Now that elite opinion has coalesced around the idea that Israel has (caveat caveat caveat caveat) gone a bit too far, I really would like someone to explain what changed between January (let alone October) and April?
I'm just a simple city blogger and my opinion was clear from the beginning: whatever the conflict, de-escalation is alway the right guiding principle.
I've been more muddled about Gaza than Atrios, so I suppose this deserves an answer. And honestly, I think the answer is fairly simple. It's gone something like this:
- October 7 was a horrible, murderous rampage and a clear casus belli against Hamas.
- In an urban war against a terrorist enemy, civilians are going to die. Nobody likes it, but if you agree that destroying Hamas is a justifiable goal, then you have to accept a certain amount of civilian death.
- Since January, though, two things have become increasingly clear. First, after some initial success it seemed that Israel wasn't making much further progress on Hamas. Second, Israel appeared to be dead serious about starving Gazans to death. That's a heinous war crime regardless of how much you support the goal of the war.
If you already loathed Israel, or never thought Hamas was that big a threat, then of course you would have opposed Israel's scorched-earth war from the beginning. That makes sense. But if you agreed that October 7 made the case for destroying Hamas overwhelming, you'd be inclined to give Israel a lot of leeway in its conduct of a difficult war.
But a lot of leeway is not infinite leeway. As the threat of starvation in Gaza became ever more apparent, that leeway began to tighten. Killing the WCK aid workers then crystallized it.
I think this is right on.
+ 1
Yup. 100%
+1
I think it is inane and immature.
Here is another example of a killing of an aid worker and his family.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/military-releases-videos-august-drone-strike-killed-civilians/index.html
The US killed an aid worker and most of his family after following his car through Kabul for hours. The US punished no one - unlike the Israelis who apparently cashiered an officer.
Why no similar outrage? Well, the people responsible for what happened in Afghanistan were not Israeli. Any other reason? Not that I can see.
There are two main reasons why this incident produced less outrage than the killing of the WCK workers. The smaller one is that it wasn't a part of the same kind of pattern that the Israelis have created. Rather than being an isolated incident, the IDF has killed more than 200 humanitarian aid workers since 10/7. The +972 investigation of the IDF's use of an AI in target selection makes it clear that the Israelis are prepared to tolerate much higher rates of civilian casualties to achieve similar objectives than the US Army has in any of its recent wars.
The bigger issue is that the IDF made the enormous mistake of killing White aid workers. So long as they were only killing Palestinians, no one got all that exercised. Killing Arabs or Afghans is just the price of doing business. Killing Europeans and Canadians, on the other hand, is not tolerated.
The claim that 200 humanitarian workers were killed seems to include all UNRWA staff killed whether or not in the course of duty.
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/05/1243163044/the-lives-of-other-aid-workers-killed-in-gaza
Since UNRWA has 13,000 workers in Gaza that is one out of 65. When you take into account the fact that some of them are also Hamas members the number of innocent aid workers killed is even lower.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_allegations_against_UNRWA
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bjfesbnd6
"The bigger issue is that the IDF made the enormous mistake of killing White aid workers. So long as they were only killing Palestinians, no one got all that exercised. Killing Arabs or Afghans is just the price of doing business. Killing Europeans and Canadians, on the other hand, is not tolerated."
So they are not anti-Semites, just racists?
Israel has been following more or less the same policy forever: Overwhelmingly disproportionate response to every provocation. Example: If a member of your family is -accused- (NOT convicted. Just accused.) of attacking Israel, they demolish your home. Now, if the goal is to get more land for Israeli settlers, this has worked out fine. But if your goal is peace... well, doing the same thing over and over again for (checks Aztec calendar...) 75 years without seeing any tangible results sure seems like the definition of insanity. And the one time they did things differently and negotiated peace with Egypt? That worked. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere...
But whatever could the lesson be???
Over 100 hostages have been freed by negotiations, 3 by the IDF, who also killed 3. I’m sure that we could learn something from that, too …
Since 2000, according to a leftist Israel stats site, Israel has killed 23 Palestinians for every one Israeli death. And the ratio has lately been higher
Source:
https://www.btselem.org/statistics
This is nothing new, it is the cold-blooded extermination of a people's ability to live if not their lives themselves. I am of Jewish stock, from a family that came from Bavaria in the early 1800s and assimilated. My grandfather changed his name from Levi to Dean. The most poisonous thing a people or group can do is to see themselves as Chosen and entitled. This is holy writ in Judaism, Deuteronomy 20:16-18.
It's not just 'according to leftists' these are the same numbers you'd get from Israeli officials if they compiled their reports.
"The most poisonous thing a people or group can do is to see themselves as Chosen and entitled."
Most "truths" I am aware of apply only to individuals. This one seems to apply to groups. Well stated and well done, sir.
First, you misunderstood what it means to be chosen. It if a burden, not an entitlement.
Second, you ascribe the political acts of a nation to their religion. Israel’s acts and policies are not because it is a Jewish state, it’s because it is a conservative state.
"First, you misunderstood what it means to be chosen. It if a burden, not an entitlement."
Pretty much every group throughout history that has made the claim they were chosen uses that as an entitlement and justification to do whatever the hell they want no matter how wrong, unethical, or plain evil it is.
"Second, you ascribe the political acts of a nation to their religion. Israel’s acts and policies are not because it is a Jewish state, it’s because it is a conservative state."
Just like in the US the conservative right tries to entangle the political with the religious, so too does Israel. Their entire claim to Palestinian lands is based on religious scripture, which goes back to the first point. People who think they have a certain privilege or entitlement from a higher power often use that as a justification for their actions.
The lesson from the successful negotiation with Egypt is pretty simple: Negotiation is a personnel-dependent process. Get the right personnel involved, with the right motivation, and you've got a chance for success. Begin was questionable, but Carter and Sadat were certainly not, and Begin had the very good sense to "get with the program" to achieve his objective(s).
