President Biden has reneged on his promise to prevent Netanyahu's destruction of Rafah. Not a "full-scale invasion," his staff says. J Street eloquently disagrees.
Joe-It is depressing watching Biden dance to Bibi’s music. I can’t imagine what his advisors are telling him but from my perspective, he’s going to lose the next election because of the way he’s handled this.
Bibi wants another Trump presidency and he’s hell bent on making that happen.
I thought our President had a backbone but I was wrong. I have no intention of voting for Trump but I can’t imagine casting a vote for Biden given what he’s done (and not done).
And neither you nor Biden has any control over this war. Hamas could surrender and end it now, but they won’t. Bibi could unilaterally surrender by agreeing to a ceasefire, but he won’t. Israel will continue to fight until Hamas is dust (as they should) Children are being killed all over the world and no one cares, because their situation isn’t trendy. Let’s just pray that all wars end one day; that’s no more naive than expecting Israel to end the war before Hamas is annihilated, or to believe that there can be a peaceful two state solution.
My support for a military response as both an immediate and long term solution to the continuing existence of Hamas stopped with the death of the first child. The J Street proposal sounds like more than reasonable proposal. It actually appears to be the only proposal that represents a real solution that will have both an immediate and long term positive impact that so many pray for. I especially want there to be penalties for any country that supports Hamas in any way; like Qatar for example that provides a safe haven for Hamas leadership. ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick”, Theodore Roosevelt. President Biden, are you listening?
“My support for a military response…” “stopped with the death of the first child.” Then you either don’t understand war, the purpose of military, human nature, or you are a committed pacifist. Civilians always die in wars/conflicts. Saying your “support” stopped with the death of the first child means you never really supported a military response under any circumstances at all. For example, if you had said that about WWII in the very beginning had you lived during that time, you wouldn’t have fought the Axis powers and would have been responsible for letting evil grow and expand in the world. While there is nothing inherently wrong with being a pacifist, doing nothing or the wrong thing when, inevitably, the evil that men do to each other raises its head is not noble. It isn’t taking the high road. It doesn’t make the world a better place. Hamas could have, and could still, stop this conflict at any time by releasing all of the hostages (including the baby and children) -all of them alive and dead- and at least surrender themselves (Sinwar and the other top Hamas officials) on condition they receive a trial (those should be the only terms “negotiated.”) Everything else is sound and noise (propaganda and strategy.) which we all either support tacitly, directly, or not at all and fight against.
I sense a lot of pain and fear in your judgement of me. I could have been more expansive in my comments, but I feel so much heartache at the death of so many innocents. The story you tell makes so many assumptions that I feel I need to respond in defense of people who feel as I do; this will include a defense of who I am according to the story you are telling.
DP replied to your comment on When is Enough, Enough?.
“My support for a military response…” “stopped with the death of the first child.”
1. Then you either don’t understand war.
II was a soldier in Vietnam 1967-1968. I enlisted for 4 years.
2. the purpose of military.
Defending a nation against an enemy seeking to control or destroy the defending nation
3. Human nature.
I have lived these 76 years seeking answers to my most compelling question: what is the purpose of human life? During this lifetime I have buried family and friends. I have raised a beautiful son. I have experience financial success and failure. I have loved and hated. Now I am training to help veterans who have lost their way and want to return to society as human beings unburdened by the acts that war compelled them to do.
4. you are a committed pacifist.
Not so. While I questioned the governments motives for sending me to Vietnam, I did my duty, having enlisted and accepted my deployment to war. My military training equipped me with skills to kill many, but not children or their mothers or anyone opposed to the aims of the N. Vietnamese government.
5. Civilians always die in wars/conflicts. Saying your “support” stopped with the death of the first child means you never really supported a military response under any circumstances at all.
Egregiously incorrect. How dare you. I apologize for taking this personally but really DP!!! My first response was to declare my desire to see every member of Hamas killed. This remains true still, but the death of one innocent compels me to hope for another strategy.
