Israeli Police Beat 15 year old American Citizen

[Al B. Sure!]

So Israel is not trying to have peace and stop Hamas and other terrorist organizations from threatening them? I didn't imagine you would be so blatant in accepting Oncle Boris' analysis.

[regexcellent]

It's just so baffling that he sees everything in terms of COIN. I am curious if this is due to his lack of imagination or a consequence of his training focusing entirely on the last war.

So Israel is not trying to have peace and stop Hamas and other terrorist organizations from threatening them? I didn't imagine you would be so blatant in accepting Oncle Boris' analysis.

Hamas is a de facto government. It's a terrorist organization, but it's not an insurgency, and any COIN tactics you may have learned are totally irrelevant.

Look, when we were in Iraq and Afghanistan, the fool's errand we were on was propping up their civilian governments which ostensibly supported us. Israel is doing something very different. It is facing a HOSTILE government on its border which periodically launches attacks against its civilian population. Its goal is to stop the attacks on its civilians from across the border with a minimum of force. It doesn't need to win hearts and minds, it needs to kill the people shooting at it. In terms of suicide bombers and terrorist attacks that take the form other than rockets and mortars, for the most part the Israeli police are more than adequate to the task.

When the Japanese shot a bunch of torpedoes at our ships in Pearl Harbor, the correct answer wasn't to "win over the hearts and minds of the Japanese people" and let them see the error of their ways, it was to destroy their ability to wage war. That's what Israel is doing now: destroying weapons.

[Al B. Sure!]

Let's take a step back, grow up, and explain what you think is going on.

I was under the impression that Israel wanted to stop Hamas and other organizations from using rockets, IED's, and suicide bombers against the Israeli population. Is that or is that not their goal? Is that goal not also related to the goal of having peace between Israel and Palestine? In my mind, the two are the same and you cannot stop Hamas without simultaneously ensuring peace. Please explain how they are different.

Now, how are they going about achieving that goal? How should they be going about achieving it?

A war of attrition against terrorism, by attempting to kill every single terrorist, is not feasible. Are you arguing it is? If so, I contend that history has shown that military action alone is insufficient to stop terrorism. Killing terrorists, especially when done in a manner that agitates the population from which the terrorists originate, only produces more terrorists. You kill someone who hates you and his brother or his son will take up arms against you, if for no other reason than revenge. You would instead have to kill not only every terrorist, but every potential terrorist, which would quickly amount to genocide. Do you disagree with this? Why?

Instead, the only way to defeat terrorists like Hamas is to isolate them from their base of support in the civilian population. You need to win over the people to 1) not support the terrorists (critical) and 2) support your cause instead (ideally). In other words, you need to win the hearts and minds of the people so they stop harboring, aiding, and serving as a near-infinite recruiting base for terrorist organizations. Do you disagree with this and why?

It appears to me that Israel has completely missed the point. They seem to think they can kill every terrorist, no one else will take up arms against them, and the organizations will vanish out of simple fear of the Israeli military. I contend this because I see no evidence of a civil affairs mission to the IDF, no cooperation with Palestinian authorities to stop terrorist organizations, and no evidence of a hearts and minds campaign. Instead, I only see directed military action. Is that analysis wrong?

[Fake Boris]

Regina's post is true except for the 100% part that is unsubstantiated.

[Bereta_Eder]

(not really threadjacking)

Another point that has shifted european foreign policy is energy geopolitical dependency. Ukranian crisis HAS indeed sent goosebumps all over. The leviathan depository in the eastern mediterranean is supposed to hold vast amounts of natural gas reserves that can "feed" europe for years.
In order for this to happen it needs the collaboration of israel, cyprus (and ****ed in the ass greece). turkey is being considered a bit unstable to work with israel, arabs are generally not trusted so you have israel and two bankrupt nations "holding the gates" so to say.
and it is immideate. in two years the whole energy landscape could change if this goes through.
so... geopolitics once more dictate above morals sometimes

[Fake Boris]

For Regina, with love:

Legend and explanation available here

[Al B. Sure!]

When the Japanese shot a bunch of torpedoes at our ships in Pearl Harbor, the correct answer wasn't to "win over the hearts and minds of the Japanese people" and let them see the error of their ways, it was to destroy their ability to wage war. That's what Israel is doing now: destroying weapons.

