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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29425 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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For those who haven't seen it - drone footage of the aftermath of the music festival attack (no gore): https://twitter.com/samueloakford/status/1711174266706682029

I have to admit I've been moving from a position of sympathy for Gaza towards more sympathy for Israel in the last years, and this attack perfectly exemplifies the reasons why.

Israel aims to destroy military targets, and at most you can complain about a lack of concern for civilians. Though in general they at least attempt to minimize civilian casualties. Hamas actively targets civilians, gleefully massacres them en masse, and then parades their naked bodies through the streets where common people spit on their corpses, so it isn't even just Hamas specifically. And they happily put all of it online, where other arabs cheer them on. WTF would you even attack a music festival?

On top, even when an Israeli attack kills a large number of civilians, you'll often find out that it's because Hamas deliberately put a military base inside a civilian building, actively aiming for this outcome.

Sure the Israelis also have plenty of questionable tactics such as the creeping settlements in the west bank, but everything they do just seems so much ... saner in comparison. It's the difference between a cutthroat CEO who'll backstab you in a corporate deal when it is beneficial for him to do so, and the murderhobo who'll physically backstab you because you were the nearest person and fuck jews, that's why.

How is demolishing mosques, spitting on Christians, urinating on dead Palestinians and bombing entire apartment buildings less gruesome? Israel is far more violent and kills far more Palestinians while there war has a much bigger impact on Palestinian expansion.

How is demolishing mosques, spitting on Christians, urinating on dead Palestinians and bombing entire apartment buildings less gruesome?

Body gore prominence seems like an obvious one. Self-congratulatory spectacle presentation of the corpses is another. Israelis typically aren't doing their misdeed to chants of how great their god is over the bodies of the victims, and that's without their established roof-knock technique.

I would be curious which mosque demolishment or Christian spitting or urination incident you felt was more gruesome than, say, the Palestinians' self-advertised raid shelter results. One category is boorish, and the other might as well have come out of Daesh propaganda.

It's rather unfortunate that Jihadis have the habit of yelling 'Allahu Akbar' every time they're on video. I know intellectually that they're saying the equivalent of 'praise the Lord', but now the phrase is just burned into my brain as the thing that young Arab men say when they're desecrating a corpse.

I don't think that's "unfortunate" so much as a feature of Islam's historic role and self-image as a totalizing religion of conquest. Sure, there are plenty of examples of Muslim subcultures that have evolved past that conception, but it's not like it's weird for a conquering Islamic force to praise their God while they put their enemies to the sword. While this might be in bad taste now, it's not new:

Historically, the takbir has been used as a cry of victory.[23] Ibn Ishaq's Life of Mohammed narrates at least two incidents in which it was so used.

"When the apostle raided a people he waited until the morning. If he heard a call to prayer he held back; if he did not hear it he attacked. We came to Khaybar by night, and the apostle passed the night there; and when morning came he did not hear the call to prayer, so he rode and we rode with him, and I rode behind Abu Talha with my foot touching the apostle's foot. We met the workers of Khaybar coming out in the morning with their spades and baskets. When they saw the apostle and the army they cried, 'Muhammad with his force,' and turned tail and fled. The apostle said, 'Allah akbar! Khaybar is destroyed. When we arrive in a people's square it is a bad morning for those who have been warned.'" (page 511) "So he got off his horse and came at him and 'Ali advanced with his shield. 'Amr aimed a blow which cut deeply into the shield so that the sword stuck in it and struck his head. But 'Ali gave him a blow on the vein at the base of the neck and he fell to the ground. The dust rose and the apostle heard the cry, 'Allah Akbar' and knew that 'Ali had killed him." (page 456)[24]

WTF would you even attack a music festival?

There are a lot of attractive young women at music festivals and it's a soft target. This seems like the most straightforward answer and I haven't heard any alternative explanations.

Sure the Israelis also have plenty of questionable tactics such as the creeping settlements in the west bank, but everything they do just seems so much ... saner in comparison. It's the difference between a cutthroat CEO who'll backstab you in a corporate deal when it is beneficial for him to do so, and the murderhobo who'll physically backstab you because you were the nearest person and fuck jews, that's why.

Some of this disparity will be pretty similar to the disparity between a CEO destroying someone and a murderhobo destroying someone - the rich guy has a lot more tools at his disposal, many more options, and the competence to do it while maintaining the position that he's acting legally and reasonably and that you're the lunatic for losing your temper. Don't get me wrong, I remain firmly on the Israeli side of things, but the asymmetry of position is pretty clear.

WTF would you even attack a music festival?

They probably didn't know it was one. It was just there and easy to hit as a soft target.

The Hamas objective appears to have been to kill as many civilians as possible, to maximize the initial terror and perception of Israeli impotence. This, in turn, is likely for the strategic purpose of derailing Saudi-Israeli normalization, which has been in the works for some time. It may have also had a tertiary goal of trying to draw out an assessed increase of Palestinian support in various (particularly European) countries to demonstrate/lead to Israeli diplomatic isolation in the response.

For this purpose, a music festival meets the nominal purpose of the objective. It will probably turn out that the music festival was the single biggest source of deaths during the night, as you have a combination of large numbers of people, density, poorly defended, and isolated from response or natural strongpoints to rally a defense.