6. For example, if you had said that about WWII in the very beginning had you lived during that time, you wouldn’t have fought the Axis powers and would have been responsible for letting evil grow and expand in the world.
Again, not true!
7. While there is nothing inherently wrong with being a pacifist, doing nothing or the wrong thing when, inevitably, the evil that men do to each other raises its head is not noble. It isn’t taking the high road. It doesn’t make the world a better place. Hamas could have, and could still, stop this conflict at any time by releasing all of the hostages (including the baby and children) -all of them alive and dead- and at least surrender themselves (Sinwar and the other top Hamas officials) on condition they receive a trial (those should be the only terms “negotiated.”) Everything else is sound and noise (propaganda and strategy.) which we all either support tacitly, directly, or not at all and fight against.
Who is manufacturing the weapons Hamas has received.?
How are these weapons reaching Hamas.?
What countries are hosting and protecting HAMAS LEADERS?
How do you separate Hamas soldiers from the general population?
Why isn’t the present Israeli government finding answers to these questions and enabling the disarmament if Hamas.?
Since the “blue arrow post button” kept refusing to post my response last night (because of too many words it said) I’ll keep this short:
You said:”2. the purpose of military.
Defending a nation against an enemy seeking to control or destroy the defending nation.”
Right which is what Israel is doing. The first child in this, the most current war/conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis, was killed in Israel on Oct 7, along with several more and along with the children and a baby still held hostage in Gaza (and being used as leverage.)
So for all your words you are hypocritical. You should be supporting Israel, instead you are enabling Hamas.
Christ, what a load of rubbish. This part is classic idiot shit: ”Then you either don’t understand war, the purpose of military, human nature, or you are a committed pacifist. Civilians always die in wars/conflicts. Saying your “support” stopped with the death of the first child means you never really supported a military response under any circumstances at all.”
Who the fuck are you? So General Armchair, did you get your military training from the Time-Life World War II series? A multi-volume largely pictorial enterprise that any boor can read and feel as though he was there: pinned down under a deadly hail of Jap fire on the beach at Iowa Jima! Sage words of of somewhat conventional wisdom, imparted from the editorial staff, composed entirely of the chagrined sons of the Greatest Generation, and handed down by you as a stark reality check to the starry eyed dreamers, pacifists and covert terrorist supporters here on Substack.
And that harkening back to the Axis powers - classic! Yeah, that’s right: IF you had been alive in 1939, and IF you had been a conscientious objector or some kind of doey eyed pacifist, well Mister, you may as well have been a gotdammed Nazi for all the good it did you! Like Germany was ever that big a threat to the ENTIRE WORLD (!!!) I remind you that Germany’s Axis partners were the massively underperforming Italians and the far away Japanese who were never going to be able to render any effective aid to Germany. We can also add the gallant Romanians, the Slovenes, and a few other quasi-Fascist regimes that found it politic to pledge fealty to the Nazis until the circumstances changed. Then they dumped them as fast as they could.
The Russians won World War II. All of the really heavy lifting in that war was done on the Eastern front, by the Russians, against an implacable and highly skilled enemy. Thanks to Winston Churchill a second front wasn’t opened until the 11th hour and aside from some sharp resistance here and there; eg the battle of the bulge, the allied forces were involved in a Kodak tour of the continent, “liberating” areas that were hastily abandoned by the Germans in headlong flight. Meanwhile on the Eastern front every inch of land was contested and the Russians slogged it out with the Germans every step of way.
But I digress. What Israel is doing in Gaza isn’t a war. It’s a campaign of annihilation and a holocaust of the Palestinians. It’s disgusting and the world recoils in horror from it. Pretend all you want that Hamas is a potent existential threat to the existence of Israel. Hamas is a creation of Israel. Created and funded by Benjamin Netanyahu so he could bilk billions of dollars out of the United States government to fight an endless Manichean battle of good vs evil. The problem is that Hamas isn’t really all that evil - is it. And there would be peace ✌️ n the Levant if Israel wasn’t there - isn’t that true? Israel is the problem. Israel needs to be cut off, isolated, starved of funding and weapons, and forced to become a good neighbor in the region.