The "Waco Strategy" used by both sides initially was reprehensible and inhumane. The starvation tactics illegal. The rhetoric used by the Israelis and Hamas racist.
Otherwise we all have a body count that turns one's stomach, I guess.
And only one side has the capability and is killing 30x the other.
Speaking of casus belli, colonization after war is a war crime (Article 49).
Palestinians have had casus belli against Britain, France, Zionists and/or Israel since at least the San Remo conference in 1920, when the Allied powers rejected Palestine’s wish to become part of Syria and decided to give it to the British, who had openly declared their intent to allow their Jewish allies to colonize it. It is beyond obvious that Palestinians were justified in resisting this with violence.
And how's that worked out?
Given that the goal is and always has been 'from the river to the sea', do you have a better plan?
Any Palestinians still clinging to "from the river to the sea" as a goal are condemning themselves and their descendants to lives of squalor and brutality.
I personally know a great many people who fled the country of their birth and built new lives in America. On the whole, they've been a roaring success and their children and grandchildren are living peaceful and prosperous lives.
It's a monstrous crime that the rest of the world hasn't figured out a way to offer that same opportunity to the luckless descendants of the losers of the '48, '67, and '73 wars.
That's the _Zionists_ ultimate goal I'm referring to, not the Palestinians.
Millions of Palestinians have emigrated, including large numbers to the Americas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_diaspora
Do you have any evidence that Palestinians are being forcibly prevented from emigrating?
This, for example:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/12/palestinians-can-t-just-leave-gaza-during-israel-hamas-conflict/21fa3714-68b8-11ee-9753-2b3742e96987_story.html
Neither Israel nor Article 49 existed in 1920. Israel dismantled all its settlements in Gaza back in 2005.
However, the British failed in their legal obligation, under the Palestinian Mandate, to protect the rights of the population by allowing large scale immigration by people committed to the creation of a state that excluded 92% of that population (as of 1922) from full citizenship. They failed in their legal duty, from Article 28 of the Mandate, to turn the administration of Palestine over to a single government. The UN partition plan was never really authorized, both because it violated the UN Charter and was never voted on by the Security Council. The Israelis, unwilling to live in a unified state, rebelled against the legal government of Palestine.
One does not have to invoke the 4th Geneva Convention for the Zionist project to be illegal.
The Balfour Declaration was a major component of the Palestinian Mandate, and it legally required the British government to establish a Jewish state somewhere in Palestine. There is a reason why this conflict had been ongoing for a full century, if not longer. It’s much more complex than propagandists for either side will admit.
. . . it legally required the British government to establish a Jewish state somewhere in Palestine.
No. It absolutely did not. The phrase used was "Jewish national home." The authors of both the Balfour Declaration and the Palestinian Mandate deliberately avoided "Jewish state." If you read the Mandate, especially Articles 7 and 28, you can see that it envisioned a single, multiethnic state.
Further, anyone who seriously thought about it would have recognized that the result of allowing large scale Zionist immigration was always going to lead to exactly what happened.
Very correct, sir.
People who read "english" don't always read very well.
Please read for comprehension, not validation. This has been recapitulated endlessly here, there and everywhere. My base assumption is that anyone who doesn't know this by now and who claims to have read up on the background is pushing a Zionist agenda. T'ain't pretty.
Kevin, you are the definition of a reasonable, reasoning person...as facts change your position changes...this is what smart, (good), human beings do. Thanks for being you. Best Wishes, Traveller
+++
+1
Spot on.
I think the explanation above is right as far as it goes. But it leaves out the degree to which so many people grew up with a kindergarten view of the conflict with the Israelis as the good guys that explains the incredible degree of leeway Israel has been given by so many. It makes sense that people were willing to give Israel a lot of leeway after 10/7. But the number of civilian deaths escalated so quickly to a degree that no country but Israel would have kept its leeway. And there have been so many actions that would not be accepted by any other country, like the targeting of hospitals and schools, and the complete failure to justify that targeting. The obvious attempt to push the civilian population of Gaza into Egypt, etc.
There is just an unwillingness to acknowledge that things Israel is doing are beyond the pale, even when they used sharp shooters on protesters and murdered a journalist. Any explanation that does not take this willingness to accept from Israel things that would not be accepted from anyone else is just a partial explanation.
Drum kind of flips this on its head by contending that the people who got it right were the ones with biases in thinking that Israel would do largely what it has done. And no doubt some people got it right because they are reflexively anti-Israel and so in a position to guess that Israel would be awful. But, in general, the people who are right would seem to have less obligation to defend themselves from the suggestion of bias.
Agree. It was clear early on that the IDF was employing air strikes as the preferred means to kill even individual, low-level Hamas militants. This minimized IDF casualties, at the cost of a very high civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio among the Palestinians. Destruction of civilian infrastructure has been occurring all along. These were choices by Israeli leadership; and those of us who wish to see Israelis and Palestinians living in peace recognize that these actions will only perpetuate the violence into future generations. That, not bias, is the reason many of us have opposed Israel’s response to 10/7.
Minimizing IDF casualties by using air strikes is exactly how the U.S. played it in Iraq and Afghanistan.
wut?
Whoops. "Minimizing U.S. casualties..."
Sorry about that.
However, the IDF has operated with a far higher tolerance for civilian casualties than the US has in any of its wars of the last half century,
https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
The U.S. was criticized for causing civilian casualties in both wars, though iirc more of the civilian deaths were caused by insurgents/militias/Taliban. The Americans modified their tactics in response. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, as high-value a target as the U.S. could have, was killed by the ‘flying Ginsu’ without any harm to civilians. https://lieber.westpoint.edu/al-zawahiri-strike-law-of-armed-conflict/
....no doubt some people got it right because they are reflexively anti-Israel...