How can Israel feasibly destroy every single mortar and rocket system in Gaza and ensure no more are produced or purchased? How can they also control the importation of black market mortars? The world is filled with literally millions of Soviet small arms available at very low costs.

And those rocket systems used by Hamas are locally produced and designed to be made easily, at low cost, and with few materials:

The aim of the Qassam rocket design appears to be ease and speed of manufacture, using common tools and components. To this end, the rockets are propelled by a solid mixture of sugar and potassium nitrate, a widely available fertilizer. The warhead is filled with smuggled or scavenged TNT and urea nitrate, another common fertilizer. This is close to Ammonite.[15]

The rocket consists of a steel cylinder, containing a rectangular block of the propellant. A steel plate which forms and supports the nozzles is then spot-welded to the base of the cylinder. The warhead consists of a simple metal shell surrounding the explosives, and is triggered by a fuse constructed using a simple firearm cartridge, a spring and a nail.[15]

While early designs used a single nozzle which screwed into the base, recent rockets use a seven-nozzle design, with the nozzles drilled directly into the rocket baseplate. This change both increases the tolerance of the rocket to small nozzle design defects, and eases manufacture by allowing the use of a drill rather than a lathe during manufacture due to the smaller nozzle size. However due to the cone shape of each of the 7 nozzles, each nozzle's inside must be made with a lathe, or else the interior of the nozzle would be cylindrical rather than conical (see rocket engine nozzle). Unlike many other rockets, the nozzles are not canted, which means the rocket does not spin about its longitudinal axis during flight. While this results in a significant decrease in accuracy, it greatly simplifies rocket manufacture and the launch systems required.[15]

Cost
The cost of the materials used for manufacturing each Qassam is up to $800 or €500 (in 2008-9) per rocket.[16][17]

Do you really think it is possible for Israel to eliminate every single Qassam rocket and ensure no more are ever produced without a permanent occupation?


Making the Palestinians not hate Israel seems like a less Sisyphean task!

[Dinner]

here again we see the shifting of blame, an honest title would be simply:

There is no shifting of blame just cause and effect. Hamas knows what will result from its rocket attacks but it keeps doing them anyway and no nation on Earth would accept constantly being attacked without a military response. The blame lies squarely, and solely, upon Hamas.

[Fake Boris]

There is no shifting of blame just cause and effect. Hamas knows what will result from its rocket attacks but it keeps doing them anyway and no nation on Earth would accept constantly being attacked without a military response. The blame lies squarely, and solely, upon Hamas.

And I guess Israel "doesn't know" what results from stealing people's land.

[Fake Boris]

More seriously, it's been shown that Palestine is extremely disorganized and suffers from internal tensions. Its fighting forces are mostly paramilitary organizations that do not always respond to orders from above, including cease-fire orders.

[Dinner]

And I guess Israel "doesn't know" what results from stealing people's land.

Palestinians had their chance to make peace, numerous times, the offers were great offers authored by Bill Clinton and Billy Carter before that but they refused because they wanted to continue to try to destroy the state of Israel. You can't make peace with such fanatics and all you can do is increase the cost of their intransigence. Thus you keep building facts on the ground and make sure they keep losing more and more until they finally agree to peace. Other wise there is no real cost to their terrorism. It will be a glorious day when the barbarians in Palestine decide they'd rather have peace than war but until then they are the authors of their own demise and they are unworthy of any sympathy or consideration what so ever. They know how to make it stop and all they have to do is agree to peace; they repeatedly have refused to do so... So ****'em.

[DinoDoc]

Making the Palestinians not hate Israel seems like a less Sisyphean task!

There will be no peace until Palestinians learn to love their children more than they hate the Jews.

[Al B. Sure!]

Wow you're really intelligent, DinoDoc. Great response to my lengthy post. You really showed me how Israel can destroy the Palestinian's capacity for making war, even though their rockets are propelled by sugar and fertilizer for god's sake and Soviet small arms cost a few hundred dollars!

Yup. Israel and Palestine is just like the US and Japan. It's a conventional 3rd generation war where if you blow up enough ships, tanks, planes, and logistical nodes you win a war of industrial attrition!

[Fake Boris]

Okay DD, tell us, in a concrete matter, what does Palestine need to do and under what terms a peace treaty should be signed?

[Dinner]

He's absolutely correct too as well as more efficient at writing than you.

When Palestinians learn to love their children more than they hate the Jews then peace will be possible but not before because it is impossible to make peace when one side continues to demand the other side all be killed.