However, I doubt it was chosen per see. The time-day timing of the attack was almost certainly done for historical, not contemporary, purposes, while the rave was for a weekend because they were expecting to need time to sober up / get over the drug use before the weekend.

Further, the rave almost certainly wouldn't have been targetted deliberately had the multinational nature been known. The night without the raid was a disaster for Israel, but the prominent multinational victims- most notably the German girl- killed and worse internationalized the impact to a much broader audience in a way not-good for the likely intended 'we think this is bad, but you shouldn't retaliate too much' goal Hamas was likely going for.

I have been to similar raves in that area. It is a popular place for such events because lots of open space and the desert at night is beautiful. It is not like this was the event of the year in Israel or something. (I feel like the natural demographics of the Motte might not be super interested in such things but there are a lot of music festivals everywhere all the time if you are into that sort of thing and Israel has a massive techno scene)

It really is odd. I’m not juvenile enough to be shocked that shit happens during war and young military age men do shitty things. The difference is most participants know what they are doing isn’t permissible so they don’t broadcast it to the world. Take for instance abu ghraib. While the soldiers had bad opsec, they weren’t posting the pictures on fucking MySpace.

You're operating from a mistaken assumption, that what they are doing isn't permissible. Hamas could surround fighters with a wall of infants and machine-gun Israelis from that position, and when one Israeli sniper shot a fighter and the bullet injured an infant, the headline in the New York Times would be "Israeli Commandos Shoot Innocent Palestinian Infant". Israel is held to a set of standards that sort of rhymes with international conventions but is in fact much stricter, while Palestinians are held to none at all.

I mean, sorta. The people who support Hamas hold them to no standard, because if they had standards, they wouldn't support Hamas.

The brutality and cynical tactics that Hamas uses do lead to them having lower support than they would if they were less sociopathic though. There's a lot of people who would totally be on board with a "Free Palestine" agenda if it didn't mean parading the mangled corpses of naked girls through the street.

If Hamas didn't do what they did, they'd either be killed and replaced by someone who would (if they stopped killing Israelis) or killed by the Israelis (if they stopped using protected buildings and people as shields).

The brutality and cynical tactics that Hamas uses do lead to them having lower support than they would if they were less sociopathic though. There's a lot of people who would totally be on board with a "Free Palestine" agenda if it didn't mean parading the mangled corpses of naked girls through the street.

What makes you think this?

Hamas does this because they live in tribal societies where parading the mangled corpses of your enemy's girls through the street is worthy of high praise. It doesn't lead to them having lower support; it leads to them having higher support.

Don't typical-mind. You would be horrified by such things. The people who Hamas needs to convince are overjoyed by it.

Well, at least it convinced EU to pause providing funding to Palestine (not entirely sure how well it was done but likely it effectively funded Hamas).

When I'm saying they would have higher support, I mean among westerners looking on from the outside. I'm not talking about internal Gazan politics, I'm talking about The Discourse and the international response. I think there's e.g. a lot of Germans who are a lot more sympathetic to "we want our land back" than to gunning down bus stops.

The brutality and cynical tactics that Hamas uses do lead to them having lower support than they would if they were less sociopathic though.

That's the weird thing though: their cynical tactics used to be launching rockets from hospital rooftops and parading the inevitable Palestinian corpses, or having Palestinian kids shot for throwing stones, etc etc. The grift has always been provoking Israel to violence and posing as an underdog.

But this, parading enemy civilian corpses around, is a diametrically opposite thing. It's something you do when you have several thousands of tanks ready to roll over the enemy capital, you expect to win, and you want to demoralize the enemy to win easier.

So I don't know, either Hamas expects Iran to nuke Israel, or the old guard that understood the nature of the grift all retired or something and the new leadership got terminally high on their own supply.

So I don't know, either Hamas expects Iran to nuke Israel

Yeah they did make a statement calling on the Arab countries to join the fight and so forth. So maybe the plan was something like 1.Pierce the illusion of Israeli invulnerability 2. Israel's neighbours see the weakness and pounce 3. Palestine is free from the river to the sea.

Or maybe it was just about stirring up enough heat that the Israel-Saudi normalisation doesn't happen. I dunno.

Or maybe it was just about stirring up enough heat that the Israel-Saudi normalisation doesn't happen. I dunno.

I don't see how this was supposed to work. A small terrorist act that causes Israel to respond disproportionally, all right. 400 paratroopers killing Israeli civilians? Again, this is a thing that you do when you have 5000 tanks ready to roll towards Tel Aviv and you want to show your potential Saudi allies that you mean business. They don't have a single tank. Saudis will be like, fuck those idiots.

Also, lets take Russia: they are at least claiming to be not targeting civilians (though in traditional Russian style they blatantly lie that no civilians whatsoever were harmed when it is clearly false).

And they parade tanks and other materiel captured from enemy, not dead civilians.

The thing that has blackpilled me about the conflict more than anything is Corey Gil-Shuster's youtube channel. He goes and asks random Israelis and Palestinians on the streets various questions, which I find really illuminating because it gives a sense of the distribution of views and how well thought out they are, etc. And after you watch a few of those you can't avoid the stark reality that there is a large critical mass of Palestinians who absolutely adamantly refuse to consider any outcome short of the total destruction of Israel.

