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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1

This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.

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Alright a little war gaming here. Suppose Hamas launched these attacks in order to provoke Israel into invading Gaza. Having stockpiled weapons received from Iran including ATGM and S2A missles, has chosen Gaza as their battlefield, the middle eastern Stalingrad. The IDF goes into Gaza and takes a real beating, close urban warfare diminishing Israeli technological advantage.

With the IDF being bogged down in Gaza Hezbollah attacks from the north, or Israel makes some preemptive strikes, in any case Iran gets involved, mines the straight of Hormuz. US joins the fray and gets dragged in, China sees its opportunity and launches its invasion of Taiwan. Oil skyrockets and the US enters a hard recession. US/NATO weapon stockpiles and strategic oil reserve depleted, makes for a rough start to WW3.

What do you think happens domestically (in the US) and globally? I don't think there is enough political unity nor appetite for the US population to enter into another war. Will any other countries enter the conflict? IMO this would not end well for US hegemony.

In the short term it is going to be hilarious to see the Republicans be hypocrites, against Ukraine aid but fervently for Israeli aid and support.

Edit: Also curious what the mottizens think on how these current events, and the aforementioned hypotheticals, will affect the US 2024 election.

ALl of your post is basically incoherent. Israel is in control of all of the terms of engagement going forward. They never have to put a single troop into Gaza and yet could shell almost all of its landmass without committing a single warcrime, as almost all of Gaza is a military target. They also can do the same to the North and the East, as those are also legitimate military targets. The Arabs' only weapon is pity. If the international community is not idiotic dupes, Israel will win easily and everyone will be neutral/happy. If they are dupes, then Israel will have to put on lots of stupid trials demonstrating that, yes, Hamas/Hezbolla was housing rockets in an elementary school.

Of course, the "international community" is stupid, at best. Realistically, it is antisemetic and full of Israel haters. So they will have a mild uphill battle until Biden goes mask off and embraces Iran fully (as he wants to, but probably cannot realistically do). If that is the case the game will be very hard for Israel, but also its true enemy (American leftists) will be exposed and perhaps deposed.

I have heard claims that Israel simply lacks enough artillery to level Gaza, ostensiy because they donated a large chunk of their stockpile at the behest of the US to Ukraine.

How true that is, I don't know, and I sprinkled some salty disclaimers on it just in case.

I wonder if in the Republican primary someone like DeSantis will respond to Haley (who made the claim softness on Ukraine created this situation) something along the lines of:

Your constant war mongering has led to the situation where one of our closest allies lacks the means to fully engage a true existential threat because you gave all of our weapons to a corrupt regime with zero oversight to the point a decent amount of those weapons ended up in Hamas and the southern border. Only an idiot fights a war on two borders. Only the heir to the kingdom of idiots fights a war on 13 fronts. But that is always your policy notwithstanding how it puts us and our closest allies into worse positions. We cannot continue to fund Ukraine and Israel especially as it weakens our defenses (which we really need to worry about — this could spill out of control if Iran gets involved or China attacks Taiwan). This is similar to the pandemic. We need targeted aid; not just “fund everything”

Only the heir to the kingdom of idiots fights a war on 13 fronts.

Great reference.