Joe- How easy it it to lose the moral high ground. There are very few who don't recoil in horror at the attrocities committed during the Hamas attack. I couldn't bear to watch the video nor can I look at the pictures of the carnage in Gaza. I am struck with a single thought: all of those victims share one thing...they are dead. It matters little that they were killed by 'gleeful' attackers or by bombs dropped from the sky. (And as an American, I am ashamed that those armaments came from my country).
The verbal jujitsu that is coming out of the White House is shameful. I thought President Biden had more of a backbone. He's trying to have it both ways and it doesn't wash. If killing innocents is wrong, it's wrong everywhere.
"I am struck with a single thought: all of those victims share one thing...they are dead. " I feel exactly the same. In my down time in my hotel room, I've been watching BBC and Al Jazeera. The scenes of the dead and wounded are unrelenting. They don't even have time to loop the videos before new footage comes in. They say Israel kills one child in Gaza ever ten minutes. I do not understand how that can be outraged at the children killed by Hamas bullets and not feel remorse at the children killed by Israel bombs.
Thanks for writing. I agree 100%. This is not self-defense. Israel had a right to self-defense on October 7 and failed to exercise it. The call to destroy Amalek is compelling and seductive. 10 - 30 million evangelicals in our country are rooting for Amageddon to bring on the rapture so they don't have to experience normal death. There is a convergence of fundamentalist beliefs and political, military & domestic interests. In 1991 I stood on a corner in Jerusalem with Women in Black vigil to end the occupation. No one is safe until everyone is free. Need to end the occupation and get new leadership for all. According to the Talmud it is a crime to humiliate people. This is why.
This is no longer retribution. It is vengeance. But they will go on until Bibi feels he has solidified his position. And then leave everyone else to deal with the aftermath.
Nov 1, 2023·edited Nov 1, 2023Liked by Joe Cirincione
I see Bibi as just another amoral version of Trump, as Jennifer Rubin pointed out in WaPo today. You may very well have his motives sized up correctly.
But I don't see the current Israeli action as retribution or vengeance. Can't be sure, perhaps I am projecting my own view on the Israeli people somewhat. I think they correctly are undertaking a horrible task because they need to knock out an existential threat. They may be doing it wrong, i can't say.
In my opinion the goal should not be to eliminate Hamas. It's not even necessary to kill their leaders, let alone all the foot soldiers. They need to degrade the physical military infrastructure and prevent Hamas from rebuilding it. You can't kill the ideology that fueled Hamas with bombs.
You make many good points, especially about degrading infrastructure. However, the scope of destruction goes well beyond that. And now we see evidence that Israel wants to push Gazans into the Sinai. And settlers in the West Bank have increased attacks on Palestinians there. Seems to fit a larger narrative in tune with right wingers in the coalition government. But I believe unless leaders on all sides adopt vastly changed policies the conflict will fester for many more years-regardless of how many die now.
If refugee camps could be built in the Sinai that result would be ideal! Israel is not going to "push" refugees there - Egypt is playing a heartless role in refusing to accept a single refugee on any terms.
I am not a Israel apologist, in fact I consider Israel today an apartheid state. I look for a path out of the morass.
I hope you are right.Fingers crossed. But it seems that Israel is playing a strategy that will not work out in the long run. It certainly hasn't so far.
It is a powerful article. In the face of such atrocities no words are adequate. It is said that people never kill so savagely and self-righteously as when they kill in the name of religion. To quote a Biblical verse to justify total genocide in this day and age is outrageous.
As good as your article is, it still leaves out the context to these tragic events. As UN Secretary General rightly said, Hamas atrocity which must be condemned did not happen in a vacuum. Since 2005 when Israeli army and settlers withdrew from the interior of Gaza but turned it into a concentration camp by blockading it from land, air and sea, this is the sixth time that Israel has conducted direct military aggression in the territory, insultingly calling it “mowing the grass”, every time declaring the total annihilation of Hamas as the objective.
