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It's not technically culture war, but Hamas has just attacked Israel en-masse, overwhelming the Iron Dome with 5000 rockets and even sending raiding parties into Israel. It looks like Haman and/or Shabak haven't done their job at all, and Israel has been caught with its pants down.
For the culture war angle, I think the biggest question is of retribution. On one hand, Israeli public will now demand a reaction that makes the ongoing Hamas attack pale in comparison. On the other hand, what can Israel do to a very densely populated Gaza strip that won't be branded as a war crime or ethnic cleansing?
That's probably how this will be remembered / talked about going forward, but discussion/forecasting regarding a third infatada has been increasing over the last year. It's just been overshadowed in the western media due to the war in Ukraine / focus on Israeli politics.
This is more operational surprise than strategic surprise. Iranian arms shipments to groups across the region hasn't exactly been a secret.
The tactical surprise is the relishing in brutality against civilians that's been part of the operation, including the raid shelter killings that have already been publicized. That sort of thing isn't intended to communicate valorous resistance to garner international solidarity, that's the sort of thing intended to provoke reactions expected to overshadow the initial atrocities in public memory.
Given that anything they do would be accused of being a war crime or ethnic cleansing regardless, that's probably not the deterring question it would have been a day ago. Especially given multiple examples of large-scale ethnic cleansing in the last year, and even in the last month, that so far have not exactly manifested any coordinated international response.
That's not to say Israel could get away with it- the gaza strip has an estimated 2 million people, which is almost as many as Armenia the country proper (2.7 million) and the middle east is not the global commons at all- nor is it to say Israel should even try, but it's not exactly the taboo guaranteed a universal response.
As for what Israel will do... I suspect that's going to depend on what Hezbollah does, and more importantly what Iran wants to happen. Hamas isn't quite the proxy that Hezbollah is, but I would be amazed if Hamas conducted this without significant pre-launch coordination with Iran.
God those videos are extremely brutal. Such videos should (but we all know they won't) convince everyone that the side of peace and kindness and treating other human beings well and general "stuff westerners say they like" here is Israel, not Palestine. If you want peace in the Middle East, they are the ones you should be supporting. Sure they are discriminatory etc., but the alternative is not Nordic style welfare democracy, it's literal Hamas, and compared to them, Israel are the good guys.
What's Israel's record with ME peace again? Annexing land off their neighbours, invading their neighbours, 'pre-emptively' bombing their neighbours? Something like 80-90% of Middle East interstate wars involved Israel, there was only Iran-Iraq and Gulf War 1 without Israeli involvement.
We shouldn't be supporting anyone in the Middle East who isn't going to give us something in return, this is a them problem. Supporting Israel causes us many problems: massive terror attacks, Arab oil embargoes and quagmire wars.
I think it’s possible for individuals to express statements of moral approval toward the methods Israel will need to deploy in this scenario, while also opposing any material support being transferred from Western countries to the IDF. I want Israel to handle this situation entirely on its own, and I want it to win. Do you believe that these desires are incompatible?
It's kind of ambiguous what he means here but I interpreted it as material support. Moral support alone can't achieve peace in the Middle East.
Your position is very clear.
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Now apply this reasoning to Rhodesia, South Africa, Algeria, Chechnya… Could it be that your idea of what Westerners (certainly their rulers) like is wrong?
The moral superiority of non-Whites is a foundational principle of Western civilization at this point. The only reason Israel even gets away with thus much is because it’s only partially European.
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I'm probably going to regret this, but do you have a link?
As always, rdrama to the rescue:
Main thread: https://rdrama.net/post/209674/redlight-israel-is-in-a-state
There are links to videos in the post. Further stuff in the comments. To save you a click here's a comment (by user @Awoo) with some links (more can be found on the full post/comments):
https://rdrama.net/post/209674/redlight-israel-is-in-a-state/5121370#context
Last one is footage of the dead in a shelter.
If you want everything as soon as it comes out watchpeopledie.co is where you want to go (full gore warning).
Damn. You weren't joking. That one dude twitching...
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