it. Abortion is not at issue in this thread, and neither is DEI. Save your comments on these subjects for Althouse.
So much to think about.
@Neo, “Fortunately, no one is depending on me for strategy.” Nor on me neither. I want Israel to survive and prosper, but recognize I don’t have all the facts, nor can I predict 2nd-order effects.
@ Mike Plaiss, “They shouldn’t go house-to-house…” I agree – this is the “extremely costly” result I’d like Israel to avoid, unless they have some trick up their sleeve that would reverse the historical statistics of urban warfare.
@SailorCurt, “why not go ahead and adopt a “scorched earth” policy and eliminate all vestiges of Hamas in Gaza once and for all? If I’m gonna do the time, I may as well do the crime.” – I lean this way too, though the less costly way seems to me to be total (“hermetic” to use Glick’s word) siege – not a drop of water, and destroy any electricity or water generating ability Hamas tries.
@IrishOtter49, “Also irrelevant is the fact that “not all Muslims” are in favor of the destruction of Israel and the Jewish genocide destruction would require. The truth is, most are in favor of these courses of action.” I agree and to put a point on it, Islam is Satanic and irredeemable. BUT: Let’s remember a distinction between Muslims and Arabs. Not all Arabs are Muslim. That’s the downside of “scorched earth” combined with Hamas’ refusal to let any Gazans of any stripe leave.
@Ben David, “The “muslim man on the street” shrugs off worse violence by all other Muslim and Arab states. And is unlikely to ever view Israel’s existence as “fair”. Methinks Mr. Missionary is projecting… and assuming these barbarians are “just like us” is what got the West into this predicament.” I don’t think Mr. Missionary is projecting, but I do think he’s the peacenik type who fails to distinguish between what is immoral for an individual to do “you kill mine, I kill all of yours”, and what is moral for a government to do – the full defense and retribution for its citizens. I quoted him not because I fully agree with his thinking but because he interacts with Muslims on a daily basis and is more likely to know what they think.
Another comment the missionary made is that as far as he is aware, virtually every Muslim in north Africa is glued to his cell phone, watching and hoping that this is the warmup for the return of the Mahdi.
Throughout most of Islam’s history there was no ” Israel”. There were Jews of course, even in Islamic lands, but the area that is Israel came under Islamic political control pretty early on in Islamic history. The Crusaders had their hundred year ” Kingdom of Jerusalem” then the Muslims got it back. And if I remember correctly, the empire of the Mongols even took some of that general area for a while. And of course, there was a period of British political , but not necessarily , religious domination of the area. Once Islam comes to politically control an area, how dare any non Muslim political entity challenge them! It is no accident the Muslims put their mosque on the old Jewish Temple area. That’s what they do. Cultural Islam is like the Hotel California. An area can be forced into Hotel Islam, and how dare any group not want to be dominated by them forever more.
As a Christian , it also plain to see that Islam was against Judeo-Christian religious text from the beginning. Jews and Christians share many of the same ancient writings, the ” Old Testament”, as we Christians call it. Islam and many Western Leftist both maintain that those text are not valid.
I genuinely admire your optimism Jeremy Abrams. I’m an optimistic sort myself, but it will take more than two generations.
We must give the devil his due. The activist left has been remarkably resilient. They’ve wreaked havoc for over 100 years and even a body count that would make satan blush has evidently not discredited their cause. They’re not about to quit now, and the Palestinians are extraordinarily useful. Let’s face it. They’re good at this.
IrishOtter49:
I remember the total indifference of the media to what was done to the Yazidis by ISIS. Crickets mostly, BHO and Brandon crickets.
@Mike Plaiss
Indeed we must give the devil his due. He’s a major part of the reason they’re good at this. 🙁
Devout fundamentalist Muslims act as they do because in their ‘sacred’ Qur’an… Allah repeatedly and unambiguously commands them to act as they do. If you ‘follow the money’ it always comes down to Islam’s tenets.
Can a violently expansionist, murderous, totalitarian ideology that wraps itself in a facade of religious pretense… legitimately be seen to be a religion?
Can a true ‘paradise’ consist solely of murderers and those who condone murder? [condone ~ verb: accept and allow (behavior that is considered morally wrong or offensive) to continue.)
“By their fruits… shall ye know them” a first century itinerant Jewish ‘carpenter’
Devout fundamentalist Muslims act as they do because in their ‘sacred’ Qur’an… Allah repeatedly and unambiguously commands them to act as they do. If you ‘follow the money’ it always comes down to Islam’s tenets.
Geoffrey Britain:
True. It shouldn’t be a mystery.
But you can lead a liberal to the Qur’an, but you can’t make him read.
I used to challenge people to pick up the Qur’an, turn to a random page then see how far they can read before Allah starts raving about infidels and how they must be punished.