How can one describe previous Israeli raids on Gaza as anything but terrorism and war crimes? In 2014 war, 2,310 Gazans were killed and more than 10,626 were wounded (including 3,374 children, of whom over 1,000 were left permanently disabled). Meanwhile, 67 Israeli soldiers and 5 Israeli civilians were killed. That operation alone killed many more Gazan civilians than the Hamas attack on Israel did on 7th October, yet the first one was supported by the West, while the much smaller attack on Israel is rightly condemned. Most people in the West have short memories about what happens in the Middle East, but the Palestinians remember them. In the latest operation, over 10,000 people, nearly half of them children, have been killed in Gaza in 24 days. Adjusting for population size, that would be the equivalent of killing one million people in the United States. It is time people woke up to the enormity of the massacres that Israel is committing both in Gaza and in the West Bank, before the global opinion turns against the West and its complicity with those crimes.
I feel the same. I can not watch or read anymore about the carnage going on against the people of Gaza. Genocide before our eyes and none does anything to stop it.
The worst of what is happening is the future that it is shaping. Very dark times await us and our children.
Israel’s response to the horrendous massacre by Hamas is following the same path as its prior responses to their incursions and attacks, only far, far more extreme. They may be on the path toward total annihilation or expulsion of the Palestinian population without any hope of any lasting resolution or lasting peace. Does anyone have any real doubts about this? Have they not learned yet?
Below is what I had to say about the October 7th Killing and kidnapping of innocent Israeli men, women and children. And that the Israeli military campaign will not bring about peace.
The news media as well as the social media are abuzz with what Israel needs to do in response to the slaughter of hundreds of innocent civilians as well as denigrating and kidnapping of countless men, women and children by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023. It was the most heinous and reprehensible act of terrorism against innocent Israelis and must be condemned unequivocally.
While the calls by Israeli citizens for retribution, retaliation and elimination of the Hamas leadership are very understandable, the Israeli military and civilian leadership does not have the luxury of letting outrage and emotions determine the response needed to guarantee security of their citizens in their own homes and towns.
The bombardment of Gaza is now in its eighth day. In addition, the Israeli army is readying to launch a ground offensive, presumably to capture or kill Hamas leadership.
Will military actions lead to a peaceful co-existence of Israelis and Palestinians? The past military campaigns, including the one that forced PLO leader Arafat in exile on Aug. 30, 1982, failed to create lasting peace. Therefore, it is naïve to think that capturing or killing of Hamas leaders will end violence against Israelis.
What is clear is that the urban warfare, once the Israeli army enters Gaza, will result in deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinian civilians as well as numerous Israeli soldiers. At some point, the military action will stop, and Israeli army will withdraw from Gaza. However, what to do next to achieve the illusive peace will remain unanswered.
Another possibility is that Israeli military will force evacuation of 1 million Gazan to the south of Gaza River to increase the Israeli security zone.
In the meantime, Israel has shut off water and electricity as well as supply of necessities including food and medicine for more than two million Palestinians trapped in Gaza. How this collective punishment of starving to death or the trauma of bombs exploding around them will turn one million Palestinian children in Gaza into peace loving neighbors the Israelis long for is beyond comprehension.
There are many in the U.S. who are eager to give Israeli military a carte blanche for air and ground assault on Gaza regardless of the consequences for the Israelis or Palestinians. However, calls for the moral clarity/moral compass, in any military action Israel takes, are few and far between. Robert Reich, a former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton, has written, “Justifiable moral revulsion must never be confused with retribution. There is no moral clarity in wreaking vengeance on innocent people (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/moral-clarity). Nicholas Kristof has written an Op-Ed in the New York Times, “... if your moral compass is attuned to the suffering of only one side, your compass is broken, and so is your humanity.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/11/opinion/israel-gaza- hamas.html).
These calls for moral clarity are laudable. However, Israel needs more than moral clarity in her hour of deep sorrow and shock, a way forward achieve a lasting peace.
Peace cannot be achieved by unhinged Israeli military actions, just as Hamas cannot achieve their goal of an independent state by killing and kidnapping innocent Israelis.
On Dec. 28, 2000, almost 23 years ago, I wrote “Mideast peace tops wish list for New Year: George W must be up to the task.” I suggested that instead of attacking Iraq to depose Saddam Hussain (Yes, I wrote this before the fateful 9/11) he should focus his efforts on convincing Palestinians, Israelis and the Arabs that he and the US are committed to an honest, equitable, just and a lasting resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (The Athens Messenger, Dec. 28, 2000). Since then there have been numerous cycles of killings and mayhem by Palestinians and Israelis to no avail. So much for a New Year wish for peace in the Mideast.
