Latest Middle East Thread

[Naked Gents Rut]

Taking Gaza is just a waste of soldiers' lives unless you man up and kick the Palestinians out.

[PLATO]

Please don't stop! End this crap once and for all. I am so tired of Israel knocking these organizations back a year or two and then having them resurface again and the cycle starts all over. I really thought this time you guys meant to handle it. Stupid international community....

[Imran Siddiqui]

Taking Gaza is just a waste of soldiers' lives unless you man up and kick the Palestinians out.

2) the complexity of who will be in charge of the strip after Hamas is gone, which no one is willing to handle, and we don't want the honor either.

They don't want to kick the Pals out because then they'll have to be in charge of the area.

[Zevico]

Destruction of Hamas as a Political/Military force: FAIL!

Not a stated or implicit aim of the war, nor was it at any point.

Release of Corporal Gilad Shalit: FAIL!

Not a stated or implicit aim of the war, nor was it at any point.

Time to dismantle the West Bank, East Jerusalem settlements and Wall and return to the '67 borders?

Israelis and Palestinians will not have peace if Israel simply dismantled some settlements, or even all of the settlements. Fatah-supporting Palestinians call for a Palestinian Right of Return into Israel, permitting Palestinian 1948 refugees and their descendants to enter the country, and they are quite happy to kill Israelis until they get it. Israelis are unwilling to have their state turned into a Palestinian state. Hamas-supporting Palestinians call for a period of endless war until the destruction of the Jewish State and, for that matter, its democratic institutions.
Of course if you think that a Jewish state is unacceptable and that Palestinians should kill themselves and indoctrinate their children into a death cult so they can kill Jews [the aim of destroying the state being decades from the agenda] then of course the Palestinians' aims and methods are perfectly reasonable.

[Naked Gents Rut]

They don't want to kick the Pals out because then they'll have to be in charge of the area.

Why wouldn't they want to be in charge of empty territory?

[GePap]

Also I'll remind you that Hezbullah is sitting scared.
In 2006 Hezbullah got involved after we made a much smaller incursion into Gaza.

This time Hezbullah feared to risk getting kicked by Israel, and sat quietly. 2 times a palestinian organization fired on Israel, and Hezbullah was quite in a hurry to declare that it wasn't them and that they would never do that...

They are also sitting with more power in Lebanon than before August 2006 and will likely win the upcoming elections, perhaps to the point of driviong the March 14 movement from power. Yeah, poor Hezbullah.

The same will happen in Gaza. Hamas won't be driven from power politically. If anything, one of the biggest losers from all this was Fatah, which was shown to be utterly irrelevant.

[GePap]

So Siro, why do you think Palestinians will behave differently than Israelis when it comes to caving in to violence? If you think that most Palestinians in Gaa will blame Hamas more than the IDF and Israel for the vast destruction and death, then you clearly don't pay attention to Arab sources.

[Sirotnikov]

They are also sitting with more power in Lebanon than before August 2006 and will likely win the upcoming elections, perhaps to the point of driviong the March 14 movement from power. Yeah, poor Hezbullah.

What ever their political status in Lebanon, they sure as hell didn't want to get into another war with Israel so they sat still.

We don't mind they rule Lebanon as long as the border is secure.

Before 2006 there was this sharade, where it seemed that the Lebanese government ruled Lebanon, while Hezbullah was actually freely ravaging the southern border, and felt much more free to commit attacks across the border to Israel.

Right now, the fact that Hezbullah is in charge is possibly assisting in keeping the peace. They have much to lose. They can't behave like madmen, and they can't go out on agression wars without major public support. Factually, this restrains them.

The realization of the public, and of Hezbullah that an attack on Israel means no holds barred, restrains them even more.

So, while Hezbullah is possibly more capable and better armed than in 2006, they lack the "courage" they once had to provoke Israel, because the result of such an attack is clear as sunlight.

The same will happen in Gaza. Hamas won't be driven from power politically. If anything, one of the biggest losers from all this was Fatah, which was shown to be utterly irrelevant.

Fatah was shown to be utterly irrelevant in July 2007 when Hamas fighters slaughtered Fatah people, cut their throats, threw them from building tops, and chased them in their undies unto Israeli check points.

If you are correct, that the Gaza population miraculously decides Hamas made a right choice to break the cease fire in November, and will continue to think that sending rockets onto Israel does them good, then they have bigger issues.

Stopping rocket fire, accepting an anti-arms smuggling over-sight, and releasing Gilad Shalit, will get all Israeli restrictions lifted in a matter of days, and we could quietly coexist for eternity.
I'm even willing to bet Israel would release a whole lot of prisoners, as a good-will measure, even if a deal would not be signed, and Shalit's release will be one-sided.

[Sirotnikov]

So Siro, why do you think Palestinians will behave differently than Israelis when it comes to caving in to violence? If you think that most Palestinians in Gaa will blame Hamas more than the IDF and Israel for the vast destruction and death, then you clearly don't pay attention to Arab sources.

There's a difference between caving in to violence and learning lessons about what to do and what not to do.

Israel did not cave in to Hezbullah violence, but it certainly learned good lessons regarding how to protect its interests vs. Hezbullah. Btw, Hezbullah did the same. Which is why, if there is aggression now, it is discrete, and civilian population is not risked.

If Israeli civilian population will be harmed, Hezbullah will suffer immensely.