“Sage words of somewhat conventional wisdom…handed down by you as a stark reality check to the starry eyed dreamers, pacifists and covert terrorist supporters here on Substack.”
You said it, not me, General Armchair Commie.
Wow a denial of the holocaust and a brush off of the axis powers as “no big deal” anyway, and a claim that only the Russians really fought and won WWII. Why would they if it was all no big deal? Do you even know that Stalin was Hitler’s ally first? You really should “get your military training from the Time-Life World War II series? A multi-volume largely pictorial enterprise that any boor can read …” you should try reading it yourself sometime. You are dreadfully stupid.
The idea there is some obligation on the part of the victims of 7 Oct to come up with a plan to provide for the needs of those governed by those who perpetrated 7 Oct before destroying the perpetrators is absurd. Pearl Harbor was attacked in Dec. 1941 and the Potsdam Conference was held in July 1945. The lack of a day after plan was not an impediment to destroying Japanese forces throughout the Pacific.
The people who live in Gaza have agency. They can throw off Hamas and come up with leaders and structure their own society in a way that lives peacefully with Israel. Hamas can no longer be an option.
Absent the IDF reoccupying Gaza, which has no support in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, or Washington, Israel has no ability to impose a stable order in Gaza. Unfortunately there is also no credible Palestinian power with the ability to do so either. The UN is also not an option given its performance with UNRWA and UNIFIL.
There is also the problem any plan to impose such order that originates with or is even perceived as preferred by the Israeli government will be immediately seen as illegitimate in Gaza. Any day after plan with any chance of success cannot come from Jerusalem but must be acceptable, perhaps grudgingly so, there.
That leaves very few realistic options. I hope (but have seen no evidence) there is enormous diplomatic pressure being put on Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, UAE to put forward a plan to put Arab soldiers on the ground in Gaza, impose civil order, and finance the rebuilding of Gaza. But as a wise man once said, hope is not a combat multiplier.
Israel never accepted the Rafah red line as America rightly c usher and occupied Japan and Germany after WW2. The Palestinian people harbor a genocidal antisemitism that compares unfavorably to German citizens in Nazi Germany. They have pledged to commit many more October 7 and the Israeli people should not stand for it.
Ben-Ami writes "Hamas and the terrorists who attacked Israel on October 7 can and must be defeated. But that will only happen through a political resolution of the underlying Israeli-Palestinian conflict – one that rallies international support to deprive Hamas of financial, political and popular support and charts a clear, alternate, peaceful path toward Palestinian liberation."
Those are nice words, but they won't work.
1) Israelis will never vote for a Palestinian state so long as Hamas exists as a functioning organization. It's simply fantasy to claim otherwise. Thus, Job #1 on the road to a Palestinian state is the extermination of Hamas.
2) If Israelis did agree to a Palestinian state, if Hamas still exists it will take over that state, because Hamas in the most ruthless player within the Palestinian community. Observe how Hamas kicked the PLO out of Gaza. All Arab states are ruled by whoever is the most ruthless.
3) The Palestinians will never be happy until they have exactly the same thing as the Israelis, full sovereignty with no strings attached. Given that there is about zero chance of this happening, the conflict will continue in some form even after a Palestinian state was established, no matter who rules that state.
We on the Left have an unfortunate habit of confusing the good guys and bad guys. This is a consistent pattern going back to the time of the Vietnam war. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson were clear minded about who the enemy was. But then we on the Left lost our way. And now the Republicans have lost their way too.
The fundamental problem obstructing peace in the Middle East is that the entire Arab and Persian world is ruled by psychopathic despots. Psychopathic despots can never be expected to treat their neighbors with any more respect than they treat their own citizens. This is who our moral outrage should be aimed at.
If we're serious about ending the conflict in Gaza, which I tend to doubt, Israel, the US, the EU, and all the Arab states who also hate Hamas should have united and fought together to apply overwhelming force to end Hamas in the shortest amount of time. Unite, go in, go all the way, do the job, and get it over with. Leaving the Israelis to do on their own the job that everybody wants done results in the conflict dragging on and on and on, maximizing the suffering for civilians.