Thank you for your thoughtful analysis. Gen. David Petraeus famously asked of our strategy in Iraq, "Tell me how this ends?" That is what U.S. officials are now asking of their Israeli counterparts. It is very difficult if not impossible to destroy Hamas. The effort to do so will, as you say, result in the deaths of thousands of innocent Palestinians.
> I suggested that instead of attacking Iraq to depose Saddam Hussain (Yes, I wrote this before the fateful 9/11) he should focus his efforts on convincing Palestinians, Israelis and the Arabs that he and the US are committed to an honest, equitable, just and a lasting resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
I wish we lived in that world. Appreciate what you wrote.
Thank you. This is beautifully said. It's so hard to know how to respond to Israel's pain. I am trying to remember something Amos Elon wrote years ago, and will paraphrase, about a British friend of his, a man he said was a great friend of Israel. He was trying to justify something Israel had done to Arabs & said we are a traumatized people and he said the friend said a traumatized people who should be locked up. I hadn't heard Netanyahu's Biblical reference. So fucking sick of religious lunatics. I'd like to defend Israel (though have always disliked Netanyahu) and just can't. The only mitigating thing I can say is that there are people within Israel who can't stomach this as well. I just wish their voices were better heard. Can't see how this is going to end well for the country. Netanyahu, who clearly only cares about himself, is destroying the country from within.
Why doesn’t Hamas surrender? They celebrated the massacre of all they identified as enemies. They continue to lob bombs. They seem to have wanted the response they are getting. But if they wanted it to stop, they could release the hostages, surrender, and lay down their arms forever. What appears to be happening, however, is the start of a long multinational attack designed to overwhelm Israel over time. Hamas is known for shielding in civilian areas, guaranteeing massive casualties of innocents in any Israeli reprisal to terror. One can only hope that the massive network of underground tunnels in Gaza is destroyed quickly, as well as Hamas’ rocket launching capabilities. Israel has a tough job, and I in no way wish for loss of any life in Gaza, especially children. It’s maddening that in 2023 we cannot get over a little piece of desert.
I apologize for the several typos in my original post, including saying that the Ukraine war was in its twentieth week, when I meant month. And calling Netanyahu an incompetent, corrupt president, when I meant prime minister. As you can see, I wrote this is a passionate rush. I believe I have now corrected the typos.
Thank you for taking time to comment on my opinion. Unfortunately this decades old cycle of violence and counter violence has no end in sight. I am not sure if destroying Hamas will solve the problem. I am old enough to remember hijacking of planes and the Munich massacre long before Hamas existed. What we have learned that if one side has all the military might, equipment and technology then the other side will resort to what we call an asymmetric warfare (not an excuse nor a justification, just a statement of reality). Innocent civilians including those not sympathetic to the cause or the terror tactics are made to pay the price.
"Global opinion is shifting rapidly from horror at the Hamas attack to horror at the Israeli revenge."
What is your evidence that suggests Israel is motivated by revenge rather than some strategic plan?
I understand why much of the world jumps to your conclusion. But you are supposed to be a public intellectual who thinks through these difficult issues critically.
I am not sure if Israel has found the proper balance of diminishing Hamas and minimizing civilian casualties. They may have it wrong. But one reality I understand is that Israel must destroy Hamas's tunnel network containing all the logistical supplies that would fuel future attacks on Israeli citizens.
You call for a ceasefire. What is the next step that will lead to the destruction of Hamas's threat? Perhaps your view is that Israel can live with the tunnels and the billions of dollars worth of arms and supplies to power an army of terrorists. State so if that is the case. I'm not just asking rhetorical questions, perhaps you have thought through the issues.
My basic evidence is that US officials were appalled to find that Israel did not have a strategic plan beyond massive retaliation for the horrific attack. See, for example, this report. It is one of many where US officials expressed their deep reservations about the Israeli plan.
"The Biden administration is concerned that Israel lacks achievable military objectives in Gaza, and that the Israel Defense Forces are not yet ready to launch a ground invasion with a plan that can work, senior administration officials said."
Joe- How easy it it to lose the moral high ground. There are very few who don't recoil in horror at the attrocities committed during the Hamas attack. I couldn't bear to watch the video nor can I look at the pictures of the carnage in Gaza. I am struck with a single thought: all of those victims share one thing...they are dead. It matters little that they were killed by 'gleeful' attackers or by bombs dropped from the sky. (And as an American, I am ashamed that those armaments came from my country).