Regarding my attention to Arab sources - I pay attention to those Arab sources who honestly discuss their situation, and not Al-Manar and Al-Jazeera types who promote the official moqauama line.

On a personal note, I doubt you have watched more arab or palestinian TV, read more arab language forums, newspapers etc, than me.

Mind you, I'm not waiting for an anti-Hamas coup - that is not realistic. But whatever hatred Gazan's feel towards Jews, their leadership will have plenty to ponder about when weighing their tactics.

As for the public - Hamas promised them improvement and brought none. Hamas said that continuous provocation would bear fruit, but it brought war. Hamas claimed their government would rid of the Fatah corruption, but they themselves proved to be corrupt, and intolerant.

I doubt this war does Hamas a favor.

Does it do Israel a favor in the eyes of the average Gazan? A big No. But we hadn't much to lose anyway. And we really did what we could to avoid unnecessary casualties, including an advance warnings, including using smaller and more exact bombs, including dropping hollow bombs to warn people to get away.

Obviously a war in a civilian area will not come without civilian casualties. And it's a shame it has come to this.

[GePap]

What ever their political status in Lebanon, they sure as hell didn't want to get into another war with Israel so they sat still.

We don't mind they rule Lebanon as long as the border is secure.

Yeah, and what kind of long term security can you have as Hezbullah secures itself in Lebanon?

Right now, the fact that Hezbullah is in charge is possibly assisting in keeping the peace. They have much to lose. They can't behave like madmen, and they can't go out on agression wars without major public support. Factually, this restrains them.

The realization of the public, and of Hezbullah that an attack on Israel means no holds barred, restrains them even more.

So, while Hezbullah is possibly more capable and better armed than in 2006, they lack the "courage" they once had to provoke Israel, because the result of such an attack is clear as sunlight.

I doubt that Hezbullah lacks "the courage" as you claim. Its leadership isn't stupid. You are correct that Hezbullah will think twice about taking direct military action against Israel, but then, Nasrallah got most of what he wanted from his raid in 2006. He doesn't need to continually seek direct confrontation with Israel to fulfill his organization's plans.

If you are correct, that the Gaza population miraculously decides Hamas made a right choice to break the cease fire in November, and will continue to think that sending rockets onto Israel does them good, then they have bigger issues.

Stopping rocket fire, accepting an anti-arms smuggling over-sight, and releasing Gilad Shalit, will get all Israeli restrictions lifted in a matter of days, and we could quietly coexist for eternity.
I'm even willing to bet Israel would release a whole lot of prisoners, as a good-will measure, even if a deal would not be signed, and Shalit's release will be one-sided.

The problem here is that Israels leadership is engaged in a campaign for quick fixes while at the same time making the long term fixes harder and harder.

You are buying quite in the short term at the cost of empowering the radicals in the Arab world every day. The fact that most Arab states ignored Egyptian and Saudi calls to skip the Qatar meeting and that Khaled Meshal gave a speech in front of all those assembled leaders shows how the "moderate" Arab states are the ones now in the defensive.

[trev]

There is never a winner in these wars, only losers, in this case the losses on the side of Hamas was much greater than Israels losses, therefore some people may consider that Israel won. Certainly Israel will have gained some respite from Hamas attacks for a year or two.
Tactically Israel done much better in this incursion than in previous incursions, I was very surprised at the extremely low losses of life of Israeli soldiers due to Hamas defence of Gaza, Hamas would have expected to inflict much higher casualties. Hamas military planners will spend some time reassessing their tactics which have been shown to have failed miserably. While they do that Israel will suffer less from rocket attacks.
My chief concern is that the war has boosted support for a government that has failed over several years to manage Israeli security and the nation generally and for that should get rebuffed at the ballot box. I am not sure whether there are better alternatives, but considering the last few years, they do need to vote in more capable leadership.
The prime purpose of this war, although unstated was to boost support for the current government parties, in this it has achieved success for the parties, though not necessarily for the nation.

[Naked Gents Rut]

There is never a winner in these wars, only losers

That's only because international law and opinion won't allow for one side to win. The only way to win a war in this day in age is to be lucky enough to fight your war in an area of the world that the international community doesn't care about or to ignore international opinion altogether. Unfortunately, neither is really an option for Israel.

[PLATO]

There is never a winner in these wars, only losers

That's only because international law and opinion won't allow for one side to win. The only way to win a war in this day in age is to be lucky enough to fight your war in an area of the world that the international community doesn't care about or to ignore international opinion altogether. Unfortunately, neither is really an option for Israel.

Exactly.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Exactly.

exactly?!?

won't allow for one side to win

well if we did win wars like we "used to"... we'd be born in Fallout IV already.

[Q Classic]

we already had around 6 rockets today.

we're giving them some time to blow off steam, and we have to cater the international community.

we now have 6 heads of state in Jerusalem, and they can witness for themselves that Hamas does not respect the cease fire.

If hamas won't chill, he'll get chilled even more. we're in perfect position to take Gaza, street by street.

They didn't respect the cease-fire before, and you expect the world to suddenly realize this?

If Hamas laid down its arms, I'm fairly confident Israel wouldn't bother them; but I highly doubt that Israel could disarm and still survive as an entity.

That said, this most recent conflagration had faults on both sides, which I'll admit... it's not like sealing off Gaza was an exceptionally gentle thing to do. That said, when no rockets were fired, the borders did ease a bit, so.