One needs to understand the Islamic morality. If something was done by Mohammad it was good, if it was prohibited by Mohammad it is bad. There is no deeper moral imperative. Therefore once Jews are regarded as bad due to pronouncement by Mohammad, anything that destroys or damages the Jews is seen as morally good, and anything that helps them is morally bad.
It really is as simple as that.
“Does Israel have a winnable solution?”
Depends on which war is being fought…(or does it…?).
Compare and contrast:
1.
“The War Israel Cannot Win;
“The first casualty of reporting on Israel is the truth.”—
https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-war-israel-cannot-win/
H/T Blazingcatfur blog.
2.
“Netzarim Junction and the Birth of Fake News;
“Almost two decades after the global news media fell for a hoax, a key investigator revisits the scene of a journalistic crime”—
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/netzarim-junction-and-the-birth-of-fake-news
Note: The “key investigator [revisiting] the scene” is Prof. Richard Landes.
@ Barry – a key quote from the Netzarim post (I remember reading it in 2018, it’s that stunning):
“Had Enderlin had the courage to respond to Abu Rahma’s al Durah, lethal propaganda by firing him, and running a sensational piece on how his own Palestinian cameraman had tried to trick him into airing a staged scene in support of a potentially lethal blood libel… had he warned his fellow journalists of the danger to their professional integrity in running Palestinian-filmed footage without checking carefully… the course of the Oslo Jihad, and with it, the future of civil society in the 21st century might have been very different.”
Maybe we’ve reached the point the author looked for back then, with the move by many (not enough) Democrats to disassociate themselves from the anti-Jewish forces:
“Indeed, it just may be that the key to unraveling the dysfunctions and madness that seem to have overtaken the Western and Arab-Muslim public spheres in the 21st century, lies in reconsidering this first, sustained case of fake news in the 21st century. Just how much damage does this plague have to wreak before people who care about democracy catch on?”
Sarah Hoyt pointed to this post at Instapundit; it echoes the question Landes asked in his post.
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/formerly-clandestine-nazis-will-continue-protesting-sometimes-violently/
Betrayal, Inc., having been exquisitely-planned by “Biden”, continues apace.
“Israel A ‘Nuclear Wildcard’ On ‘Dangerous Road To Armageddon’: Macgregor”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/israel-nuclear-wildcard-dangerous-road-armageddon-macgregor”
That Israel must NOT be allowed to defend itself because it is a nuclear power…and—GOLLY!—who knows what it might decide to do!!?…is a rather ingenious argument FOR abandoning the Jewish State, one must admit.
Consider: that Russia is free to threaten nuclear war WITHOUT anyone getting overly exercised should prove beyond the shadow of a doubt to anyone paying attention that the Russia-Ukraine war has been a “Biden” theatrical production throughout, meant to distract from “Biden”‘s other—INTENTIONAL—disastrous Cloward-Piven policies, not least “his” support, financial and otherwise, and encouragement of Iran along with its proxies, Hezbullah and Hamas…combined with “his” meticulously enacted abandonment of Israel (though to be fair, “he” has, for all intents and purposes, also abandoned the US.).
It should be noted, for anyone who is uncertain as to why I am referring to “Biden”‘s abandonment of Israel: “his” honeyed words of support indicate the very opposite (given “his” consistent track record WRT Truth); moreover these honeyed word are invariably followed by equivocations and qualifications.
‘Nuff said.
Pretty sure that Israel neither wants nor needs ACTIVE BOOTS ON THE GROUND American support in this fight for its existence. However, MORAL support and the need for resupply is another issue.
What it certainly DOES NOT WANT is American equivocation combined with solid, if deceptive, support of Iran, Hezbullah and Hamas.
IOW what it certainly DOES NOT WANT is American perfidy…
Which, alas, is what it has gotten and continues to receive.
IrishOtter49 — I remember that almost no one was letting in Christian or Yazidi refugees. Our “fearless leader” limited refugees to those who came from UN refugee camps. But the non-Moslem refugees didn’t want to go to those camps as they were in danger there as well — from the Moslems. What was done to the Yazidis was beyond horrible. And there are STILL Yazidi and Assyrian women held hostage by ISIS believers. Thousdands are still missing: mostly likely dead but some remain in captivity.
The horrors of ISIS have not ended — it is just no longer front-page news.
During the height of the ISIS atrocities, I attended various churches and NOT A ONE offered any sort of prayers for the people suffering at the hands of ISIS. I recall following one page on Facebook and a man posted information about the atrocities, and Facebook took them down so fast — because they violated community standards.
And having been proved right so many times on Russia and Ukraine, Tucker ventures into Israel stratergery with that mope McGreagor.