As I see it, the "reflexively anti-Israel" side has hurt the cause of Palestinians. Many have been openly antisemitic, or excused the role of Hamas, or failed to have any sympathy for the victims and hostages of the October 7 attack, or refused to acknowledge Israel has any right to exist or to defend itself. The pro-Palestinian protests and other actions generated a good deal of backlash because of their messaging and the way they were conducted. There were more effective ways to win the hearts and minds of the public.
When you say "some people got it right," you're talking about the concern that Netanyahu would overreact. That concern was shared by lots of people who were outraged by the October 7 attacks and did believe (rightly) that Israel had a right to defend itself. The pro-Palestinian people were hardly right about everything, but were right about Netanyahu, though not the only ones.
The tragedy of the Palestinian people is more complicated than the "people who got it right" like to admit. Their fate right now lies in the hands of Netanyahu. But longer term, their fate has depended on the actions of Hamas, who among other things has turned down e....no doubt some people got it right because they are reflexively anti-Israel...
I think the "reflexively anti-Israel" side has hurt the cause of Palestinians. Many have been openly antisemitic, or excused the role of Hamas, or failed to have any sympathy for the victims and hostages of the October 7 attack, or refused to acknowledge Israel has any right to exist or to defend itself. The pro-Palestinian protests and other actions generated a good deal of backlash because of their messaging and the way they were conducted. There were more effective ways to win the hearts and minds of the public.
When you say "some people got it right," you're talking about the concern that Netanyahu would overreact. That concern was shared by lots of people who were outraged by the October 7 attacks and did believe (rightly) that Israel had a right to defend itself. The pro-Palestinian people were hardly right about everything, but were right about Netanyahu, though not the only ones.
The tragedy of the Palestinian people is more complicated than the "people who got it right" like to admit. Their fate right now lies in the hands of Netanyahu. But longer term, their fate has depended on the actions of Hamas (who has repeatedly turned down offers of a ceasefire). Neither Netanyahu nor Hamas cares one whit about what happens to them. Sadly, neither Netanyahu nor Hamas has demonstrated they care one whit about what happens to the Palestinian people.
[DAMN. EDIT TO COMMENT ABOVE WAS A MESS. A CLEAN VERSION:]
....no doubt some people got it right because they are reflexively anti-Israel...
I think the "reflexively anti-Israel" side has hurt the cause of Palestinians. Many have been openly antisemitic, or excused the role of Hamas, or failed to have any sympathy for the victims and hostages of the October 7 attack, or refused to acknowledge Israel has any right to exist or to defend itself. The pro-Palestinian protests and other actions generated a good deal of backlash because of their messaging and the way they were conducted. There were more effective ways to win the hearts and minds of the public.
When you say "some people got it right," you're talking about the concern that Netanyahu would overreact. That concern was shared by lots of people who were outraged by the October 7 attacks and did believe (rightly) that Israel had a right to defend itself. The pro-Palestinian people were hardly right about everything, but were right about Netanyahu, though not the only ones.
The tragedy of the Palestinian people is more complicated than the "people who got it right" like to admit. Their fate right now lies in the hands of Netanyahu. But longer term, their fate has depended on the actions of Hamas (who has repeatedly turned down offers of a ceasefire). Neither Netanyahu nor Hamas has demonstrated they care one whit about what happens to the Palestinian people.
I think this is more an excuse than the real explanation. The genocidal comments have come mostly from the Israeli side. Netanyahu openly justified what Israel was doing on the basis of a biblical genocide. And yet the fact that the man leading the assault on Gaza was using genocidal language got less push back then the fact that some little known protesters supported the terrorist attack. That suggests rather motivated outrage. People were looking for an excuse to support Israel's assault. If they were driven by the language they would have turned against Israel as much or more so than the Palestinians.
And playing as Hamas vs Netanyahu misses that Israel has had a punitive blockade on Gaza, limiting the calorie intake of more than 2 million people, under multiple administrations. It has also expanded settlements in the West Bank to make peace more difficult under multiple administrations. To note that Netanyahu has been worse can hide the fact that every recent Israeli government has been awful. The best Israeli push under Olmert failed because while Abbas was willing to accept 22% of the territory Israel controls for the 50% of the population that would live in the Palestinian state, Israel thought it should not only get part of that 22%, but that it should specifically get settlements that cut off the Palestinian capital from the West Bank.
You point to "offers of a ceasefire" but to date Israel has only offered a brief reprise to get some hostages out before returning to slaughtering civilians in Gaza. That is better than not having a brief reprise, but it is hardly good. (And the release of Palestinians in return for the hostages is not as much of an offer as it sounds since Israel routinely rounds up Palestinians and holds them without charges, so those released prisoners will be replaced soon enough. Israel effectively routinely holds hostages just for this purpose. People offended by Hamas ransoming off children held hostage were not put out that Israel had 10 times the number of children available to be traded for them.
So I think those people who got things right generally did so because they have a better understanding of the situation than do the people who did not get things right. That is why people usually get things right.
Of course, Israel has been awful to the Palestinians since long before Netanyahu. There's been an escalating move toward hard-liners for decades. It's easy to see Israel as the bad guys and Palestinians as victims. A good part of that narrative is true.
There's another narrative. A small minority, a persecuted people who narrowly escaped total annihilation, desperate for a chance to have a home and to live in peace, who since the time of the creation of their new nation, in a land with neighbors hostile to their existence, have suffered endless cycles of violence.
People who suffer violence and injustice often do violence and injustice in return. That's the truth for Jews and for Palestinian Arabs. Hate grows and among their peoples and their leaders some want to see the other side annihilated. That doesn't justify any heinous acts but it's part of having "a better understanding of the situation."
How do you break the cycle? That's the dilemma. The tendency is for each side to grow more hostile toward the other, each believing they are justified. That's how hard-liners take and wield power. Each side has a vivid example of the price to be be paid when a leader tries to break the cycle and reach an accord with the other side. The assassinations of Sadat and Rabin make any effort to make peace seemingly doomed.