And given that is the case, and that Israel will absolutely not accept its own erasure, there is just no possible compromise or deal to be had. All you can do is keep fighting for another hundred years and hope some future generation is smarter, I guess.

Or the unthinkable option, of course. Always lurking in the background.

Yeah, I can't say Corey Gil-Shuster's videos showed me anything I didn't already know, but repeatedly he (or his viewers) have tried to ask Palestinians some form of "What would peace look like, since the Israelis aren't going to all pack up and leave?" and the answers are almost always, with varying degrees of circumlocution, "Kill them all." Sure, they'll say in the abstract they "want peace" or they don't personally want to kill anyone, but dig hard enough and they believe "peace" will not be possible until all the Israelis are, literally, gone, and if that means (someone else, of course) kills them all, well, ma sha'allah.

Hamas actively targets civilians, gleefully massacres them en masse, and then parades their naked bodies through the streets where common people spit on their corpses, so it isn't even just Hamas specifically.

The usual suspects online say that since most Israelis have served in the army, they are all technically combatants and can be shot at. Of course, this is a rhetorical trap, since by saying that this doesn't mean you have to parade their naked bodies through the streets where common people spit on their corpses you implicitly agree that it's fine to shoot at them without desecrating their corpses.

The usual suspects online say that since most Israelis have served in the army, they are all technically combatants and can be shot at.

Which is nonsense on toast. That's the sort of thing I mean by saying the Israelis are held to a standard which sort of rhymes with international conventions.

That is such an insane understanding of international war conventions that I'm hard-pressed to believe anyone is making that argument in good faith. By that logic, Swedish citizens are fair game for the Taliban.

It's the sort of stuff one says when they are losing a debate and has to quickly to think of something, anything to save face.

Also, would not apply to many of people from the festival.

parades their naked bodies through the streets

Is there a video or picture of this? This claim is repeated everywhere I look, but if you mean the short video of the corpse of that German-Israeli woman, she's not naked.

When I was browsing 4chan I've seen images of Hamas soldiers showing off a dead girl with only underpants on. No links though.

If you want to quibble that it's technically not fully nude be my guest, but that's about as convincing to me as "well it wasn't rape bc she was already dead".

I saw one of a live woman with blood and shit on the rear of her trousers being paraded before she was loaded into a truck. I leave it to the viewer to decide if she's been gangraped or developed an untimely attack of anal fissuring.

Clearly, it was a burrito. It's the sacrifice you have to make to eat something so delicious.

Yes, I saw that one, too. Not very nice either.

It's not 'technically not fully nude', just normal not nude, complete with something on her back that looks like a strap of a top. From what I've seen it's not really clear she was stripped of anything at all.

I don't know what you think I'm trying to convince you of, seeing falsehoods repeated irks me, that's my angle here.

In online media, they keep referring to her only as "German", which I think isn't entirely a coincidence. One article I've found about this but am too lazy to dig up right now did mention after multiple paragraphs that not only is she in fact a dual German-Israeli citizen but had in fact lived in Israel for 6 years. Some X post also claimed she's actually an IDF reservist, but I'm not sure.

Israel announces ‘total’ blockade on Gaza

Israel has announced a “total” blockade of Gaza, including a ban on food and water, after Hamas carried out the biggest attack on the country in decades.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday authorities would cut electricity and block the entry of food and fuel as part of “a complete siege” on Hamas-run Gaza.

This seems like there's going to be mountains of deaths, what will the actual effect be?

It won't last. Israel does not want mountains of people dying of thirst on newspaper front pages, it makes them look callous. They will turn the water back on in a few days and the food maybe a few weeks after that, possibly in exchange for hostages. Any gap will be bridged by humanitarian aid coming in through Egypt.

Genius move to cut them off though. Few people will have appreciated that Gaza received water etc from Israel in the first place. Really makes it look like a 'biting the hand that feeds you' type of situation.

I'm pretty sure it will just be interpreted as "here's yet more proof that Israel is a colonialist/apartheid state, they don't even allow the Palestinians to control their own basic human needs like food and water!"

If the gap is bridged through Egypt, why not go on indefinitely though? Given that one reason how the attack went so well is probably the intel from the increased movement & employment that Israel had allowed, it does seem reasonable for Israel to just say cut -all- the movement between Gaza & Israel, but let arab countries support Gaza through Egypt if they so wish.

One thing they could do is bisect Gaza in the rural zone so that the region bordering the densely populated parts of Israel is cut off from the Egyptian supply.

Whether the southern part is supplied or not doesn't matter that much.

It definitely won't last, but I do wonder what would happen if it did and they went full siege mode. At what point do they start offering up the heads of the Hamas leaders? Do they ever?

Probably eventually, but the optics and footage online would make it impossible. Even total carpet bombing would be preferable from a PR perspective.

The mere fact that there is a blockade doesn't tell anyone that Israel had been giving Gaza anything.

This seems like there's going to be mountains of deaths

Not unless Egypt also blocks the entry of food, which seems unlikely.

IIRC Egypt doesn't allow goods through their entry point into Gaza, only people. All goods must go through Israel's entry points.