We in the West are having the same problem in both Gaza and Ukraine. We can't decide if we're serious or not. And so we waffle around with half assed half measures, trying to have our cake and eat it too, which prolongs the suffering. It's the Vietnam war all over again, and it we continue on this course the current wars are likely to end the same way as Vietnam.
We lose. The bad guys win.
Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. The real Democrats.
I see Netanyahu & his ilk mirroring malignant narcissists & using the Israeli army to take out their narcissistic rage on Gaza, because Bibi's promises of keeping Israelis safe with right-wing security was proven hollow.
In their psychological state of narcissistic collapse, there is nothing Biden can do short of a total ultimatum that will stop these grasping at straws extremists from continuing to rage, but that will only work if the Israeli people demand it too. A most difficult needle to thread with election 2024 coming.
i.e. From a CNI perspective, Netanyahu's behavior is circa pathological, so nothing short of "the sword of Damocles" removal will stop him. Of course, I would welcome any thoughtful critiques, counters or comments on the analysis for Natanyahu's upcoming psychological profile.
You seem overly focused on narcissism, and I don’t entirely blame you, there has been so much talk (obsessively so) about narcissism in general that even I have finally been sucked into looking into it, although for more personal reasons than Middle East politics. However it seems to me for all your claims of a depth of knowledge about Middle East politics you overlook that fact that pretty much all Middle East politics has always been filled with narcissistic types of people. Perhaps this can be said of all people/politics to some extent, but even a cursory read of Middle Eastern politics revolves around a tremendous amount of what we now call narcissism (and that may be an accurate representation.) However, that doesn’t address directly the Narcism of Hamas’s leadership (Sinwar et al) or Yasser Arafat, who proposed this strategy of victimize Palistinians, use them, and make Israel have to fight with one hand tied behind their back while we do everything we can to destroy them, including getting the international community on our side so they don’t stop us, others we would lose. Arafat seems to have developed this strategy in solidarity with Hamas’s nacient leadership going back at latest to the 1970’s. I’m no fan, nor enemy, of Netanyahu but to claim he is doing what anyone in his position would need to do under the circumstances is his “narcissistic rage” because of his “right-wing security” failures is grossly misrepresenting the reality of the situation.
It's often comedy to see people who think they have a clue about what I said or with narcissist psychology, dress it up with obvious, imbecilic & childish observations & half-truths, & then grossly misrepresents what I said, so thet can spew their oversimplified POV. Go waste someone else's time with your childish narcissism or be blocked.
With all due respect, this atrocity is Bibi’s tragedy to own. Bibi is the guilty party. Biden has no authority over Bibi, who is the elected leader of his own country. Others can suggest a wiser course of action to Bibi, but no one can force Bibi to do anything other than what he chooses. Bibi is drunk on his own power and this is the result.
All it takes is for Hamas to release the hostages and surrender. You have a long list of demands on the US and Israel, where are your demands on the perpetrators of this war ( while under a cease fire) , Hamas and the Palestinians that support them ?
Joe-It is depressing watching Biden dance to Bibi’s music. I can’t imagine what his advisors are telling him but from my perspective, he’s going to lose the next election because of the way he’s handled this.
Bibi wants another Trump presidency and he’s hell bent on making that happen.
I thought our President had a backbone but I was wrong. I have no intention of voting for Trump but I can’t imagine casting a vote for Biden given what he’s done (and not done).
Tom
Biden is one of the longest serving American politicians. He probably knows more about getting elected than the general public peanut gallery.
I will vote for Biden, but he sure has made a lot of foreign policy blunders for a man who is known as a foreign policy wonk.
It would help if gaza would release the hostages an stop attacking isreal
I don’t think that would stop Netanyahu from continuing the war. He needs this war to stay in power.
