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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   31380 thread views

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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As we’ve discussed, the IDF will be humiliated if they go into Gaza on foot, and I say that as someone very sympathetic to Zionism. It’s a losing move.

I've seen lots of anticipation of a ground operation, but very little in the way of what its actual goals would be. What would the IDF's success criteria be, short of "roll in and flatten any buildings that return fire until either an unconditional surrender is reached, or no buildings are left"? I don't think global opinion is going to give them quite that much of a leash. Are there specific targets they might want to get their hands boots on?

What would the IDF's success criteria be?

Something in line with their 2020 Decisive Victory doctrine.

To wipe out the Gazans as a people while making it look like collateral damage.

Not an easy job given the shape of their population pyramid.

Even unconditional surrender wouldn't help. Suppose the surviving leaders of Hamas surrender and actually honor it. In very short order you'll have some new organization appearing to continue the fight.

Aren't a lot of Hamas's leadership living abroad in Qatar, Turkey, and elsewhere?

Yes, but it is more important that they are irrelevant. If all of them were magicked out of existence, a replacement class of grifter-terrorists would quickly emerge to soak up aid money and attempt to kill Jews. The only solution is complete isolation of Gaza from all foreign aid for decades or total ethnic cleansing of either Gaza or Israel.

Gaza is already "ethnically cleansed". The word you're looking for is "genocide". I expect ethnically cleansing Israel (that is, moving all the Jews elsewhere) and giving the Palestinians their "river to sea" would probably work as far as Jews are concerned (they'd probably step up attacks on Lebanese and Egyptian Christians though, or just turn on other Muslim Arabs). Except you'd never get the Jews to agree.

No, I am perfectly happy shipping all of the populace of Gaza to China or Antarctica.

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