Egypt has gone back and forth on that in the past. It is neither in Egypt's interests nor in Israel's interests to have people starving to death in the Gaza Strip.

what will the actual effect be?

I expect it is mostly a "softening up tactic" before a major ground incursion. If Israel actually kept a full blockade for weeks if not months - and we're assuming effectively enforced (a big if) - then it would be committing a textbook definition of a warcrime. That would essentially guarantee it would lose in the court of public opinion. Like it or not, winning the propaganda war is just as important as the real war. Public sympathy would dry up real quick if tens of thousands were to be dying on live TV. Disproportionately matters.

Probably mountains of deaths, but they won’t be clearly distinguishable from the civilian casualties of the ground invasion.

What are the chances that this leads to Israel attacking Iran? Iran appears to have been a supporter of Hamas. Netanyahu has seemingly been eager for a reason to dismantle Iran's nuclear weapons program. From Netanyahu's perspective, eliminating the program would make recent events a net gain for Israel. However, how would the global community respond to an Israeli assault on Iran? While many countries in the region would likely be pleased, they would need to feign outrage. Russia, having recently gotten weapons from Iran, would denounce the attack. But, given its diminished power, what action could Russia realistically take? Would Biden risk sanctioning Israel for such an action, particularly when his Republican adversaries would likely applaud it?

I fail to see a single reason to assume Biden would sanction Israel for such an attack in any situation, Republican applause or not.

Biden and Obama have tried to make peace between Iran and the US, which is why the US recently unfroze $6 billion in Iranian funds. It is in the US interest to prevent a large war in the Middle East. It is in Biden's interest to prevent a significant increase in the price of gas that would likely come about because of such a war.

Part of me wonders if Biden is hopeful for a war. Predictions were already on gas prices going higher and Biden emptied the strategic reserve to turn the red wave into a ripple at best.

If there is a war, he can say “not my fault shit happens in the world”

But Trump will blame the war on Biden saying that Biden unfreezing Iran's assets enabled Iran and sent a signal to Iran that we would be OK with them attacking Israel. Trump would point out that during his presidency Iran didn't cause trouble because Trump did things like assassinate Iranian general Soleimani. Trump would claim that Russian invading Ukraine during Biden's but not his presidency is another example of how US perceived weakness causes war.

Israel is already attacking Iran through cyber warfare, sponsoring various extremist groups and assassinations. As for war there really isn't a lot they can do as the countries aren't near each other.

Israel could launch repeated airstrikes on Iran.

They don't share any airspace and are far from Iran. They would have to fly through several countries while carrying heavy external fuel tanks that make their jets really easy to spot on radar. This is against Iran that massproduces missiles that can reach Israel.

What are the chances that this leads to Israel attacking Iran?

What is an attack on Iran supposed to do, besides a generally cathartic moment?

No, I doubt this will lead to anything overt, at least not until the Gaza Strip siege concludes. I'd expect Israel to take a long-form asymmetric conflict approach for revenge. Fewer F-16s on long-strike missions, and more drone assassinations on IRGC and others.

The attacks on Iran will, ideally from Israel's viewpoint, stop Iran from getting an atomic bomb and damage Iran's economy thereby reducing Iran's ability to fund the enemies of Israel.

I am familiar with some science fiction weapons that could meaningfully achieve that, but nothing in Israel's inventory that would be reasonably be used as that effect.

but nothing in Israel's inventory that would be reasonably be used as that effect

Well they do have nuclear weapons if we are talking about sci-fi scenarios

Slim to none.

“Has been a supporter of hamas” is a pretty low bar. Egypt and and Syria used to do it openly. Qatar and Turkey still do. Direct retaliation must require more than that.

I think you are looking at the issue from the viewpoint of a moral philosopher. From Israel's viewpoint what matters is will the attack mean if it attacks Iran, the US won't punish it?

No, I’m not thinking about morality. I’m saying the strategic calculus is unfavorable even if the US doesn’t express disapproval. A shooting war with Iran would result in more Israeli casualties than any terrorist attack, and I don’t get the impression that it would meaningfully cripple their ability to fund Hamas. Far more efficient to spend that money and manpower retaliating against the people who were directly responsible.

There is good reason to believe that even the American high command doesn't think it can actually win a war of invasion against Iran in any realistic scenario.

Agreed. But lots of damage could be inflicted by air attacked. Alan Dershowitz wants Israel to destroy Iran's nuclear ambitions. https://twitter.com/HappyCamper2626/status/1710815116479058301

Alan Dershowitz thinks US should give weapons industry 5 trillion dollars for propping Israeli interests and losing a war.

A rather unsurprising turn of events

The Israelis are a paper tiger without daddy America. As this conflict showed (8 billion dollars needed from Uncle Sam within the first day of rocket attacks). If the Israelis had the capability to attack Iran, then they'd have done it years ago. They don't and ultimately depend on the US to do it. Successive American administrations have turned down every request from Jerusalem.

Iran today is much more capable than it was 10 years ago. If Iran is attacked, they would almost certainly conduct a a massive attack on Saudi Arabia and other US-aligned countries. That would send the world economy into a gigantic depression if oil output suddenly crashed by 10-15 mb/d. Many Western strategic oil stocks are already depleted after the UA war so there wouldn't be much buffer space to absorb the shock.

