No news on Israel-Palestine stuff?

[Pekka]

Has everything been relatively calm? Can't remember seeing any big news about stuff there.

Are things going OK?

[chequita guevara]

Don't worry, my nemesis, they're still killing each other.

[Heraclitus]

There has to be some news.

[Sirotnikov]

one of the hamas operatives we killed lately turned out to be the son of mahmoud al-zahar (leading hamas figure in the gaza strip).
So Hamas increased the rocket showers and we increased our fire in return. happy days.
nothing especially new.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
one of the hamas operatives we killed lately turned out to be the son of mahmoud al-zahar (leading hamas figure in the gaza strip).

Maybe you'll get a little higher up the food chain next time.

[yaroslav]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
one of the hamas operatives we killed lately turned out to be the son of mahmoud al-zahar (leading hamas figure in the gaza strip).
So Hamas increased the rocket showers and we increased our fire in return. happy days.
nothing especially new.

I read (yesterday, IIRC) in Haaretz that Abbas took the opportunity and called al-zahar to offer him his condolences, and that this was the first time that Abbas officially spoke with someone from Hamas in a long time... Of course, there was people who thought that was an opportunity to make peace between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza

[Sirotnikov]

that won't last as hamas announced they 'uncovered a plot' by Fatah to assassinate PM Hanyeh (read: they are looking for an excuse to kill off more anti-Hamas crowd)

[Whoha]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Don't worry, my nemesis, they're still killing each other.

didn't he ask for news?

[Pekka]

What about a new strategy?

From outside countries that is. I think we should be saying to these guys that they must fight, they can't get along so they have to fight. Maybe it will have a different outcome? Who knows, but the old stuff hasn't been really working so time to change the strategy?

[Dr Strangelove]

IIRC Bush just got back from Israel. He gave negotiating peace between the Fatah regime in the West Bank and Israel a whopping 2 days of effort before proclaiming that working out a peace between Israel and Palestine was going to be really hard and that it would require tough sacrifices.

Clearly the man is in line for the next Nobel peace prize.

[Zevico]

Well Pekka, if that happens Israel takes over Gaza and the West Bank again. Bye bye Hamas; bye bye Fatah.
Consequences"
- No (or minimal, e.g. 1 per year) terrorism. After a while, much more tourists would probably come because of this==positive effect on Israeli economy.
- Economic costs of taking care of Gaza/West Bank==has negative effect on Israeli economy.
- Palestinian militia members get killed or imprisoned (good riddance).
- Palestinian civilians get killed in crossfire (not so good). In the long term, far less die because with Hamas/Fatah gone and a constant military presence things become peaceful as they were prior to the first intifidah a couple decades back. Israel returns to the paradoxical stability of that time--stuck in a deadlock with no way out of conflict. Palestinians still want to wipe out Israel. And so on and so forth until the apocalypse.
- Everyone *****es and moans.
- Everyone *****es and moans.
- Everyone *****es and moans.
- Everyone *****es and moans.
- Everyone *****es and moans.
- Everyone *****es and moans.

[Zevico]

also note that I'm a poly poster, not a strategician. Take my analysis with more than a grain of salt as I'm unaware of the exact (or possible ramifications) of these consequences. SO I don't know whether I'd support a direct military action by Israel, i.e. simply taking over the rest of the territories again.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Pekka
What about a new strategy?

From outside countries that is. I think we should be saying to these guys that they must fight, they can't get along so they have to fight. Maybe it will have a different outcome? Who knows, but the old stuff hasn't been really working so time to change the strategy?

I think that there's a good point in that.

Modern wars are usually not allowed to be fully played out by the international community. There is almost never a clear victor, and the winning side is not allowed to take actions to consolidate his victory once major hostilities ended.

This leads to a condition where no side is allowed to handle the final decisive blow, and effectively end the conflict - one way or another. The losing side is prevented from being totally crushed by international intervention, hoping that this will lead both sides to end hostilities and prevent unnecessary bloodshed.

