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Notes -
There is a lot of talk right now about whether the Israel-Hamas ceasefire / hostage release deal is a good thing or not.
One thing I don't see brought up is that maybe the best thing for Israel to do would be to sign the deal, get the hostages back, and then immediately just ignore the deal and spend the next couple of years killing every Hamas member on the face of the planet.
I don't really see much downside. What would people do in the future as a result? Not trust Israel as a deal-maker? By and large, groups that would be in the position to sign a deal with Israel already either don't trust Israel or have no choice because Israel has overwhelming military force. Political entities generally do not sign peace agreements because they trust each other, they sign peace agreements because they view doing so as being better than the alternatives.
Another possible downside would be that in the future, groups would just kill Israelis instead of taking any hostages... but again, would this really be that bad for Israel? Would 10/7 have been much worse for Israel if Hamas had killed every single person that they ended up taking hostage immediately instead of taking them hostage? Well yes, for the few currently surviving hostages it would have been worse, but I figure that overall probably more Israeli lives would be saved by Israel making it clear that hostage taking is an ineffective approach than by Israel right now signing a deal that effectively signals that taking Israeli hostages has some degree of effectiveness.
I hope they do. The frustration of the whole thing is that because Hamas survived and is getting a deal, they’re going to use this plan again. It essentially worked. They’re getting their prisoners released, most of who, are members of Hamas, the Strip will be rebuilt, and they not only get to keep power, but because they have the sympathy of the Arab world, can rearm easily.
At the same time, Israel has essentially capitulated. They get nothing except the hostages. They are also much more hamstrung as to what kinds of action can be taken when Hamas rearms for another round. The propaganda networks are in place, and the Palestinians have learned to play PR rope a dope by making sure that anything Israel does is seen as genocide.
They don't actually need to "play PR rope a dope" - what Israel is doing is nakedly and obviously an attempt at ethnic cleansing and genocide, to the point that high-ranking officials admit it and are currently wailing and moaning that they won't be able to continue the genocide due to the hostages being returned. When Israel starts talking about concentration camps and preparing settlers for the parts of Gaza they flattened and bulldozed, people don't need Yahya Sinwar whispering in their ears that something is wrong in order for them to correctly and accurately label something an attempted genocide. The majority of the civilised world can just look at the footage and evidence of what's happening in Gaza and call it what it is, and they would still have been able to do so even if all the Palestinian journalists had been killed.
It really was extraordinary just how many “Palestinian journalists” were killed. How many there were in general, even. There appeared to be more “Palestinian journalists” in Gaza than American journalists in NYC, which is quite impressive given that there are likely more in NYC than in any other Western city. Every third man in Gaza appears to have been a Palestinian journalist.
I mean the bigger deal is that Journalist is now a protected class on the same order of Doctors, Clergy and Messengers. It is definitely just a coincidence that the moral case for this class upgrade was promulgated by journalists themselves.
Its the same as Women and Children. Given the footage of fi refights, it seems that Gaza has speedrun progressivism by allowing gender conversions for its fighters, and even age conversion for its grown men to suddenly be 'children'.
Hind Rajab's death was reported on CNN as "the death of a Palestinian woman" despite her being five years old. In the mainstream media at least the opposite of this was true, but I'm very willing to believe that it was the case on social media.
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