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.
“Solve for the equilibrium” as Tyler Cowen would say. If a single soldier getting captured alive means the undoing of literal decades of antiterrorism work, then you need to prevent troops from being captured by any means necessary.
Killing hostages is the rational response, if you're known for dropping one tom bombs into hideouts of hostage takers, no one's going to bother taking hostages anymore.
Israel seems to be in a weird half-hearted position on this. Given their position, anything but total Japan-like death eater approach seems counterproductive.
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Why are you called The Motte?
A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently,
it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey",
originally identified by
philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial
but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens
this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for
the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired
propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."
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Notes -
“Solve for the equilibrium” as Tyler Cowen would say. If a single soldier getting captured alive means the undoing of literal decades of antiterrorism work, then you need to prevent troops from being captured by any means necessary.
Killing hostages is the rational response, if you're known for dropping one tom bombs into hideouts of hostage takers, no one's going to bother taking hostages anymore.
Israel seems to be in a weird half-hearted position on this. Given their position, anything but total Japan-like death eater approach seems counterproductive.
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