TL;DR near zero.

Would Israel attack Iran if it predicted that Biden would privately oppose but publicly support the attack? From Israel's viewpoint, the attack leading to Iran attacking Saudi Arabia would be a good thing because this would bring US air power into the war.

From Israel's viewpoint, the attack leading to Iran attacking Saudi Arabia would be a good thing because this would bring US air power into the war.

Yes but it would also tank the world economy. And ultimately the US cares far more about that. Already today there are news of a major meeting between the Big Three of Europe (UK/FR/DE) and the US, ostensibly to prevent a wider conflagration in the region. Ultimately, Israel is a client state of the US and has to behave as such. It's on a short leash.

Serbia was a client of Russia at the time Serbia pushed Russia to start WW I.

The American stockpile is depleted because the Biden administration didn’t want to lose an election.

Iran today is much more capable than it was 10 years ago.

Can you elaborate on that?

Not him but one thing that comes to my mind is several successful drone attacks that Houthis have launched against Saudi targets in the last few years, including ones that hit oil production facilities. Iran is the Houthis' main backer and most likely source of the drones. Iran has also been providing large numbers of drones to Russia. All these drones give Iran a greater ability to precisely hit targets than they had 10 years ago.

I don't think Israel has any meaningful capability to attack Iran. I wouldn't go so far as to call them a paper tiger, but their ability to project and sustain forces significantly beyond their borders is slim. Iran is pretty far away with numerous countries hostile to Israel in between them. Even a single airstrike seems unlikely to succeed - the combat range of the strike aircraft in their inventory barely reaches the closest border of Iran over the shortest possible route, which overflies a lot of hostile territory. Hitting any actual targets inside Iran would probably require aerial refueling in hostile airspace. I expect they want to keep what forces they have close to home to protect the country from direct threats rather than risk them on super-long-range missions.

They would need to use medium range ballistic missiles or cruise missiles to attack Iran, which they probably don't have, aside from nuclear-tipped ones.

I am surprised that no one yet opened the most inflammatory aspect of the latest events in Israel. So I am going to do it.

Who if not me, when if not now?

So why it happened? It happened as it happened because, in words of our friends in US Dept of Justice: Israel Has a Successful Gun Control Policy.

Yes, it is from 1992, but things changed little since then. Israel has strict gun laws and they work as intended. Israel has 6,7 guns per 100 inhabitants, very good 108th place in the world. Just 2.1 more than David Hogg heaven land England and Wales, considered to be gun control movement dream and aspiration.

It is easy to understand why we do not hear about Israeli gun laws.

People who do not like guns usually do not like Israel either and would loathe to praise anything coming from there. The same reason why we never heard about Israeli health care or Israeli abortion laws despite that they would make excellent talking point for Blues against Israel loving Reds.

And people who like guns usually like Israel too (while knowing about it only from dank memes that show it as tough nation armed to the teeth).

So, you want to ask, you are blaming the victims? How dare you?

The Israelis were told by their government: "Millions of people who want to kill you live near your homes separated by wire fence. Do not panic and do not prepare to defend yourselves. Your government and your army will protect you, nothing can happen. Fear that they will cross the fence and slaughter you in your own homes is absurd and delusional. Do not be conspiracy theorist, do not be extremist, trust the plan". And, being normal human beings, they trusted because the government was right so far, because nothing happened so far. This is normal human nature, no one to blame.

Now, when something happened, and if nothing changes and Israelis will continue trusting their government as previously, yes I will blame them, and you shall too.

Are there signs that something is changing?

Looks like it.

https://thereload.com/israeli-loosens-gun-carry-rules-after-unprecedented-terror-attack/

Any citizen who meets the detailed tests for carrying a private firearm due to self-defense and serving the security forces and is without a criminal or medical record will be required to undergo a telephone interview instead of a physical interview

What are the tests?

Residence in an eligible settlement, rifle veterans 07 and above, officers in the rank of lieutenant and above and combatants in the rank of major and above in the IDF and the security forces, service in special units, firefighters, policemen, and workers and volunteers in the rescue forces

So very generous. And, in addition, citizens will be able to purchase, instead of previous fifty, whole ONE HUNDRED rounds of ammo! Yay!

Bizarre that you think gun control is the most inflammatory issue. Is it a joke? Far and away the most inflammatory issue would be Israel's right to exist and segregate the Arabs and whether that justifies atrocities against Israeli civilians. Literally every discussion online about this, if it goes on long enough, will go back to 1948 or earlier. This is a classic culture war issue.

Yes this was either a parody or this place is becoming a parody of itself.

The Israelis were told by their government: "Millions of people who want to kill you live near your homes separated by wire fence. Do not panic and do not prepare to defend yourselves. Your government and your army will protect you, nothing can happen. Fear that they will cross the fence and slaughter you in your own homes is absurd and delusional.

About a billion plus Indians and a sizeable hundred millions of Pakistanis accept the same deal from their governments without complaint. So do South Koreans, and even their stunted northern cousins. In the former case, there are entire border states where there's a very real risk of Jihadists slipping under the fence and shooting up your village. No demands for guns, just better security from the BSF and Indian Army.

I would be rather concerned if the government was demanding I arm myself to do the job I pay them taxes for, even if I'm a gun nut, and if I ever make it to the US and the decent guns aren't banned, I intend to buy several.