And neither you nor Biden has any control over this war. Hamas could surrender and end it now, but they won’t. Bibi could unilaterally surrender by agreeing to a ceasefire, but he won’t. Israel will continue to fight until Hamas is dust (as they should) Children are being killed all over the world and no one cares, because their situation isn’t trendy. Let’s just pray that all wars end one day; that’s no more naive than expecting Israel to end the war before Hamas is annihilated, or to believe that there can be a peaceful two state solution.
Maybe I don't care who's in power, I do agree humas needs eradicate
My support for a military response as both an immediate and long term solution to the continuing existence of Hamas stopped with the death of the first child. The J Street proposal sounds like more than reasonable proposal. It actually appears to be the only proposal that represents a real solution that will have both an immediate and long term positive impact that so many pray for. I especially want there to be penalties for any country that supports Hamas in any way; like Qatar for example that provides a safe haven for Hamas leadership. ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick”, Theodore Roosevelt. President Biden, are you listening?
“My support for a military response…” “stopped with the death of the first child.” Then you either don’t understand war, the purpose of military, human nature, or you are a committed pacifist. Civilians always die in wars/conflicts. Saying your “support” stopped with the death of the first child means you never really supported a military response under any circumstances at all. For example, if you had said that about WWII in the very beginning had you lived during that time, you wouldn’t have fought the Axis powers and would have been responsible for letting evil grow and expand in the world. While there is nothing inherently wrong with being a pacifist, doing nothing or the wrong thing when, inevitably, the evil that men do to each other raises its head is not noble. It isn’t taking the high road. It doesn’t make the world a better place. Hamas could have, and could still, stop this conflict at any time by releasing all of the hostages (including the baby and children) -all of them alive and dead- and at least surrender themselves (Sinwar and the other top Hamas officials) on condition they receive a trial (those should be the only terms “negotiated.”) Everything else is sound and noise (propaganda and strategy.) which we all either support tacitly, directly, or not at all and fight against.
Dear DP,
I sense a lot of pain and fear in your judgement of me. I could have been more expansive in my comments, but I feel so much heartache at the death of so many innocents. The story you tell makes so many assumptions that I feel I need to respond in defense of people who feel as I do; this will include a defense of who I am according to the story you are telling.
DP replied to your comment on When is Enough, Enough?.
“My support for a military response…” “stopped with the death of the first child.”
1. Then you either don’t understand war.
II was a soldier in Vietnam 1967-1968. I enlisted for 4 years.
2. the purpose of military.
Defending a nation against an enemy seeking to control or destroy the defending nation
3. Human nature.
I have lived these 76 years seeking answers to my most compelling question: what is the purpose of human life? During this lifetime I have buried family and friends. I have raised a beautiful son. I have experience financial success and failure. I have loved and hated. Now I am training to help veterans who have lost their way and want to return to society as human beings unburdened by the acts that war compelled them to do.
4. you are a committed pacifist.
Not so. While I questioned the governments motives for sending me to Vietnam, I did my duty, having enlisted and accepted my deployment to war. My military training equipped me with skills to kill many, but not children or their mothers or anyone opposed to the aims of the N. Vietnamese government.
5. Civilians always die in wars/conflicts. Saying your “support” stopped with the death of the first child means you never really supported a military response under any circumstances at all.
Egregiously incorrect. How dare you. I apologize for taking this personally but really DP!!! My first response was to declare my desire to see every member of Hamas killed. This remains true still, but the death of one innocent compels me to hope for another strategy.
6. For example, if you had said that about WWII in the very beginning had you lived during that time, you wouldn’t have fought the Axis powers and would have been responsible for letting evil grow and expand in the world.
Again, not true!
7. While there is nothing inherently wrong with being a pacifist, doing nothing or the wrong thing when, inevitably, the evil that men do to each other raises its head is not noble. It isn’t taking the high road. It doesn’t make the world a better place. Hamas could have, and could still, stop this conflict at any time by releasing all of the hostages (including the baby and children) -all of them alive and dead- and at least surrender themselves (Sinwar and the other top Hamas officials) on condition they receive a trial (those should be the only terms “negotiated.”) Everything else is sound and noise (propaganda and strategy.) which we all either support tacitly, directly, or not at all and fight against.