The verbal jujitsu that is coming out of the White House is shameful. I thought President Biden had more of a backbone. He's trying to have it both ways and it doesn't wash. If killing innocents is wrong, it's wrong everywhere.
We're being played into assisting in genocide.
Tom
"I am struck with a single thought: all of those victims share one thing...they are dead. " I feel exactly the same. In my down time in my hotel room, I've been watching BBC and Al Jazeera. The scenes of the dead and wounded are unrelenting. They don't even have time to loop the videos before new footage comes in. They say Israel kills one child in Gaza ever ten minutes. I do not understand how that can be outraged at the children killed by Hamas bullets and not feel remorse at the children killed by Israel bombs.
Thanks for writing. I agree 100%. This is not self-defense. Israel had a right to self-defense on October 7 and failed to exercise it. The call to destroy Amalek is compelling and seductive. 10 - 30 million evangelicals in our country are rooting for Amageddon to bring on the rapture so they don't have to experience normal death. There is a convergence of fundamentalist beliefs and political, military & domestic interests. In 1991 I stood on a corner in Jerusalem with Women in Black vigil to end the occupation. No one is safe until everyone is free. Need to end the occupation and get new leadership for all. According to the Talmud it is a crime to humiliate people. This is why.
You are wonderful. Thank you.
Thank you for writing this.
"To give you some sense of the scale of the killing, we are now in the twentieth week of Putin’s war on Ukraine. "
Twentieth week?
I meant twentieth month. I have now corrected the post. Thank you.
Don't mean to nitpick, but "When I can, I will right more coherently ..." Right?
Thanks for the nitpick. This is the last time I write so quickly, so late at night. Right?
Joe, I appreciated your analysis.
This is no longer retribution. It is vengeance. But they will go on until Bibi feels he has solidified his position. And then leave everyone else to deal with the aftermath.
I see Bibi as just another amoral version of Trump, as Jennifer Rubin pointed out in WaPo today. You may very well have his motives sized up correctly.
But I don't see the current Israeli action as retribution or vengeance. Can't be sure, perhaps I am projecting my own view on the Israeli people somewhat. I think they correctly are undertaking a horrible task because they need to knock out an existential threat. They may be doing it wrong, i can't say.
In my opinion the goal should not be to eliminate Hamas. It's not even necessary to kill their leaders, let alone all the foot soldiers. They need to degrade the physical military infrastructure and prevent Hamas from rebuilding it. You can't kill the ideology that fueled Hamas with bombs.
You make many good points, especially about degrading infrastructure. However, the scope of destruction goes well beyond that. And now we see evidence that Israel wants to push Gazans into the Sinai. And settlers in the West Bank have increased attacks on Palestinians there. Seems to fit a larger narrative in tune with right wingers in the coalition government. But I believe unless leaders on all sides adopt vastly changed policies the conflict will fester for many more years-regardless of how many die now.
If refugee camps could be built in the Sinai that result would be ideal! Israel is not going to "push" refugees there - Egypt is playing a heartless role in refusing to accept a single refugee on any terms.
I am not a Israel apologist, in fact I consider Israel today an apartheid state. I look for a path out of the morass.
I hope you are right.Fingers crossed. But it seems that Israel is playing a strategy that will not work out in the long run. It certainly hasn't so far.
Thanks for the good conversation.
It is a powerful article. In the face of such atrocities no words are adequate. It is said that people never kill so savagely and self-righteously as when they kill in the name of religion. To quote a Biblical verse to justify total genocide in this day and age is outrageous.
As good as your article is, it still leaves out the context to these tragic events. As UN Secretary General rightly said, Hamas atrocity which must be condemned did not happen in a vacuum. Since 2005 when Israeli army and settlers withdrew from the interior of Gaza but turned it into a concentration camp by blockading it from land, air and sea, this is the sixth time that Israel has conducted direct military aggression in the territory, insultingly calling it “mowing the grass”, every time declaring the total annihilation of Hamas as the objective.
