The thing is, no military in the world could win this war. Destroying a terrorist organization fighting on their home turf with military might simply doesn’t work.
The US spent 20 years in Afghanistan. As soon as they gave up, the Taliban returned to power (not that they were ever fully out of power).
As early as October 8, people were saying that there was no way a full blown military offensive would end well for Israel.
Now, after 100 days, tens of thousands of deaths, loss of international standing, and a generational trauma that will harden anti-Israel sentiment among Palestinians for generations; Israel is realizing that their military aims are unachievable.
Even if Israel were to reverse course today, they cannot undo the damage they had done. Hamas was desperate in early October. Israel was normalizing relations with its neighboors. Palistinian rights were starting to enter the political mainstream. The corruption at the heart of Israel’s right wing government was in the public consious. These were all existential threats to Hamas.
With a single attack, Hamas managed to remove these all. Israel is on the verge of a regional war. Its regional friendly-ish countries have been distanced. Palestinian rights are once again anti-semetic. The Israeli body politic has been pushed further to the right (although they are miraculously still blaming the particular right wing government that got them into this specific mess)
And suppose Israel does manage to defeat Hamas. What happens then? Is a friendly state supposed to rise out of the ashes? Or we will just see another anti-Israel terrorist group thrive in the exact same environment that fostered Hamas?
If you think Palestinian rights was mainstream or in the public consciousness, particularly in Israel, you were severely misinformed about the situation. If anything, Palestinian rights had never been more ignored on the world stage. Israel had them in a slow chokehold, literally counting their calories, and there were absolutely no signs that that was ever going to stop. This is not even to mention the literally thousands of illegally detained and imprisoned Palestinians that Israel had.
The same goes for the corruption of the Israeli government. Their right-wing coalition had literally not been politically stronger, they were literally at the point of normalizing their relationship with Saudi Arabia, which regardless of whatever leadership crisis occured would have cemented right wing rule for the next decade at least.
Hamas had the choice between submitting to a slow death or doing what they had been elected all those years ago to do, fight for the rights of Palestinians and try to free the illegally detained Palestinians. Now everything is up in the air. Will they win? Idk. But they certainly aren’t going to submit to a quiet forgotten death.
The thing is, no military in the world could win this war. Destroying a terrorist organization fighting on their home turf with military might simply doesn’t work.
The US spent 20 years in Afghanistan. As soon as they gave up, the Taliban returned to power (not that they were ever fully out of power).
As early as October 8, people were saying that there was no way a full blown military offensive would end well for Israel.
Now, after 100 days, tens of thousands of deaths, loss of international standing, and a generational trauma that will harden anti-Israel sentiment among Palestinians for generations; Israel is realizing that their military aims are unachievable.
Even if Israel were to reverse course today, they cannot undo the damage they had done. Hamas was desperate in early October. Israel was normalizing relations with its neighboors. Palistinian rights were starting to enter the political mainstream. The corruption at the heart of Israel’s right wing government was in the public consious. These were all existential threats to Hamas.
With a single attack, Hamas managed to remove these all. Israel is on the verge of a regional war. Its regional friendly-ish countries have been distanced. Palestinian rights are once again anti-semetic. The Israeli body politic has been pushed further to the right (although they are miraculously still blaming the particular right wing government that got them into this specific mess)
And suppose Israel does manage to defeat Hamas. What happens then? Is a friendly state supposed to rise out of the ashes? Or we will just see another anti-Israel terrorist group thrive in the exact same environment that fostered Hamas?
A lot of this makes sense, but I’m confused by this:
What leads you to say so?
I was also thrown off by that part.
If you think Palestinian rights was mainstream or in the public consciousness, particularly in Israel, you were severely misinformed about the situation. If anything, Palestinian rights had never been more ignored on the world stage. Israel had them in a slow chokehold, literally counting their calories, and there were absolutely no signs that that was ever going to stop. This is not even to mention the literally thousands of illegally detained and imprisoned Palestinians that Israel had.
The same goes for the corruption of the Israeli government. Their right-wing coalition had literally not been politically stronger, they were literally at the point of normalizing their relationship with Saudi Arabia, which regardless of whatever leadership crisis occured would have cemented right wing rule for the next decade at least.
Hamas had the choice between submitting to a slow death or doing what they had been elected all those years ago to do, fight for the rights of Palestinians and try to free the illegally detained Palestinians. Now everything is up in the air. Will they win? Idk. But they certainly aren’t going to submit to a quiet forgotten death.