The only thing the Tucker-McGreagor show get right is that Brandon f*cks up everything he touches.
well israel is rapidly being left to consider the samson option, it’ like the cobalt bomb in planet of the Apes, worst case scenario,
this is where Orange Man bad thinking leads,
looking at malley, bitar, tabatabai, that fourth player, this is enemy action,
Related:
‘Obama warns: Some of Israel’s actions in Gaza could weaken support;
‘Former President says any Israeli strategy in Gaza that ignores the human costs of the war could “backfire”.’—
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/379059
Ah yes, those “human costs”.
Where would we be without such warnings about “human costs”…from true friends who are so truly concerned—because they are such true friends—about the ramifications of Israel’s existential wars?
Which true friends bring us another—FRIENDLY—episode of that ongoing series, “But we ABSOLUTELY MUST save Israel from Itself” (which, when one thinks about it, is the REAL RATIONALE for “Biden”‘s support or Iran…AKA balancing power in the ME…AKA cutting Israel down to size…AKA…getting rid of that pesky, shitty little country).
File under: Suck it up, ZIOs… (just a bit more friendly advice from those who really, really care about the Zionist Entity…)
You know just when you think this luo* punk protege of khalidi and ayers couldn’t be more despised, he doubles up
*yes he was born here, but carries all the old world baggage,
Barry, from that MacGregor article, “According to Macgregor, “This is a high-end, conventional war that we’re looking at, with the potential to go nuclear – which, obviously, I don’t think we or the Russians want to happen, but we have the wild-card in Israel. They do have a nuclear capability.””
In this article https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/israeli-official-threatens-to-wipe-iran-lebanon-off-the-face-of-the-earth/ar-AA1iEAjL, “Israel’s Minister of Economy Nir Barkat issued an ominous threat to Iran and Lebanon in an interview published on Saturday, saying his country would “wipe” them “off the face of the Earth” if Hezbollah opens up a northern front in the Hamas war.”
I’m not sure I follow why Israel must not be allowed to defend itself. Isn’t the opposite true and unavoidable in the thinking of world leaders?
Israel: If you push us too far and we have nowhere else to turn, we WILL use nukes.
Actually, this is NOT YET a “high-end conventional war”.
It could get there, however, given the huge number of advanced weaponry in the hands of Hezbullah, and its goal, like Hamas, of obliterating Israel, along with presumably the same tactics as Hamas in its playbook; all this together with Iranian involvement in both Lebanon (and Gaza) and potentially, Syria…not to mention long-range guided missiles in Iran, itself…should it come to that.
As om, hinted at above, Gen. MacGregor is not a terribly reliable source and generally a bit wonky, if not actually twisted. Why Carlson interviewed him is open to conjecture; but if he was looking for sensationalistic (if sober-sounding/seeming) “analysis”, then he chose the right guy.
@Jeremy Abrams:
I was highly amused by your suggestion, “And as for the war, flooding the tunnels with Israeli sewage should turn the tide pretty quickly.”
But if Gaza has ~300 miles of tunnels, can Israel come up with enough sewage to fill them? 🙂
Start an online drive; “Send sh*t to Gaza” “Their tunnels need your poo!”
“Every time you’re in the loo, think of tunnels and your poo.”
For the Hamasites.
Turning Hamasites into Hamashits?
Well, the Hamasites were repurposing steel pipe “intended” for sewer lines for their rocket production lines in their tunnels, so filling their tunnels with sewage would be appropriate.
For the Hamashites?
@Barry Meislin
Well MacGregor would know something about betrayal, wouldn’t he? Given how viciously he has smeared a number of his former colleagues, at least many of whom did not deserve it.
Which is fortunate because he really really does not know much about anything else, as those of us who have been following his nonsense attest.
It might be an attempt, but even the rumor of the Sampson Option and other things make it much harder to spin as an argument for abandoning it than as an argument for at least cooperating with it and trying to “manage” read hobble its responses. You know, the standard American policies, especially on the American Left.
What in High Holy Fuck is this argument?!?
Russia is “free” to threaten nuclear war for the same reason North Korea is: it is an authoritarian nuclear that possesses the means to credibly threaten deployment of WMD at least academically (I am assuming they have functioning weapons and delivery systems), and whose public and other powerful interest groups lack the means and often the desire to turf their regime out for such threats.
And likewise, the reason why nobody has gotten “overly exercised” over Russia threatening nuclear war is because much like North Korea and the Boy who Cried Wolf, it has done this a bunch of times before and not only not followed through but been humiliated over it. To be fair this is a part of most nuclear powers’ box of tricks (saber rattling and empty threats) but since the Soviet era the Kremlin has been particularly prone to it.