I don't have an anti- or pro-Israel axe to grind, and likewise for Palestine. What I observe is an epic tragedy without good guys or bad guys (except in narrow terms). It's sad and it's senseless and I don't have the answer.*
* I think a 2- or 3-state solution is part of "the answer," but I don't see how to get from here to there any time soon. Nor will that be the end of their problems.
I agree with most of what you say here. But the way you break the cycle is separation. In 1993 it seemed possible to get to a two state solution because although Israel has built settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, they seemed small enough in number that the Palestinian could get a real state.
By 2000 there were many more settlers in the West Bank because while the Palestinians spent the 7 years in between trying to improve security so that Israel could accept peace, Israel spent the 7 years changing facts on the ground so that it couldn't. That didn't stop the US from deciding that Israel wanted peace and would give up it settlements. despite the fact that it never claimed it would.
In 2008 the Palestinians offered Israel everything the US wanted it to offer in 2000, and that did not stop Israel from insisting on keeping settlements that were inconsistent with peace. Of course this has only accelerated since 2008 with Israel trying to put a stake through the two state solution.
It is possible to reasonably blame both sides for the conflict as you do above. It is not possible to reasonably blame both sides for why a two state solution seems so impossible. That was an intentional act by Israel carried out by even left leaning parties in Israel.
Besides separation, each side has to have an incentive to move towards peace. The Palestinians already have it, they live under a merciless occupation. But Israel gets protected from consequences by this ridiculous habit of justifying what Israel does, however awful. Pretending that Israel wants peace, as the US did in 2000, did not help get to peace. Acknowledging that Israel is currently doing great without peace (well until the flubbed security on 10/7) is a better way to get to peace.
The ever growing samples leaking out of Gaza showing the IDF not differentiating between Hamas and Palestinian civilians eventually becomes too much to ignore. Regardless of the disinformation and propaganda put out by the Israeli govt.
They should've been a bit more cautious to really complete their goal, but they're used to the world giving them a pass....so it's bombs away until they're made to stop.
I was opposed to Israel's invasion of Gaza not because I think Hamas isn't a threat. They are. But it was apparent from the very beginning that the operation was completely untethered from any strategic plan for converting even a successful invasion into anything of strategic value.
The really big tell was their total inability to describe what they intended for Gaza once they declared the operation over. They had no plan for what to do next. That's a great recipe for a disaster.
The other tell was that they loudly proclaimed that their goal was the complete elimination of Hamas. This was never something that they were in any way capable of achieving. Conventional military operations alone never totally destroy a guerilla force. All successful counterinsurgencies also have a large element of trying to win over the civilian population. Without that, the insurgents can simply hide in the population and wait until you move on, recruiting more and more bodies due to the anger at your conventional military operation.
This may well be something that was impossible for the Israelis. They've spent 56 years doing everything in their power to alienate the Palestinians. The time to start attempts to win over the civilian population was 1967. Instead, they opted for arbitrary martial law and constant land theft. And transparently bad faith, sophistic arguments that they aren't really occupying the territories or stealing land.
I'd have been more tolerant of high civilian casualties if they had laid out a viable strategy for what they were going to achieve. But they didn't have one, just as they haven't had one for a half century. The only idea they have is that, if they can just make Palestinian lives miserable enough, the problem will magically go away. They utterly fail to comprehend that this is not how human beings behave.
As is, they are killing tens of thousands of civilians in order to accomplish absolutely nothing. It's deeply immoral, patently illegal, but also a monumental blunder.
I think that Netanyahu does have a plan, to judge by his conduct of the operation; he just can’t say out loud that the plan is to render Gaza uninhabitable, ethnically cleansing it through forced emigration, and eventually allowing Jewish settlements, advancing Likud’s stated goal of Israeli sovereignty between the river and the sea.
His plan is to stay out of jail by any means necessary, all other considerations are secondary.
Yes, this is the plan, and it is transparently, abundently clear that this is the plan. With any large organization if you want to devine their plan you don't focus on what they say, you look at what they do.
The evidence that Isreal's plan is to "cleanse" Gaza of its "human animal" population is:
The evidence that Isreal's plan is to "cleanse" Gaza of its "human animal" inhabitants is in its war on the civilian population:
You did not have to loathe Isreal before October 7 to believe your own eyes.
Spot on and well said
In this case "people" means a growing number of people, and this reflects this truly awful conflict.
Since two things can be said about Hamas (1) regardless of the outcome they are going to continue the fight for a Palestinian state, and maybe for the elimination of Israel, and (2) since Hamas is not a conventional army, there does not really seem to be any amount of losses, especially civilian losses, which would cause them to surrender on point (1), its not surprising that this bloodshed will continue until there is enough pressure on Israel to stop.
I just googled "how much land did Germany control at surrender WW2" and you can see it was a sliver running all along Germany, and without being run by maniac Hitler Germany may well have surrendered sooner. No country waits until total civilian destruction before surrendering.
My point being that if this was some sort of normal war, Hamas would have "surrendered" a long time ago. But since Hamas leadership can safely hang out in various other countries, and their "army" is irregular and they still have Israeli hostages == no surrender.
Its just a continuing war, since 1947. This is just the most recent battle, and its not like any standard battle, its been guerrilla warfare v. the IDF since day one.
What's even more tragic is the Israelis killed on 10/7 and the IDF losses and the Hamas losses and the Palastinian civilian losses are all, in a sense, pointless deaths since none of the losses bring the conflict any closer to a resolution.
It will never happen, but Hamas should have some meetings with former Irish Republican Army leadership. The IRA could coach them on how to get it done. Just enough violence to get attention. Then, form a political wing. Make it clear that one thing the political wing has is the ability to stop the violence (through a silly fiction that there is no connection between the political wing and the army wing). Wait several number of decades without violence. Get ever closer to achieving what was worth killing for in the first place.