Who is manufacturing the weapons Hamas has received.?
How are these weapons reaching Hamas.?
What countries are hosting and protecting HAMAS LEADERS?
How do you separate Hamas soldiers from the general population?
Why isn’t the present Israeli government finding answers to these questions and enabling the disarmament if Hamas.?
Etc,etc,etc.
Regards,
Jeff
PS. Is DP your birth name?
Hamas killed the first child.
Are you sure? This conflict didn’t start last year.
Since the “blue arrow post button” kept refusing to post my response last night (because of too many words it said) I’ll keep this short:
You said:”2. the purpose of military.
Defending a nation against an enemy seeking to control or destroy the defending nation.”
Right which is what Israel is doing. The first child in this, the most current war/conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis, was killed in Israel on Oct 7, along with several more and along with the children and a baby still held hostage in Gaza (and being used as leverage.)
So for all your words you are hypocritical. You should be supporting Israel, instead you are enabling Hamas.
Christ, what a load of rubbish. This part is classic idiot shit: ”Then you either don’t understand war, the purpose of military, human nature, or you are a committed pacifist. Civilians always die in wars/conflicts. Saying your “support” stopped with the death of the first child means you never really supported a military response under any circumstances at all.”
Who the fuck are you? So General Armchair, did you get your military training from the Time-Life World War II series? A multi-volume largely pictorial enterprise that any boor can read and feel as though he was there: pinned down under a deadly hail of Jap fire on the beach at Iowa Jima! Sage words of of somewhat conventional wisdom, imparted from the editorial staff, composed entirely of the chagrined sons of the Greatest Generation, and handed down by you as a stark reality check to the starry eyed dreamers, pacifists and covert terrorist supporters here on Substack.
And that harkening back to the Axis powers - classic! Yeah, that’s right: IF you had been alive in 1939, and IF you had been a conscientious objector or some kind of doey eyed pacifist, well Mister, you may as well have been a gotdammed Nazi for all the good it did you! Like Germany was ever that big a threat to the ENTIRE WORLD (!!!) I remind you that Germany’s Axis partners were the massively underperforming Italians and the far away Japanese who were never going to be able to render any effective aid to Germany. We can also add the gallant Romanians, the Slovenes, and a few other quasi-Fascist regimes that found it politic to pledge fealty to the Nazis until the circumstances changed. Then they dumped them as fast as they could.
The Russians won World War II. All of the really heavy lifting in that war was done on the Eastern front, by the Russians, against an implacable and highly skilled enemy. Thanks to Winston Churchill a second front wasn’t opened until the 11th hour and aside from some sharp resistance here and there; eg the battle of the bulge, the allied forces were involved in a Kodak tour of the continent, “liberating” areas that were hastily abandoned by the Germans in headlong flight. Meanwhile on the Eastern front every inch of land was contested and the Russians slogged it out with the Germans every step of way.
But I digress. What Israel is doing in Gaza isn’t a war. It’s a campaign of annihilation and a holocaust of the Palestinians. It’s disgusting and the world recoils in horror from it. Pretend all you want that Hamas is a potent existential threat to the existence of Israel. Hamas is a creation of Israel. Created and funded by Benjamin Netanyahu so he could bilk billions of dollars out of the United States government to fight an endless Manichean battle of good vs evil. The problem is that Hamas isn’t really all that evil - is it. And there would be peace ✌️ n the Levant if Israel wasn’t there - isn’t that true? Israel is the problem. Israel needs to be cut off, isolated, starved of funding and weapons, and forced to become a good neighbor in the region.
“Sage words of somewhat conventional wisdom…handed down by you as a stark reality check to the starry eyed dreamers, pacifists and covert terrorist supporters here on Substack.”
You said it, not me, General Armchair Commie.
