This is a refreshed 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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Notes -
Would someone be willing to spell out for me the likely consequences of Israel taking the nuclear option? I am not condoning this but I am curious about it and find very little serious discussion about it. What I mean by "nuclear option" isn't the use of nuclear weapons, not necessarily. What I mean is the IDF literally turning all or at least the northern half of Gaza into rubble without any semblance of discretionary targeting. What would the fallout be? Would the US withdraw all support and could Israel survive the ensuing revenge from arab countries? Are groups within the Israeli government seriously considering options like this?
I don’t know how western states will react. My gut says “they’ll probably do nothing”, but I’m not sure. History shows that the world at large is actually very tolerant of atrocities, especially if they happen fast enough. It’s not like they can be undone after the fact anyway.
In the case of other terror orgs, I think it will substantially lower the violence against Israel. The arab orgs are much weaker than the IDF, and so far relied on Israeli good will to survive, basically. If they’ll think that Israel might cleanse them, they won’t be as trigger happy.
No telling what other Arab states will do. They don’t seem to actually care about the Palestinians, but they do have to keep up appearances.
Israel could probably kill half or more of Gaza’s population while making it look like an accident which everyone can react to by saying ‘we strongly condemn civilian casualties’.
1 000 000? Nope, that would not work as "accident"
What do you think the death toll of a total siege(no water electricity or food, no one comes in or out) while Gaza’s being bombed to rubble will be in the end?
such theoretical and not happening event? Depends on how long water and foot is interdicted and what exactly by "bombed to rubble" is meant.
Interdiction until Israel conquers the place completely, with it being bombed to rubble like the Russian army is doing to parts of Ukraine. I'm guessing north of a million Gazans die in that scenario.
With that assumptions, I would expect more than 1 000 000 dead.
Half the population of the Strip?
Germany and Japan at the end of WWII got the "conquers the place completely, with it being bombed to rubble" treatment, and that had a million or so deaths a piece, but the denominator in each case was 70 or 80 million.
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