PS: what could be said about Israel? As we have seen, Israel is susceptible to pressure on military aid. The only card Israel has is the violence it can point to. Without 10/7 Israel probably would have done absolutely nothing. Sadly, Hamas, Hezbollah et al, keep providing the violence. Again, consult with the IRA. Never thought that sentence would ever make any sense, sheesh.
PPS: Of course, one could argue that without the creation of Israel in the first place this would not be happening. Its as good an argument as any, but probably not a very practical one.
Actually the strategy you suggest to Hamas is the policy they were following for the decade before 10/7. It had resulted in thousands of dead Palestinians and an Israel that believed it had neutered Hamas and could turn to emptying Palestinian villages in the West Bank. 10/7 appears to have been a result of Hamas seeing that the strategy you advise wasn't working.
Yes, and this is precisely the way the international community has failed the people of Isreal and the people of Palestine equally by granting to one side of the conflict complete impunity from international law. People facing injustice with unbearable living conditions and no other options inevitably turn to violence. We have allowed the Palestinians no options and it is ahistorical to assert they have not tried other ways.
Well put. I would only add that a lot of individual military actions are hard to judge if you don't trust the sources on the ground (be it Hamas's MOH or the IDF and Israeli government) that have strong motives to mislead, exaggerate, or outright lie. But the WCK bombing was crystal-clear, so it's natural that it would crystalize the growing unease among observers who think (1) Hamas is monstrous but (2) that does not make it open season on Gaza civilians.
Honest question --- why hasn't there been mass starvation already? The place has been heavily cut off from food imports for SIX MONTHS and Iowa they are not. You do that to an American suburb and we are running out of food in maybe a month...
If I lived in a tiny enclave, dependent on food imported across a border controlled by a hostile power, I’d stock up on nonperishables. Also, food has been brought in during the war, though in reduced quantities. Oh, and there are 30,000+ fewer mouths to feed …. Hamas reportedly had food stocked up; whatever their leaders’ orders, I doubt their troops are letting their own families starve.
people try to find calories anywhere
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/29/1241148952/gaza-hunger-famine-aid-israel-hamas-war
I suspect there has already been alot but we won't know about it for a long time. If Isreal never allows the exhumation of the mass graves it will leave behind, or never cedes any control in Gaza at all, we will likely never know for sure. Not in our lifetimes at least.
And as KenShulz says, surely most people stocked up as much as they could, however difficult given the calory-counting strangle hold Isreal's had on them for decades.
I find it hard to ignore that Biden demands (the media reports on Biden's demand?) only after some white people are killed. Killing Arabs was uncomfortable. Killing nice, white, Westerners in unforgiveable.
Sure, they were delivering aid but 200+ Palestinian aid workers have been killed as well and the US hasn't threatened to cut-off the flow of weapons. Has the effort to dehumanize the Gazans* bled into our own views?
[* - “People just move, they move with their tents,” Netanyahu said. “People moved down (to Rafah). They can move back up.” - Gazans aren't civilized like Israelis! They're okay just living in tents. As if they are all Bedouins?]
This is clearly the reason for this current turning point, foreign nationals working for a popular orgaization killed, as you state. Nothing more than a concerned mumble for Palestinian nationals intentionally targeted, even when working for the UN.
It is shameful.
I don't loathe Israel, but I do loathe Netanyahu and his coalition. But even with him in charge, I was on board with a significant military response for basically the reasons Kevin lists and because it was inevitable that any nation would react with force to such a massive attack. But I thought it very likely Netanyahu would do exactly the kind of shit he's done, commit what amounts to mass murder in violation of international law while simultaneously enlisting US support and destroying Gaza to such an extreme degree it becomes virtually uninhabitable. That's what happened between October and April, and it certainly didn't take me till January to see it.
As much as I loathe Netanyahu and his coalition, all they've really done is to make explicit what has been consistent Israeli policy since 1967.
" or never thought Hamas was that big a threat,"
per reporting, the Israeli government did not consider them a big threat, so this rationale makes no sense.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html
but what actually underlies Kevin Drum's statement is more hippie punching about evil leftists and their BDS stuff.
Huh? Please explain in what way Kevin's statement about those who didn't think Hamas was a big threat is hippie punching? He simply says if that is/was your opinion then initial opposition to Israel's military response makes sense. If anything it's a recognition those people were right.
SeanT is a bit harsh, but not really that far off the mark. I say that mostly for Kevin's "If you already loathed Israel" bit, which is a pretty clear slur. Characterizing a whole viewpoint by its extreme faction is a big part of "hippie punching"
I think the reason why opinion is turning against Israel is not so much about Israel but about Bibi and the downstream effects of his presence:
- the military taking liberties in the prosecution of their war against Hamas
- the ambivalence regarding people starving and suffering
- the lack of urgency to recover hostages
I googled for a link about the economy of Gaza back when the war started. It is an interesting read. Seems both Egypt and Israel have worked to destroy whatever economy the Gazaians developed. Seems the tunnels bypassed the border and helped grow the economy then both Egypt and Israel and Egypt closed them. Knowing this, you can understand how focused Israel was in them.
It is also interesting how the US and Europe were happy to export the Jews post WW2. The intersection of Zionism and Antisemitism.
"Export" is precisely the right word. The Balfour declaration was all about getting the jews out of Britain. Anywhere would do, and it happened to be Palestine. This is the same reason Liberia exists. "If you blacks aren't going to be slaves then get the eff out." Then the U.S. sent a bunch of free blacks to the African coast where, by the way, a bunch of people were already living and said "all this land now belongs to you Americanized, English-speaking blacks and the locals are just going to have to suck it up."
Kevin tries to present a fair assessment of the current Israel/Hamas war. And it’s a decent attempt. But this part is off:
“If you already loathed Israel, or never thought Hamas was that big a threat, then of course you would have opposed Israel's scorched-earth war from the beginning. That makes sense.”
I would not so lightly toss off this perspective as if it “makes sense.”
