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.
Ignorant question, I know. I'm asking it because I'm ignorant and I don't know the answer, but I'm sure there is one, and I want to know it.
Why doesn't Israel just move everyone in Gaza to the West Bank while they do their bombings, then move them back to Gaza when they've destroyed the Hamas bases? Is there not enough room in the West Bank?
Why doesn't Israel just move everyone in Gaza to the West Bank while they do their bombings, then move them back to Gaza when they've destroyed the Hamas bases? Is there not enough room in the West Bank?
Because these people might escape en-route and exercise their right of return by staying in whatever Israeli-occupied village or town they were ethnically cleansed from.
Israel's goal is unknown, but it's unlikely they're losing sleep over the deaths of Gazan civilians. And obviously figuring out which Gazans are civilians and which ones are Hamas fighters is not trivial.
The political goal of the war isn't to destroy hammas, it's to make effective Palestinian internal governance impossible. Moving them to the west bank defeats this purpose; in an ideal scenario for Israel all Palestinians just fuck off to egypt or lebanon or syria and stop being a hassle.
It's not so easy to move 2 million people 50+ km. There's physically enough room in the West Bank (it's much bigger than the Gaza strip), but they would still need tent cities or some other solution for them. Israel would also not like the Gaza population radicalizing the West Bank population (more than it already is) and increasing the population density, making terrorist attacks from there easier.
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Notes -
Ignorant question, I know. I'm asking it because I'm ignorant and I don't know the answer, but I'm sure there is one, and I want to know it.
Why doesn't Israel just move everyone in Gaza to the West Bank while they do their bombings, then move them back to Gaza when they've destroyed the Hamas bases? Is there not enough room in the West Bank?
Because these people might escape en-route and exercise their right of return by staying in whatever Israeli-occupied village or town they were ethnically cleansed from.
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Israel's goal is unknown, but it's unlikely they're losing sleep over the deaths of Gazan civilians. And obviously figuring out which Gazans are civilians and which ones are Hamas fighters is not trivial.
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The political goal of the war isn't to destroy hammas, it's to make effective Palestinian internal governance impossible. Moving them to the west bank defeats this purpose; in an ideal scenario for Israel all Palestinians just fuck off to egypt or lebanon or syria and stop being a hassle.
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It's not so easy to move 2 million people 50+ km. There's physically enough room in the West Bank (it's much bigger than the Gaza strip), but they would still need tent cities or some other solution for them. Israel would also not like the Gaza population radicalizing the West Bank population (more than it already is) and increasing the population density, making terrorist attacks from there easier.
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There's no way from Gaza to Judea and Samaria without passing through Israel.
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