Blackhawk wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2024 7:43 pm
Kurth wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2024 7:04 pm
Blackhawk wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2024 5:26 pm
I've made the comparison before - this is their Vietnam. It's not a 'winnable' war. The only way they could truly get Hamas out of Gaza would be wipe Gaza clean, and they know it.
I think that’s a bad comparison and bad analysis on a number of levels.
(1) The Vietnamese were engaged in a civil war. U.S. intervention was entirely driven by Cold War policy analysis. While the Vietnamese were fighting for their home, the U.S. armed forces were largely there without any idea of what they were fighting for, beyond maybe some stupid “domino theory” crap emanating from Washington. Contrast that to what is going on in Gaza right now. With October 7 still fresh on their minds and with Hamas still holding hostages - live and dead - in Gaza, I don’t think Israel or the IDF has any difficulty knowing why they are currently fighting.
(2) The Vietnamese were constantly resupplied with effective, modern weapons and munitions by the Soviet Union and the PRC. Hamas is isolated. With the exception of any weapons Hamas has been able to smuggle in with aid shipments, they have no means of resupply. This is especially so now that the border with Egypt has been effectively closed.
(3) I keep seeing it said here that Israel cannot defeat Hamas, but I don’t think that’s at all based in reality unless you are defining Hamas extremely broadly. When Israel talks about defeating Hamas, they mean effectively destroying Hamas’s leadership and ending its capacity to administratively lead the Gaza Strip. That is being done at this very moment. Hamas’s leadership will not survive this war, and, for those living outside of Gaza right now in Qatar and other locales, history teaches us the extent of
Israel’s resolve to track down and bring people like that to justice.
This is a winnable war, and Israel is going to win it. There’s undoubtedly a severe cost to that, but there’s a cost to failing to end Hamas leadership, too.
You are taking the analogy much, much further than I intended it to be taken. And I still maintain that with Hamas leadership elsewhere, and Hamas' support coming from foreign entities, and the motivation for Hamas coming from the way the Palestinians have been treated, that they can't be Hamas. Best case? They knock down Hamas only to face Hamas 2.0 in a few years.
Then I honestly don’t understand what you’re getting at. Israel is, in fact, taking out Hamas leadership in Gaza. While many of the Hamas higher-ups are living their best lives hosted by other Arab nations, the real tactical and strategic and administrative leadership of Hamas is very much located in Gaza. And they are being exterminated. So, yes, Israel will “knock down” Hamas in Gaza, and Gaza will never again be ruled by Hamas - or any other Islamist-terrorist regime.
Israel miscalculated in a big way when it unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. Those behind the withdraw - and most of the world - assumed that Fatah and the PA would take over administrative control of the territory. When Hamas won the election and then waged war on Fatah essentially eliminating them within Gaza, all of Israel’s plans got turned upside down.
Instead of propelling talks toward a sustainable peace, the rise of Hamas in Gaza propelled the right wing in Israel into power. And what did that coalition of religious zealots and Islamophobic bigots want? Not a 2-state solution. Instead they tried to play Hamas, supporting them against Fatah because they thought that further delegitimized the idea of there ever being a Palestinian state. Obviously, aside from being unethical, that was a huge strategic mistake, as Hamas, largely free to do what it wanted in Gaza, fortified and tunneled and planned and eventually attacked on October 7.
So, when you say that Israel may “knock Hamas down” I agree. They absolutely will knock Hamas down. But when you suggest that Israel will then be facing Hamas 2.0, I think that’s wildly misguided. Israel will not make the same mistake it did when it unilaterally left Gaza. It will not again let a force like Hamas rise to power in Gaza. Not going to happen.