But it hasn’t manifested so far and particularly hasn’t manifested in Ukraine for a very few important reasons. Not only has its attempts at nuclear blackmail been rejected and even ridiculed by the West, but it has been publicly told off in increasingly harsh tones not just by the West but also important third party neutrals like India and even its allies/frenemies like the PRC and Pakistan who have told them in no uncertain terms (at least in public) to cut it the hell out.
And also because as deluded and propagandized as many people are both in and outside of Russia, including the leadership, they are not so deluded or propagandized to think literal nuclear World War will end well for them when they cannot take the likes of the last suburbs of Donetsk after nearly a decade of trying against what is at best a NATO-adjacent force.
So the Kremlin climbs down as subtly as possible, to the surprise of absolutely none of us who have been paying attention. Because it was crying wolf. Again.
I utterly loathe Biden more than most people and have for years, but the attempt to explain this nonsense through him speaks to a staggering lack of vision and an attempt to make the actions of the Kremlin and Russia’s own version of the Deep State the responsibility of just about anybody but said Kremlin leadership. Even if Biden is trying to use the Ukraine War for the stated purposes (which I think is likely of not outright proven) the bottom line is that he couldn’t force Putin to sign up for his “theatrical production”, and at most he could have dropped not so subtle hints to try and encourage him to follow in the directions Biden and his puppet masters deemed preferable.
I’ll also note that in some ways Ukraine and this war against Israel have at a minimum made the Left’s pivot to Iran somewhat more awkward because of the close ties between the Kremlin and Iran. In particular I pointed out loudly to a number of skeptics how Biden was throwing down fire and brimstone over Russia in Ukraine while still trying to negotiate a nuclear deal/steal with Iran hand in glove with the Russian government. And that’s before I get into Venezuela.
Ultimately politics is a multiplayer game and there can be many independent bad actors on the board at the time. Trying to make the Ukrainian War unicausally about Biden comes at the expense of ignoring how the war started back in 2014 and continued through Trump’s first term. Biden has certainly weighed in for his own nefarious purposes, but that doesn’t make the Ukraine war a production and it sure as hell doesn’t make him the playwright.
Agreed with caveats. Though I do not think he is the driving force behind this, especially given his state as a puppet.
Agreed there.
well he is articulating the establishment argument, soros schwab et al, the eu the un, and the archipelago of ngo’s
Malley wants the islamic bomb, so did his lieutenants bitar Tabatabai, the Quatari hire,
with almost forty years since the supposed fatwa, the mullahs have been slow on the ball
A thought: Why not use drones to eliminate Gazan tunnel rats?
Con: Drones require radio reception for direction
Solution: Create autonomous hunter-killer drones, I bet DARPA has been hard at work on this.
Con: Even if they were able to autonomously navigate the tunnels, they could be possibly taken out by rifle fire
Solution: Add a large enough self-destruct explosive sensitive to any malfunction once activated to bring down that section of tunnel the drone is in, i.e. a ‘dead man’s switch’.
Con: But Israel has to find the entrances in order to unleash such drones.
Solution: Ground-mapping radar to find those entrances close to the surface even if it can’t locate deeper tunnels?
I bet 007’s Q has an answer…
like that pawn shop gif, the best we can do is nuclear annihilation
Bill K:
A little bit if ClF3 in the tunnels would “go a long way.” Not too likely though, ClF3 is actually too dangerous for ordnance (IIRC).
Well here’s another variant: Put a camera and C4 on a toy Tonka truck, modify it to be wire-guided rather than wireless remote, send it down the entrance, drive it until a bad guy appears, then detonate it.
Kind of like a TOW missile for tunnels, independent of jamming? Would this work?
a good start
https://twitter.com/maxrodenbeck/status/1716824112436568470
Just another sick little puppy on the world stage…
“UN Secretary-General: Hamas attacks did not happen in a vacuum, but after occupation;
“UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres accuses Israel of war crimes, demands cease-fire, and blames Israel for the Hamas massacre.”—
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/379091
+ Bonus (a rhetorical question, actually):
“Are Our Journalists Idiots?”—
http://hurryupharry.net/2023/10/24/are-our-journalists-idiots/
I hadnt seen him in a while, no they are evil (tomato tomatoe)
‘am I the only one not on crazy pills’ they attack netanyahu presumably because he didn’t preemptively strike, and now they deny him justice because squirrel
“Obama warns: Some of Israel’s actions in Gaza could weaken support”
It can’t weaken Obama’s support because it has always been zero. Actually negative TBH.
@ Barry > “Are Our Journalists Idiots?”—
Yes.
Ben Rhodes told us so years ago.
https://www.mediaite.com/online/obama-advisor-openly-brags-about-lying-to-public-media-yawns/
In re Obama’s view of the situation – Andrew Stiles at his best.
https://freebeacon.com/democrats/obama-israel-hamas-gaza/