What effectively happens is that the losing side, having not received a final blow, keeps hope, and refuses to accept loss and come to terms with a new reality.


For years now, losing sides do not accept defeat, and thus the conflict is never really over, because the reason for conflict is still there, and both sides are motivated to fight (one side thinks he's winning, and the other side thinks he hasn't really lost yet).

Instead of a clear victory and acceptance of a new terms of settlement, each conflict is dragged out into a long tedious low intensity guerilla battle, which does not end and in the long run, costs more innocent lives and brings about more bloodshed.

I think it is bad for the international community and I think it is really bad for the innocent civilians.

Imagine how many would have died if someone stopped WWII before the Nazi regime was crushed, and the Japanese have surrendered following the A-Bomb. There would have remained pockets of resistance and the conflict would have dragged on for years.

[Pekka]

Well surely that was just a joke

I mean take Japan and US for example. It was a case of succesful operation after the war, but it was extremely intrusive. They took out all the political hardliners, reformed the whole game, disbanded the shaibatsus (spelling?) power with the placed politicians, school reforms, take out the power of the emperor... just take out everything, except don't destroy it, don't demolish it, just shape it with the same folks, lift their economy and basically be friendly afterwards.

This doesn't apply to current situation. First of all, Japan was pretty much alone. Now, if you want ot do the same to an arab country, there's always a possibility of heated tensions outside the region that can have unpredictable following. Secondly, they would get support inside the region from outside regions. Not guns and money to a meaningful degree but ideological.

You don't want to totally submit the other one and take their pride and culture away. THat's how enemies forever are made.

Second of all, if Israel was fully unleashed on Palestine, I mean what kind of a fight is that? A modern army that is willing to go toe to toe against... what seems like bandits to me. So how do you do that exactly? HOw do you not piss off everyone in the process?

Thirdly, Palestinians are a people and currently dysfunctional body of the people in terms of authority and just order in general. You can't create a good base from that at the moment even if you could hand pick everyone. They would have no respect of the people anyway, so it won't work.

So no. I don't see a fair fight solving the problem, and it wouldn't be a fair fight to begin with. So no Siro, you aren't allowed to go and kill bunch of people

[yaroslav]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

I think that there's a good point in that.

Modern wars are usually not allowed to be fully played out by the international community. There is almost never a clear victor, and the winning side is not allowed to take actions to consolidate his victory once major hostilities ended.

This leads to a condition where no side is allowed to handle the final decisive blow, and effectively end the conflict - one way or another. The losing side is prevented from being totally crushed by international intervention, hoping that this will lead both sides to end hostilities and prevent unnecessary bloodshed.

What effectively happens is that the losing side, having not received a final blow, keeps hope, and refuses to accept loss and come to terms with a new reality.


For years now, losing sides do not accept defeat, and thus the conflict is never really over, because the reason for conflict is still there, and both sides are motivated to fight (one side thinks he's winning, and the other side thinks he hasn't really lost yet).

Instead of a clear victory and acceptance of a new terms of settlement, each conflict is dragged out into a long tedious low intensity guerilla battle, which does not end and in the long run, costs more innocent lives and brings about more bloodshed.

I think it is bad for the international community and I think it is really bad for the innocent civilians.

Imagine how many would have died if someone stopped WWII before the Nazi regime was crushed, and the Japanese have surrendered following the A-Bomb. There would have remained pockets of resistance and the conflict would have dragged on for years.

I agree that sometimes a final blow is needed for peace to come. Another example that comes to mind: if there was no German military men that though they were backstabbed due to the surrender of Germany in WWI - i.e., if WWI would have continued a few weeks more, maybe there would have not been a WWII.

However, I think that that, at historical point we are now, it will not be possible to make the clock go back and destroy Hamas and Fatah. It would have been interesting, if Israel wanted to separate herself from Gaza and West Bank, that the people in charge would have been the non-PLO local administration that Israel setup before the Oslo Teatry instead of Araft. That would have created a very different scenario, and, maybe, there would be peace right now.