How can one describe previous Israeli raids on Gaza as anything but terrorism and war crimes? In 2014 war, 2,310 Gazans were killed and more than 10,626 were wounded (including 3,374 children, of whom over 1,000 were left permanently disabled). Meanwhile, 67 Israeli soldiers and 5 Israeli civilians were killed. That operation alone killed many more Gazan civilians than the Hamas attack on Israel did on 7th October, yet the first one was supported by the West, while the much smaller attack on Israel is rightly condemned. Most people in the West have short memories about what happens in the Middle East, but the Palestinians remember them. In the latest operation, over 10,000 people, nearly half of them children, have been killed in Gaza in 24 days. Adjusting for population size, that would be the equivalent of killing one million people in the United States. It is time people woke up to the enormity of the massacres that Israel is committing both in Gaza and in the West Bank, before the global opinion turns against the West and its complicity with those crimes.
I feel the same. I can not watch or read anymore about the carnage going on against the people of Gaza. Genocide before our eyes and none does anything to stop it.
The worst of what is happening is the future that it is shaping. Very dark times await us and our children.
Israel’s response to the horrendous massacre by Hamas is following the same path as its prior responses to their incursions and attacks, only far, far more extreme. They may be on the path toward total annihilation or expulsion of the Palestinian population without any hope of any lasting resolution or lasting peace. Does anyone have any real doubts about this? Have they not learned yet?
Below is what I had to say about the October 7th Killing and kidnapping of innocent Israeli men, women and children. And that the Israeli military campaign will not bring about peace.
The news media as well as the social media are abuzz with what Israel needs to do in response to the slaughter of hundreds of innocent civilians as well as denigrating and kidnapping of countless men, women and children by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023. It was the most heinous and reprehensible act of terrorism against innocent Israelis and must be condemned unequivocally.
While the calls by Israeli citizens for retribution, retaliation and elimination of the Hamas leadership are very understandable, the Israeli military and civilian leadership does not have the luxury of letting outrage and emotions determine the response needed to guarantee security of their citizens in their own homes and towns.
The bombardment of Gaza is now in its eighth day. In addition, the Israeli army is readying to launch a ground offensive, presumably to capture or kill Hamas leadership.
Will military actions lead to a peaceful co-existence of Israelis and Palestinians? The past military campaigns, including the one that forced PLO leader Arafat in exile on Aug. 30, 1982, failed to create lasting peace. Therefore, it is naïve to think that capturing or killing of Hamas leaders will end violence against Israelis.
What is clear is that the urban warfare, once the Israeli army enters Gaza, will result in deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinian civilians as well as numerous Israeli soldiers. At some point, the military action will stop, and Israeli army will withdraw from Gaza. However, what to do next to achieve the illusive peace will remain unanswered.
Another possibility is that Israeli military will force evacuation of 1 million Gazan to the south of Gaza River to increase the Israeli security zone.
In the meantime, Israel has shut off water and electricity as well as supply of necessities including food and medicine for more than two million Palestinians trapped in Gaza. How this collective punishment of starving to death or the trauma of bombs exploding around them will turn one million Palestinian children in Gaza into peace loving neighbors the Israelis long for is beyond comprehension.
There are many in the U.S. who are eager to give Israeli military a carte blanche for air and ground assault on Gaza regardless of the consequences for the Israelis or Palestinians. However, calls for the moral clarity/moral compass, in any military action Israel takes, are few and far between. Robert Reich, a former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton, has written, “Justifiable moral revulsion must never be confused with retribution. There is no moral clarity in wreaking vengeance on innocent people (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/moral-clarity). Nicholas Kristof has written an Op-Ed in the New York Times, “... if your moral compass is attuned to the suffering of only one side, your compass is broken, and so is your humanity.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/11/opinion/israel-gaza- hamas.html).
These calls for moral clarity are laudable. However, Israel needs more than moral clarity in her hour of deep sorrow and shock, a way forward achieve a lasting peace.
Peace cannot be achieved by unhinged Israeli military actions, just as Hamas cannot achieve their goal of an independent state by killing and kidnapping innocent Israelis.
On Dec. 28, 2000, almost 23 years ago, I wrote “Mideast peace tops wish list for New Year: George W must be up to the task.” I suggested that instead of attacking Iraq to depose Saddam Hussain (Yes, I wrote this before the fateful 9/11) he should focus his efforts on convincing Palestinians, Israelis and the Arabs that he and the US are committed to an honest, equitable, just and a lasting resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (The Athens Messenger, Dec. 28, 2000). Since then there have been numerous cycles of killings and mayhem by Palestinians and Israelis to no avail. So much for a New Year wish for peace in the Mideast.