Here is Secretary of State Blinken:
“So much of the understandable outrage and anger is directed at Israel for the plight of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, but some of that might also need to be directed at Hamas. It is astounding to me that the world is almost deafeningly silent when it comes to Hamas. We wouldn’t be where we are today had Hamas not chosen to engage in one of the most horrific acts of terrorism on October 7 and had they having done that not refused this many months to stop hiding behind civilians, put down their arms, release hostages and surrender. Where is the outrage there?“
Sorry, but shrugging your shoulders at Hamas because they’re supposedly “not that big a threat” is not a perspective that “makes sense.” Kevin, like so many on the Left, continues to stumble on that basic point.
The problem is that Blinken's statement is an embarrassment to the US which he represents. People blame Israel for its actions because they are Israel's actions. He blames Hamas for not moving into the open so that they can be easily killed. And you turn that into the idea that they are dangerous? But I guess that is what he means for you to do with it.
Hamas committed a lightly armed act of terror using bulldozers and paragliders and outdated weaponry against one of the most advanced armies in the world. It had a horrendous death count because Israel had convinced itself that Hamas had been neutered and wouldn't attack and so had moved much of its military to the West Bank where attacks on Palestinian civilians by Israeli settlers seemed likely to provoke a response by the Palestinians, and Israel wanted to make sure that no harm came to the settlers.
I referred above to the kindergarten understanding of the situation. That quote suggests that Blinken still holds it. Reality can't break through for him. Israel deserves to get the blame for Israel's actions, just as Hamas deserves blame for its actions. The famine and death toll in Gaza are Israel's doing. That is why reasonable people blame Israel for it.
@Lon Becker
Your assertion deeply discredits the Left:
"The problem is that Blinken's statement is an embarrassment to the US which he represents. People blame Israel for its actions because they are Israel's actions. He blames Hamas for not moving into the open so that they can be easily killed."
That is what's called a strawman argument. Blinken does not in fact blame Hamas for not moving into the open so that they can be killed. You are arguing against an imaginary argument. But your dishonest approach doesn't discredit your opponent. It discredits you. It discredits the Left.
Here is the NYT presenting a version of Blinken's thesis more eloquently than I can:
"[W]hat reasonable people cannot debate is the cynicism with which Hamas is conducting its side of the war. It’s a cynicism the wider world should not reward with our credulity, lest we once again turn ourselves into Hamas’s useful idiots.
"Consider: Hamas launched an attack with a wantonness like what the Nazis showed at Babyn Yar or ISIS at Sinjar. It did so knowing that it would provoke the most furious Israeli response possible. Why put millions of Palestinians at risk? Because Hamas has learned that it profits at least as much from Palestinian deaths as it does from Israeli ones — the more of each, the better.
"Murdering Jews is an end in its own right for Hamas, because it believes it fulfills a theological aim ...
"Hamas also achieves practical and propagandistic goals by putting Palestinians in harm’s way. More civilians in combat zones mean more human shields for its forces. More dead and wounded Palestinians mean more sympathy for its side and more condemnation of Israel.
"That’s why Hamas turned Gaza’s central hospital into its headquarters during the 2014 conflict. It’s why it stored rockets in schools. It’s why it has used mosques to store guns. It’s why it fires rockets from Gaza’s densely populated areas. It does all this knowing that Israel, which has agreed to abide by the laws of war, tries to avoid hitting those targets — and, when it does hit them, that it will result in accusations of war crimes and diplomatic demands for restraint. Either way, Hamas gains an edge."
You have turned yourself into one of the useful idiots that this article castigates. Shame on you.
But HAMAS!!!!!
@ ScentOfViolets:
Your sentiment induces an actual feeling of nausea. There is a segment of the Left which, in its effort to downplay or whitewash the atrocities of Hamas, quite literally makes me sick.
Oh, really? We know how this plays out: I'll ask you provide quotes and links to back up your accusations. You'll refuse to do so, most probably by simply not repsonding further (that is, you won't admit you were wrong.) Then a few days, weeks, or months later you'll make the same wild accusations and the cycle starts over.
So, Leo, let's see your evidence. Since I've said publicly and many times that I loathe Hamas and that members of that partticular group should be tried for the crimes they've committed, I'm interested to see what you come up with (or not.)
+1
+1.
Is the New York Times really that slanted, or are you attributing an argument run in the Times to the Times as a whole? That is a pretty one sided rant.
Are you unaware that Israel is blowing up apartment buildings in which Hamas members live, with large numbers of civilians in them? This is what Blinken is referring to by saying that Hamas is "hiding behind civilians. Israel finds it easiest to blow up people when they are home, which happens to be with lots of civilians around, something that Israel seems not to care about. This is what Blinken is calling unfair.
His actual claim may be sillier since what he is asking them to do is to turn themselves in to be executed. I am not surprised to see that kind of silliness from commentator in a comment section like this, but from the US Secretary of State it is pretty silly. Yes Israel has to slaughter 10s of thousands of civilians because Hamas thoughtlessly does not come in to be executed.
Note that Israel claimed this time that Hamas was using its main hospital as a command and control center. That turned out to be false. I guess that is why the article above makes the claim about 2014 instead of now.
I am no fan of Hamas. In the 90s they carried out a string of terrorist attacks designed to get Netanyahu elected prime minister so that he would stop the peace process. That worked. A lot of people have died because the Israelis gave Hamas what it wanted then. But this idea that Hamas is not strategic, and that it just wants to kill as many Israelis as possible is something that is maintained by people who don't care to understand Hamas. For more than a decade Hamas did what someone above recommended, and purposely kept the effects of its attacks minimal, just enough so that Gaza would not continue to be forgotten by the world as it suffered under a heartless blockade. This was so well established that Israel took for granted that that was all it would ever do.
