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Trump, breaking with Netanyahu, acknowledges ‘real starvation’ in Gaza. Reddit discussion.
This makes him the first right winger I've seen say anything about starvation after something happened recently that made lots of places start talking about it, maybe the move to GHF food distribution? I can't really trust the UN when they talk about it, since they may have been still pissed that Israel cut UNRWA out, plus I heard it was only two dedicated Gaza writers putting out statements of that kind. I can't really trust leftists when they post about it, because they fail to show me their homework and seem to argue a very motivated stance. But Trump talking about it... I don't know about that either. He has spoken off the cuff before. But it brings me to ask: how bad is it? What footage did he see and is it reflected in the data?
Supposing that there is starvation: is that Israel's intention? What is Israel's strategy going forward? I thought that making camps to move civilians into was a good idea, and then once everyone's out, painstakingly clear the whole place, but I think that the international community wouldn't accept that because it's technically ethnic cleansing. There isn't actually anything the international community would be satisfied by except for total ceasefire and return to October 6th. But I don't actually know what the intention is, is the intention to draw Hamas out of hiding to get to the food somehow? I have a hard time discerning what is true about the war and what isn't.
Eh, they're not "release the hostages" starving yet.
About as insightful a comment as "Eh, they are not 'free Palestine' raped yet" would have been about Oct 7th.
There are several parallel subthreads already discussing to what extent the starvation actually affects Hamas, and you choose to ignore them and instead post this Twitter-level dunk.
If Hamas had the military power to actually accomplish this, that would make their actions less pointlessly evil. The fact that Hamas' power is limited to terrorizing a few unarmed civilians and then scampering away in impotent terror when the real soldiers show up is, itself, the problem. The fact that they're too weak to have any chance of victory is the reason why their futile war crimes are so heinous. It's one thing to commit a necessary evil in order to liberate your people from oppression. It's another, much worse thing to commit a pointless evil just for the sake of doing it.
As Talleyrand once said of another act of self-destructive violence against civilians: "It was worse than a crime; it was a mistake."
I'm sure the USA thought the Vietcong were too weak to have a chance of victory. Or the British/Russians/USA vs their flavor of Afghani opposition.
I do actually agree with you in this case, but it's kind of a funny claim to make when we have no idea how this ends.
Anyone making confident calls about any of the insurgencies I listed above partway through ended up very wrong.
The Viet Cong didn't win, the Americans got tired of fighting and gave up. The Viet Cong never landed a single boot on American soil. There was never any question of the Viet Cong conquering America. In the sense that the Palestinians are too weak to conquer Israel, the Viet Cong were too weak to conquer America.
The difference between Hamas and the Viet Cong is that Hamas has invaded Israeli soil and killed Israeli civilians. The Israelis can't get tired of fighting and give up like the Americans did in Vietnam. If they could, they would have done it already. Hamas and its various sister organizations like Hezbollah will continue to attack Israel until one or the other is annihilated. Ergo, the Israelis have no choice but to continue fighting.
That is winning. It's a shitty unglamorous way to win, but they accomplished their objectives, and America did not. The Americans could have stuck around and stamped them into oblivion with unlimited political will, but they didn't have it, so they left.
I agree but also don't. Money and political will aren't infinite, they'll have to pull back and scale down eventually. The only way this really ends-ends is genocide, and they can't do that, so they'll have to give up eventually.
They can pull back, but they'll be fighting again when Hamas starts another war in a few months or years. There is no losing interest and giving up against an enemy that threatens your homeland.
If the Viet Cong had done 9/11 we would have turned their jungle into a parking lot.
Yes exactly
Hence my opinion that the Israeli strategy is bad because it's inherently unsustainable and also profoundly not going to resolve anything.
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My understanding is that the Viet Cong was stamped into oblivion in the aftermath of Tet, and American was defeated by the North Vietnamese, who didn't actually need the Viet Cong given the complete failure to build a South Vietnam that the South Vietnamese were willing to fight for.
Sure
My knowledge of the Vietnam war is shaky at best. My point is that insurgencies can win just by surviving and running out the clock
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