You're observing the very much discussed to death notion that people get along and cheer more for a far-group than they do their far more similar peers who hold much more similar cultural and political views. The Leftists celebrating Palestine don't all want to wear hijabs or ban alcohol, even if a few of them get signal boosted.

About a billion plus Indians and a sizeable hundred millions of Pakistanis accept the same deal from their governments without complaint.

There's been a whole lot of complaining. And it's not "a billion plus Indians", it's only the relatively few near the hot borders.

So do South Koreans

No, there's more than a fence between the South and the North; there's a 4km wide demilitarized zone with minefields and military bases just south of it (and, I presume, north of it)

About a billion plus Indians and a sizeable hundred millions of Pakistanis accept the same deal from their governments without complaint

Does indians and pakistani hate each other or only their governments? AK 47 doesn't do much good against an army. Against people in toyota trucks they are good enough. A couple of well places snipers could have reduced the festival casualties and probably prevented some of the rapes.

Does indians and pakistani hate each other or only their governments?

Depends. As you'd expect but for a question covering >1.5 billion people.

I didn't notice any animosity from the Pakistani doctors I befriended in London, barring a few jokes about some poor pilot who got shot down in Pakistani airspace and was mildly roughed up before being exchanged. I suppose the fact that I didn't give a shit made them warm up even faster, I'm no nationalist, at least except when I pine for the US.

You will find hundreds of millions of hardliners, and hundreds of millions more who are indifferent or outright alarmed at the idea of war. If war happens, it's most likely going to be because the US and China kickoff and allies and associates get drawn in. Or an inciting event beyond my power to predict.

I think there's more bellicosity on the Pakistani side, their military relies on fear mongering about India to justify their occasional coups. And the ISI, they need something bigger than Afghanistan to show they're worth more than the damage they deal, which isn't really true itself.

AK 47 doesn't do much good against an army.

I would hope not even the Palestinians are using something as antiquated as a genuine AK-47, or at least the modernized (so early it's hardly modern) AKM. But I get your point.

I’m going to guess that whatever the gun laws were, a (presumably drugged-to-gills) trance festival would have a strict no guns policy.

The festival was one small part of the attack. Technicals stuffed with gunmen were shooting at civilians in urban centers, with many of the videographers within range and great firing positions to respond.

My impression while watching them was almost 100% "Damn, a rifle instead of a phone would be really nice for these guys".

If they had looser gun control laws, I’d expect just as often those looser guns end up in the hands of terrorists as in the hands of people using them for self-defense.

Their military was apparently caught with their pants down, why would you expect civilians to do better instead of just becoming tasty weapon lootboxes?

Seems it worked for a few communities.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defenders-of-kibbutz-nir-am-say-they-killed-2-terrorists-saturday-preventing-takeover/

The military was mostly absent and then playing catchup. Civilians were not absent.

Because if you own a gun you're already in your house...with the gun. So when you hear your neighbors getting executed, you take out your gun and stop the person doing the executing.

Omitted from The Reload is that they are limited to a single firearm that is not a semiauto rifle. So most typically a semiauto pistol like a Glock. And absent the "Short Barreled Rifle" and "Short Barreled Shotgun" NFA restrictions (that existed to close a loophole during drafting when pistols were going to be similarly restricted but when pistols were removed from the bill, the loophole closure was not), has led to the amusing product design space of pistol chassis systems. Americans answer for short carbines working around their laws was the pistol brace, for Israelis the microroni.

The microroni is just a rifle attachment for a handgun. I suppose you're more accurate with it, but the ballistics of it are still shitty compared to a real rifle.

The gun control policy works well for Israel. They have low crime. They have low suicides.

They do have a very significant problem with Palestinian terrorists, but it's obvious that simply ending gun control would not be a sufficient response to that problem - large scale military action is required. So there is no problem that could actually get solved by a change in gun policy, and several significant problems that could easily be created by it.

I think that for Israeli Jews, trying to make it easier for citizens to own guns would put them between a rock and a hard place.

On the one hand, they would be loath to let ethnically Arab citizens of Israel have guns because that would make it much easier for those of them who want to kill Jews to actually do it.

On the other hand, there is no way to write a gun control law that takes ethnicity into account without making it completely obvious that you are running an ethno-state and thus looking really bad to a lot of people in the broader world.

On the other hand, there is no way to write a gun control law that takes ethnicity into account without making it completely obvious that you are running an ethno-state and thus looking really bad to a lot of people in the broader world.

But they are already running an ethno-state. No outsider considers it not to be an ethnic state unless they are making PR mouth noises pretending to the contrary.

,Yes, but bringing it to the arena of gun laws would take it up a notch and look particularly ugly because it basically would look like "we are going to make it legal for any of our random vigilantes and paramilitary groups to easily buy guns while at the same time we will ensure that it is illegal for the Palestinians to defend themselves from such violence".

On the other hand, there is no way to write a gun control law that takes ethnicity into account without making it completely obvious that you are running an ethno-state and thus looking really bad to a lot of people in the broader world.