Huzoor Akbar
Thank you for your thoughtful analysis. Gen. David Petraeus famously asked of our strategy in Iraq, "Tell me how this ends?" That is what U.S. officials are now asking of their Israeli counterparts. It is very difficult if not impossible to destroy Hamas. The effort to do so will, as you say, result in the deaths of thousands of innocent Palestinians.
> I suggested that instead of attacking Iraq to depose Saddam Hussain (Yes, I wrote this before the fateful 9/11) he should focus his efforts on convincing Palestinians, Israelis and the Arabs that he and the US are committed to an honest, equitable, just and a lasting resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
I wish we lived in that world. Appreciate what you wrote.
Thank you. This is beautifully said. It's so hard to know how to respond to Israel's pain. I am trying to remember something Amos Elon wrote years ago, and will paraphrase, about a British friend of his, a man he said was a great friend of Israel. He was trying to justify something Israel had done to Arabs & said we are a traumatized people and he said the friend said a traumatized people who should be locked up. I hadn't heard Netanyahu's Biblical reference. So fucking sick of religious lunatics. I'd like to defend Israel (though have always disliked Netanyahu) and just can't. The only mitigating thing I can say is that there are people within Israel who can't stomach this as well. I just wish their voices were better heard. Can't see how this is going to end well for the country. Netanyahu, who clearly only cares about himself, is destroying the country from within.
I'm with you on this, Joe. And thanks for helping all of us to develop our own understanding and struggle through our own emotional turmoil.
Why doesn’t Hamas surrender? They celebrated the massacre of all they identified as enemies. They continue to lob bombs. They seem to have wanted the response they are getting. But if they wanted it to stop, they could release the hostages, surrender, and lay down their arms forever. What appears to be happening, however, is the start of a long multinational attack designed to overwhelm Israel over time. Hamas is known for shielding in civilian areas, guaranteeing massive casualties of innocents in any Israeli reprisal to terror. One can only hope that the massive network of underground tunnels in Gaza is destroyed quickly, as well as Hamas’ rocket launching capabilities. Israel has a tough job, and I in no way wish for loss of any life in Gaza, especially children. It’s maddening that in 2023 we cannot get over a little piece of desert.
I apologize for the several typos in my original post, including saying that the Ukraine war was in its twentieth week, when I meant month. And calling Netanyahu an incompetent, corrupt president, when I meant prime minister. As you can see, I wrote this is a passionate rush. I believe I have now corrected the typos.
Thank you for taking time to comment on my opinion. Unfortunately this decades old cycle of violence and counter violence has no end in sight. I am not sure if destroying Hamas will solve the problem. I am old enough to remember hijacking of planes and the Munich massacre long before Hamas existed. What we have learned that if one side has all the military might, equipment and technology then the other side will resort to what we call an asymmetric warfare (not an excuse nor a justification, just a statement of reality). Innocent civilians including those not sympathetic to the cause or the terror tactics are made to pay the price.
"Global opinion is shifting rapidly from horror at the Hamas attack to horror at the Israeli revenge."
What is your evidence that suggests Israel is motivated by revenge rather than some strategic plan?
I understand why much of the world jumps to your conclusion. But you are supposed to be a public intellectual who thinks through these difficult issues critically.
I am not sure if Israel has found the proper balance of diminishing Hamas and minimizing civilian casualties. They may have it wrong. But one reality I understand is that Israel must destroy Hamas's tunnel network containing all the logistical supplies that would fuel future attacks on Israeli citizens.
You call for a ceasefire. What is the next step that will lead to the destruction of Hamas's threat? Perhaps your view is that Israel can live with the tunnels and the billions of dollars worth of arms and supplies to power an army of terrorists. State so if that is the case. I'm not just asking rhetorical questions, perhaps you have thought through the issues.
My basic evidence is that US officials were appalled to find that Israel did not have a strategic plan beyond massive retaliation for the horrific attack. See, for example, this report. It is one of many where US officials expressed their deep reservations about the Israeli plan.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/23/us/politics/israel-us-gaza-invasion.html
Here is the lead paragraph:
"The Biden administration is concerned that Israel lacks achievable military objectives in Gaza, and that the Israel Defense Forces are not yet ready to launch a ground invasion with a plan that can work, senior administration officials said."
Israel also doesn't need any MORE money from us. Why is this even a topic of discussion?