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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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To some extent I feel this is the only really interesting bit of this episode. And it does feel to me like there is another shoe to drop in the plan.

Butcher civilians and especially a bunch of good looking young females = Israel goes Old Testament on Gaza = ?????

The first Israel response seems an obvious second step in this event.

If Hamas had no foreign help then one could argue they hoped that Hezbolla and Iran would all jump into the fight. Hezbolla seems reluctant since who wants to jump into Old Testament wrath and Iran leader has strongly denied any involvement.

This play is lacking Act 3. Which would make sense if Hamas was hoping for Act 3 but didn’t plan with outside parties. The other alternative would be that Israel hasn’t done something too far to bring in Act 3 Casus Belli yet.

So far the only Act 3 has been some dumb Harvard students. Which basically helps Israel by outing some people that would support Palestine for punishment in the west (no jobs for those Harvard kids). It likely increased Trumps likelihood of being elected perhaps even pulling in some Jewish votes since he’s solid Israel.

I’ve upgraded this attack to truly a September 11 type event. Which helps Israel because it means they get to take the gloves off for the Old Testament Retribution. US had about 6-12 months of do wtf you want to global support.

Act 3 of the Hamas' ideal outcome involves international condemnation of Israeli human rights violations, televised slaughter of Arabs, and the hardliners within Saudi Arabia vetoing a normalizing of Israeli-Saudi relations. The beginnings of this were already visible in the Asian news tonight: the official Korean national broadcaster (KBS) had a segment focused on the blockade of humanitarian resources (with mention that fuel cuts impact hospitals) which segued into a report that Israel has dropped white phosphorous bombs. (The NYT reported one day ago that "the Israeli army denied the use of white phosphorus, saying soldiers had deployed only illumination flares." Footage was from broad daylight, so either the footage is old/repurposed, the denial is out of date, someone is lying and it was white phosphorous, or it was actually anti-SAM flares.)