Easier than you might think, and Israel is already doing it. To get a gun license in Israel you need to have completed a certain degree of military training (among other requirements). Non-Jews (Druze, Bedouins, some Christian Arabs) who serve in the IDF are not those that you need to worry about starting a riot at the behest of Hamas or Hezbollah.

Human beings have an instinct that makes them lash out violently against oppression, real or perceived. If it were possible to eliminate this instinct through genetic engineering, would it be worthwhile to do so? Would the Palestinians be better off if they were engineered to feel less emotional in response to discrimination and ethnic cleansing?

You have perhaps read S.M. Stirling's Drakas books? I don't think breeding Homo servus is really a good idea, whether you're doing it to the Palestinians or the Israelis.

Nah, resistance to some forms of oppression, even if irrational from an individual perspective, is very much necessary for the survival of the group. You have to make someone, who wishes to oppress you more than is within the Overton Window, reconsider due to the cost in blood they'd have to pay. Even if you will inevitably lose it they chose to pay it. (Do stop resisting after you're done with the minimum needed to add credibility to your claims, assuming they aren't literally killing you)

While I wouldn't object too hard if it was done for basket cases like Palestine, it's infinitely preferable to just make them as smart as their Israeli cousins, so that integration could be smoother. Can't forget the cultural component and memetic engineering, genius Jihadis cause much of the carnage, the ones who did 9/11 were well educated. The two are inextricable, smarter people can be more pro-social, certainly more productive, and find positive sum ways of solving their problems without resorting to force.

At any rate, I do find making otherwise normal humans into meeker ones distasteful, if you want servants and workers who won't give you lip, just make more robots.

I mean, if we're granting the ability to apply arbitrary genetic behavioral modification to classes of people, I'd rather make all the oppressors uninterested in oppressing...

Anyway, there's a difference between 'would Palestinians in the real world be better off without the instinct now' versus 'Would Palestinians from five hundred years ago be better off today in expectation without the instinct.'

I think this instinct, like a lot of human instincts towards violent retaliation under various circumstances, serves an important evolved purpose as a disincentive towards other people doing those thing in the first place.

An instinct towards psychotically attacking oppressors is an incentive against oppression. Not a strong enough disincentive to stop all oppression, oppression can be really really profitable, but God alone knows how much more oppression there would be in the world and in the history books without that instinct.

So again, I think its better to keep overall.

would it be worthwhile to do so

No. Striking violently and possibly in a suicidal way to achieve taking your oppressor's life is paramount. Sacrosanct. I would not want to live with a people who have had this urge lobotomized out of them. Indeed I would look at them as lesser beings.

What's in it for Hamas? Israel's response is totally predictable. It's about to be a really rough time to be a Gazan. Hamas leadership must have thought through what happens the week after their attack .... right? I'm genuinely curious what their calculus is/was.

Hamas leadership must have thought through what happens the week after their attack .... right?

72 virgins in heaven, same as always. I always find it illustrative to go back to this passage from their holy book.

The Hour will not begin until you fight the Jews, until a Jew will hide behind a rock or a tree, and the rock or tree will say: ‘O Muslim, O slave of Allah, here is a Jew behind me; come and kill him.

It's pure, undiluted derangement.

this passage from their holy book

That is a Hadith. Not a passage from their holy book. If we will go down to such a base level of argumentation at least let's get the facts right. Ironically, one side of this conflict actually does have a holy book where their God instructs them to genocide the inhabitants of the land and settle it themselves which they do according to the said book.

Epistemic status: Pure speculation.

Supposedly the Saudis and the Israelis were on the path to normalized relations. Saudi Arabia's remarks could be construed as blaming Israel for the situation, which would derails those normalization talks. Hamas gets a win if it can keep Israeli from having one less enemy.

the hamas leadership gives zero shits about the palestinians there and they'll never have recruitment issues. the optics of giving israel a broken nose and perhaps delaying normalization with the saudis are worth a few thousand lives.

They probably believe that if they cause enough pain they really can eventually force Israel to give up territory for peace. They've seen, from Vietnam to Afghanistan to Algeria, that great powers can be worn down and lose the will for continued occupation. And they're banking on Israel not doing all the things people are asking them to do on Twitter: "Turn Gaza into a parking lot." People here might argue that it would be "rational" for the Israelis to just go ahead and do a genocide, but they aren't going to do that.

I think Hamas is mistaken in that the situation in Palestine is obviously different from those other examples (notably, Israel knows that there would never be peace because Hamas's end goal is literally the destruction of Israel and they'll never settle for anything less). But Palestine does have a lot of global sympathy so Israel still cannot "make the rubble bounce" even if they wanted to.

And while @WhiningCoil's take is just the usual low effort sneering, he's not completely wrong that actual religious beliefs play a part: most Muslims aren't in it for the "72 virgins" but they genuinely do believe that God is on their side and thus they will inevitably prevail.

One person's sneering is another persons short, concise, cited answer.

No, one's person's sneering is sneering. You don't actually know much about Islam except what you learn from mainlining outrage online. Citing spicy quotes from holy books is Twitter-level, which is why you don't pile on in agreement when our resident Joo-posters are throwing around the one about goys being servants of Jews.

That passage from the Koran is literally cited in the Hamas Charter. It's article 7.

Yes, I'm aware. We aren't disagreeing about whether or not Hamas hates Jews and wants to wipe out Israel.