Whoever wrote the rant you quote seems proud to not understand Hamas. I don't pretend to understand them entirely. I don't know why they changed strategy now. Did they know that Israel had shifted its military focus to the West Bank to help with the pograms against Palestinian villages? Did it expect that the Hamas agents in bulldozers would get slaughtered by Israeli tanks, but hoped that some of the paragliders would get through and do some damage? Did they just feel they had no choice with pograms in the West Bank, abandonment by the Saudis, and Israel violating deals with regard to Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem? Sadly the possible causes of why they felt they had to act now are somewhat overdetermined.
But the point is you have found somebody who angrily said what you want to be true, and seem to have substituted that for thinking. Not everything in the New York Times is accurate. Remember their news reporting helped lie us into the Iraq War. Their editorials, quite reasonably, have a lower requirement of objectivity.
Out of curiosity I checked who actually wrote the article you attribute to the New York Times. It is Bret Stephens the right wing commentator. I looked at his wikipedia page and he is proud of the fact that he took a journalistic job in Israel to show that Israel is the good guy in the debate. It is possible that you could have chosen a more clownish choice of who to give an objective account of Hamas, but your actual choice was pretty impressive.
Among Stevens greatest hits, at least the ones that make his wiki page, are his support for the Iraq War because they were on the verge of going nuclear. (In case you missed it they did not have an active nuclear program) and described the Iran deal as worse than Munich. (In case you missed it there was an article today that Iran is closer than ever to getting a nuclear weapon because Trump foolishly backed out of the Iraq deal).
He also apparently believes that climate change is a global conspiracy. I can see why you did not link his name to his rant. But it was worth a good laugh. It really isn't painful to be lectured by somebody who is always wrong.
+1
Even for a troll like you this is pathetic.
"Here is the NYT presenting a version of Blinken's thesis more eloquently than I can:"
You say this as if the NYT was some left leaning organization that supported your bigoted views, while intentionally omitting that said article was written by Bret Fucking Stephens. A conservative hawk that has always been a cheerleader for war in the Middle East and has never cared for dead Muslims.
But that was Netanyahu’s belief until October 7. One of the things that I have come to realize in recent years is how stupid a person can be and still rise to the top of a political system, and yes, I mean Trump, Putin, Xi as well as Netanyahu.
Two points:
1) I've never thought that Israel had much of a chance of destroying Hamas. The United States spent 20 years in Afghanistan and couldn't destroy the Taliban.
2) The October 7 attacks succeeded because the Israeli government didn’t think Hamas wanted to attack Israel. It’s not clear that Hamas is much of a threat to Israel as long as Israel doesn’t make the same mistake again.
Especially considering that the Hamas leadership is about a thousand miles to the southeast.
I'm no military expert, but it seems like Hamas in Gaza was successfully contained by the end of October, that could have easily been the end of the operation right there.
I think you're understating the second point. Netanyahu thought Hamas was a tame puppy, in part because he'd been funneling money to it indirectly for years so the PA wouldn't control Gaza, and that it could only bark for show. Spotters along the border sent very specific alerts about the pattern of activity there just before 10/7 that looked suspicious and dangerous to them, but they were ignored because the government and military had their eyes almost exclusively on the West Bank. This is one good reason Netanyahu is held in deep contempt in Israel, even by people who want the military operation to continue exactly the way it has been.
Also because he's doing the quiet part out loud.
Correct, except that some of the warnings came months in advance. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/28/israeli-military-had-warning-of-hamas-training-for-attack-reports-say#:~:text=Israel's%20military%20and%20intelligence%20officials,reports%20in%20the%20Israeli%20media.
Atrios of all people should know that humans have a limited attention budget, and that the vast majority of Americans don't know much about what's going on in the Middle East and either don't have much room in their attention budget for it, or else don't care very much about it. So it shouldn't be a surprise to him that public awareness of things there has built over time in a cumulative way. More than that, public awareness of what the Israelis believe they *can* do is something that's also cumulative and revealed by events. And too, Jose Andres happens to be both a very sympathetic figure and someone who's been willing in this case to call out BS very forcefully and give a name to what may only be dimly taking shape for people. In all this I think Kevin has it right.
I don't know a whole lot about Israeli politics or the ideological fights there, but I knew enough to have seen on 10/8 what they were going to do, and with fair accuracy. Apparently unlike Atrios, I don't blame the public or even the media for not seeing that with me in October.
Generally I sympathize with Atrios but there are times when his self-righteousness makes me roll my eyes. This was one of them.
Good point. I was surprised by the backlash against Bush's handling of hurricane Katrina for the same reason. The Bush response was just another example of what Bush had been doing for the past four years, except that it was dramatic enough to capture people's attention and thus served as a tipping point for people who hadn't been paying close attention before.
Why has public perception of Israel changed so dramatically over the last six months? That's easy. Israel no longer has an iron grip on the narrative. If the same events had transpired with telecommunication technology availabe in 1948, they would have gotten clean away with ethnic cleansing/genocide. Just like they got away with Nakba in 1948.
I think the figure is that around 250 Palestinians had been killed in 2023 prior to the October 7 attacks, mostly in the West Bank due to the illegal settlers and the IDF protecting them.
But the narrative we're supposed to believe is that Hamas started the latest trouble when it killed 1200 Israelis, many of whom were marking the dire situation of the Palestinians by having a music festival outside of the concentration camp where over 2 million of them were imprisoned.
It's rubbish.
Israel had things where they wanted them: a low boil, with Palestinian society being slowly destroyed but below the radar of Israel's patron countries, and with Israel's ongoing conquest of the West Bank going at full speed and no one complaining enough to move America off of vetoing any UNSC resolution against them.
So. What. Were. The. Palestinians. Supposed. To. Do?
Really, if they had followed the Israeli example, they'd have arranged with their allies around the world to assassinate Israel's supporters -- including a lot of the Jewish population of the world -- wherever they could be found. And destroyed Israel's economy and its connections to the rest of the world through whatever means were available.
We'd have done far worse in similar situations; Israel would have (and has) done far worse.