Wow a denial of the holocaust and a brush off of the axis powers as “no big deal” anyway, and a claim that only the Russians really fought and won WWII. Why would they if it was all no big deal? Do you even know that Stalin was Hitler’s ally first? You really should “get your military training from the Time-Life World War II series? A multi-volume largely pictorial enterprise that any boor can read …” you should try reading it yourself sometime. You are dreadfully stupid.
Bullshit.
The idea there is some obligation on the part of the victims of 7 Oct to come up with a plan to provide for the needs of those governed by those who perpetrated 7 Oct before destroying the perpetrators is absurd. Pearl Harbor was attacked in Dec. 1941 and the Potsdam Conference was held in July 1945. The lack of a day after plan was not an impediment to destroying Japanese forces throughout the Pacific.
The people who live in Gaza have agency. They can throw off Hamas and come up with leaders and structure their own society in a way that lives peacefully with Israel. Hamas can no longer be an option.
Not obligation. Self interest.
Example: After WWII the allies understood that it was in their self interest to rebuild their former enemies.
You're taking a moralistic perspective. Try tactical instead.
Absent the IDF reoccupying Gaza, which has no support in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, or Washington, Israel has no ability to impose a stable order in Gaza. Unfortunately there is also no credible Palestinian power with the ability to do so either. The UN is also not an option given its performance with UNRWA and UNIFIL.
There is also the problem any plan to impose such order that originates with or is even perceived as preferred by the Israeli government will be immediately seen as illegitimate in Gaza. Any day after plan with any chance of success cannot come from Jerusalem but must be acceptable, perhaps grudgingly so, there.
That leaves very few realistic options. I hope (but have seen no evidence) there is enormous diplomatic pressure being put on Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, UAE to put forward a plan to put Arab soldiers on the ground in Gaza, impose civil order, and finance the rebuilding of Gaza. But as a wise man once said, hope is not a combat multiplier.
Well, you know the saying, "If you break it, you own it."
Agree it would be better for Arabs to take over Gaza. Agree that doesn't seem likely.
The disconnect here is nobody wants Israel to “own it.” There is a bizarre insistence Israel govern Gaza without occupying it.
Yes, nobody wants to own Gaza. And everybody but Israel has the option of washing their hands of Gaza and walking away.
What do Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, UAE etc have to gain by agreeing to manage Gaza? Nothing but trouble.
Israel never accepted the Rafah red line as America rightly c usher and occupied Japan and Germany after WW2. The Palestinian people harbor a genocidal antisemitism that compares unfavorably to German citizens in Nazi Germany. They have pledged to commit many more October 7 and the Israeli people should not stand for it.
Apparently, the Palestinians haven’t had “enough” yet.
Ben-Ami writes "Hamas and the terrorists who attacked Israel on October 7 can and must be defeated. But that will only happen through a political resolution of the underlying Israeli-Palestinian conflict – one that rallies international support to deprive Hamas of financial, political and popular support and charts a clear, alternate, peaceful path toward Palestinian liberation."
Those are nice words, but they won't work.
1) Israelis will never vote for a Palestinian state so long as Hamas exists as a functioning organization. It's simply fantasy to claim otherwise. Thus, Job #1 on the road to a Palestinian state is the extermination of Hamas.
2) If Israelis did agree to a Palestinian state, if Hamas still exists it will take over that state, because Hamas in the most ruthless player within the Palestinian community. Observe how Hamas kicked the PLO out of Gaza. All Arab states are ruled by whoever is the most ruthless.
3) The Palestinians will never be happy until they have exactly the same thing as the Israelis, full sovereignty with no strings attached. Given that there is about zero chance of this happening, the conflict will continue in some form even after a Palestinian state was established, no matter who rules that state.
We on the Left have an unfortunate habit of confusing the good guys and bad guys. This is a consistent pattern going back to the time of the Vietnam war. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson were clear minded about who the enemy was. But then we on the Left lost our way. And now the Republicans have lost their way too.
The fundamental problem obstructing peace in the Middle East is that the entire Arab and Persian world is ruled by psychopathic despots. Psychopathic despots can never be expected to treat their neighbors with any more respect than they treat their own citizens. This is who our moral outrage should be aimed at.