Then I don't understand your accusation of sneering, except to grant unearned charity to the obviously guilty party here. You acted like my bringing up that call to genocide was a complete non-sequitur. Like it's unfair or "sneering" to point out someone's publicly stated beliefs, openly expressed, enshrined in religion, government, media, and man on the street interviews.

I was referring to "they do it for the 72 virgins."

I can believe they act with motives that rise above the level of memes without granting "charity" to them.

They probably believe that if they cause enough pain they really can eventually force Israel to give up territory for peace.

But how much? Will they agree to 1967 borders? To the 1947 UN partition plan? Or only to pushing the last Jew into the Med?

But how much? Will they agree to 1967 borders? To the 1947 UN partition plan? Or only to pushing the last Jew into the Med?

Answers will probably vary depending on which Palestinian you ask, but as I said below, I've become blackpilled enough to believe that most Palestinians today, deep down, want the destruction of Israel and nothing less. Will anything ever persuade a critical mass to accept some sort of lasting, stable plan for coexistence? Not in a timespan of less than several generations.

Right, and if Palestinians will have had all their aggression bred out of them, why give them any extra land? They will be satisfied with their lot.

notably, Israel knows that there would never be peace because Hamas's end goal is literally the destruction of Israel and they'll never settle for anything less

That's not even the most notable difference. The Afghans weren't attempting to remove America from Long Island, they were attempting to remove America from Afghanistan. The Algerians weren't trying to take Provence, they were trying to take Algeria.

Note that "Hamas" did not decide to do anything; rather, certain leaders of Hamas did. Those who made the decision to launch this attack are almost certainly acting in their own interests. The decision was probably driven in part by internal politics, either between Hamas and its political rivals, or among factions within Hamas. That is hardly an unusual phenomenon (see the Falklands War). Note than "driven by internal politics" does not preclude the possibility that Iran played an important role, given that Hamas relies on Iran for some of its funding, which like all governing organizations Hamas uses to purchase legitimacy (whether in the form of public services or in the form of striking Israel).

That's a good thing to remember in the general case, but it's also relevant to look at the necessary number of people involved in this sort of maneuvers, either directly in terms of men on the scene, and indirectly in terms of immediate support. Even with fairly generous assumptions regarding compartmentalization, it's extremely likely that both the majority of Hamas leadership and literally tens of thousands of individual members were involved.

That both changes how leaders make decisions (cfe more formal example), but it also blends the lines between decisions made by individuals and by organizations.

Yes, but I think you are conflating two different questions: 1) why entities employ political violence; and 2) why individuals go along / participate in political violence / join politically violent organizations. Compare chapters 3 and six here

There are actually reports coming out that only a small part of the military leadership planned this attack and was aware of it and not even the political leaders of Hamas were aware. And other militant groups were only informed moments before the action and joined in an impromptu manner. Obviously impossible to know for sure but this would make much sense since otherwise it would be impossible to keep this secret.

Not knowing much about the topic, the two things I'd look for are 1. generic accelerationist tendencies (end the status quo and force a resolution, whatever it may be) and 2. Ways in which the specific (still living) people behind planning the attack benefit from it personally ('career' advancement/etc) even if it doesn't help the cause overall long-term.

What's in it for Hamas?

Suck up sympathy and NGO money. Same as always.

All eyes are on Gaza but reports are also coming in that the Israeli military is putting the West Bank on full lockdown.

Part of this is to prevent wider contagion but it surely cannot be lost on various government ministers (some of whom belong to the utter fringes of the Israeli far-right) that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to do things in the occupied territories that otherwise wouldn't fly. Israel has a narrow time window for any such actions, so while the world is glued to what happens in Gaza, I would also try to keep an eye on the West Bank.

I suspect the real prize for many members of this govt would be simultaneous ethnic cleansing of both Gaza and West Bank in a massive show of force. 300K reservists have been called up. I'm not predicting it will happen, just pointing out that if there was ever a time, then that time is now.

The West Bank has already been carved up into discontinuous enclaves.

I wish them the best, you don't treat a tumor by cutting away just the bits that are causing symptoms (severe metastatic palliative cases aside), you chop off as much as you can find.

In both cases, I'm confident the loss in blood and lives will be significantly lower than drawing things out.

I do think ethnic cleansing is such a tiresome term, and so is a definition of genocide that includes cultural redoctrination. Buddy, I tell you, the hypothetical person who does this, it's far worse to murder an entire class of people instead of making them learn a new language and wear new clothes. You're sneaking in connotations, and I'll continue impotently pushing back where I can.

I'm massively in favor of restricting genocide to only include killing and mass prevention of reproduction, but do you have a suggestion for what to call the cultural equivalent?

If tomorrow the Taliban broke into my house, forced me to learn Arabic, stop eating pork or drinking alcohol, changed how my workday is structured, altered the system of government I live under, and prevented me from living with my girlfriend prior to marriage, none of that is genocide but is definitely A Big Deal and I would like a word for it being applied to my entire society collectively. Culturcide is decent but a bit ugly.

Memetic coercion?

It's also more deserving of "colonization" than the way that word is bandied about today, if barely.

"Forced assimilation" works for me.

"Memocide," I suppose (from "meme").