If we're serious about ending the conflict in Gaza, which I tend to doubt, Israel, the US, the EU, and all the Arab states who also hate Hamas should have united and fought together to apply overwhelming force to end Hamas in the shortest amount of time. Unite, go in, go all the way, do the job, and get it over with. Leaving the Israelis to do on their own the job that everybody wants done results in the conflict dragging on and on and on, maximizing the suffering for civilians.
We in the West are having the same problem in both Gaza and Ukraine. We can't decide if we're serious or not. And so we waffle around with half assed half measures, trying to have our cake and eat it too, which prolongs the suffering. It's the Vietnam war all over again, and it we continue on this course the current wars are likely to end the same way as Vietnam.
We lose. The bad guys win.
Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. The real Democrats.
> Unite, go in, go all the way, do the job, and get it over with.
More of what Israel is doing doesn’t seem likely to be successful.
> Unite, go in, go all the way, do the job, and get it over with.
More of what Israel is doing doesn’t seem likely to be successful.
The critics always know what they don't like. And it ends there.
I see Netanyahu & his ilk mirroring malignant narcissists & using the Israeli army to take out their narcissistic rage on Gaza, because Bibi's promises of keeping Israelis safe with right-wing security was proven hollow.
In their psychological state of narcissistic collapse, there is nothing Biden can do short of a total ultimatum that will stop these grasping at straws extremists from continuing to rage, but that will only work if the Israeli people demand it too. A most difficult needle to thread with election 2024 coming.
i.e. From a CNI perspective, Netanyahu's behavior is circa pathological, so nothing short of "the sword of Damocles" removal will stop him. Of course, I would welcome any thoughtful critiques, counters or comments on the analysis for Natanyahu's upcoming psychological profile.
When the question of how well do I know the region arises, my degree was in international relations with a specialty in the Middle East, a decade before 9/11. https://samray.substack.com/p/middle-eastern-quicksand-and-axioms
You seem overly focused on narcissism, and I don’t entirely blame you, there has been so much talk (obsessively so) about narcissism in general that even I have finally been sucked into looking into it, although for more personal reasons than Middle East politics. However it seems to me for all your claims of a depth of knowledge about Middle East politics you overlook that fact that pretty much all Middle East politics has always been filled with narcissistic types of people. Perhaps this can be said of all people/politics to some extent, but even a cursory read of Middle Eastern politics revolves around a tremendous amount of what we now call narcissism (and that may be an accurate representation.) However, that doesn’t address directly the Narcism of Hamas’s leadership (Sinwar et al) or Yasser Arafat, who proposed this strategy of victimize Palistinians, use them, and make Israel have to fight with one hand tied behind their back while we do everything we can to destroy them, including getting the international community on our side so they don’t stop us, others we would lose. Arafat seems to have developed this strategy in solidarity with Hamas’s nacient leadership going back at latest to the 1970’s. I’m no fan, nor enemy, of Netanyahu but to claim he is doing what anyone in his position would need to do under the circumstances is his “narcissistic rage” because of his “right-wing security” failures is grossly misrepresenting the reality of the situation.
It's often comedy to see people who think they have a clue about what I said or with narcissist psychology, dress it up with obvious, imbecilic & childish observations & half-truths, & then grossly misrepresents what I said, so thet can spew their oversimplified POV. Go waste someone else's time with your childish narcissism or be blocked.
I'm curious, when attacking another country what is the right number of people you're allowed to kill?
With all due respect, this atrocity is Bibi’s tragedy to own. Bibi is the guilty party. Biden has no authority over Bibi, who is the elected leader of his own country. Others can suggest a wiser course of action to Bibi, but no one can force Bibi to do anything other than what he chooses. Bibi is drunk on his own power and this is the result.
All it takes is for Hamas to release the hostages and surrender. You have a long list of demands on the US and Israel, where are your demands on the perpetrators of this war ( while under a cease fire) , Hamas and the Palestinians that support them ?
Hamas and Israel are both terrorist organizations. I demand them both to stop murdering innocent people.