And the Palestinians could yet go global, and start essentially a second Jewish Holocaust. Maybe that's in their plans.
Israel's response, meanwhile, is absolutely predicated on strength. They COULD have treated the October 7 attack as a massive crime, and called on the world to help them prosecute those responsible; they probably SHOULD have done that, given what has happened to their reputation on the course they instead followed.
Instead, as far as I can tell, they wanted to deal with the Palestinians like you might with animals: beat them until they submit.
People, however, tend to just hate you more and more when you beat them, and they might pretend to submit in order to get revenge at a later time. But submission is hard to come by with human societies.
Israel is looking pretty pathetic right now: they're fighting a very lightly armed, ragtag militia, and they're having to look to their hegemonist sponsor to resupply their military to keep it going.
Oh, and meanwhile having most of the world turn strongly against them.
Really, the non-Western world's perception of the Israel-Palestine conflict is much more accurate than what we've been fed: Israel is an aggressive settler colonial project, with all the racism that suggests.
I think Hamas broadly anticipated exactly how Israel responded, knowing as they did (see about the 250-ish pre-October 7 Palestinians killed in 2023 above) what Israel really is and really is about. And they just let Israel display itself to the rest of the world.
Second, Israel appeared to be dead serious about starving Gazans to death. That's a heinous war crime regardless of how much you support the goal of the war.
And yet it's exactly how we defeated an extremely similar threat, Imperial Japan. Operation Starvation wasn't just a cutesy nickname, the intent was to give Japan the choice of surrendering or starving. This is just largely forgotten because of the nukes that put an exclamation point on this choice. Now that Israel is facing the same threat with the serial numbers filed off, the requirement is that Israel now defeat the enemy while also providing them with infinite Hamas Tapas by Jose Andres.
It's not clear to me how much of the current rhetoric is sincerely global rules and "just for Israel" made up rules, but to the extent it's the former then civilization has already fallen. The last surviving American will be sending tapas to the caliphate just before he's beheaded. The enemy can't be defeated if he becomes immune to retaliation by hiding behind civilians and also you have to give him electricity, medicine, and tapas.
But THIS!!! THAT!!!, or the OTHER!!! Really, all you're doing is identifying yourself as someone to be ignored. Your words are unimportant, and we do not hear them.
Despite the name, Operation Starvation was mostly about cutting Japan off from critical raw materials it needed to import to sustain its war effort, and hindering the movement of troops and materiel by sea, including the re-supply of overseas forces. Japan has no petroleum and little iron ore; reducing imports of these impacted the war effort more and sooner than the reduction of food imports.
Personally, I think the bombings of civilian population centers in WWII are far less defensible than Operation Starvation. And of course, these highly questionable actions do not provide any justification for their continued use — one would rather hope that we would learn to be better at protecting non-combatants.
A bit too far?
How about a lot too far? And that is from the beginning, when Smotrich said everyone in Gaza is Hamas and they're all animals right down to today when he and many others are salivating over the prospect of ethnic cleansing in Gaza to clear out room for settlers. You have to wonder why Netanyahu won't articulate a credible end game in Gaza, but it makes perfect sense if he is willing to throw Gaza to the settlers to keep himself in power. But you can't say that publicly.
I think anyone who looks at it would have to agree that Israel is a "settler colonial project" if you define "colonial" to include the post WWII winning powers and the United Nations, and "settler" to include the concept of a Jewish homeland.
The prior rulers were the Ottoman Empire prior to the end of WWI, then, when the Turks lost that one you had the British Mandate up until 1948.
As far as the Palestinians are concerned, the main problem is that Israel has "won" at least two conventional wars in which it defended its right to exist, and, although I am no expert, Israel won both wars "by itself" - its not as if any colonial power had boots on the ground. As far as I can tell, those same colonial powers would have allowed Israel to lose the 1948 war, for example.
So, "settler colonial project" indeed - the problem is the Jews appear to be winning this one and no one counted on that.
But the reason we are still at this today is not that the internet did not exist in 1948 so we have to make up for it -- no, its because the word "won" has to be in quotes because if enough people still question Israel's right to exist, and millions question Israel's borders, and violent conflict and resistance from the Palestinians is ongoing, it does not look like much of a "win" to me.
Oh, its a "win" compared to being shoved into a gas chamber, but its not as if Israel is Spain and the Palestinians are Catalan. Or Israel is Canada and the Palestinians are Quebecois.
Is Israel's response arguably counter productive? Easily so. However, its pretty easy to make that argument from the comparatively ridiculously safe United States mainland.
If some Native American tribe had (a) kept up a low level slate of violent activity for 50 years and (b) topped it off with an October 7 - like attack on civilians, I shudder to think what the US response would be. We are really no better than anyone.
We are only, demonstrably better when someone unconditionally surrenders to us. Then, like some jokes which are no longer made, you could say "best economic decision is to lose a war to the US." (note: as long as you are a first world county, endnote).
This is really only blog post rambling. Hamas is not going to "surrender" and neither is the PA, and the violence is not going to stop.
Heck, the Arab islamic world is probably going to blame us for the whole thing and launch another 9/11 attack here.
Your facts are wrong, but we've all posted enough on the actual history Zionism that you should know the truth by now, so I'm not going to bother.
Ok, Some research and a drive home later and I must thank Scent as I learned some stuff. The short answer is the concept of forceably moving palestinians out so israel could be established was some not closely guarded secret all the way back to Ben Gurion.
The longer answer is the actual beginning of this starts with turn of the century (19th) palestine, and in that time land is everything- there are now modern cities with “modern jobs.” So when zionism starts and the Brits allow the population to go from 15% jewish to 30% jewish, even though the new immigrants are buying land, the loss of land is a disaster for the palestinians. This results i armed conflict from the mid 1920/ on.
By the 1930s it’s a full violent shit show, and by 1947 it’s not stretching it at all to say that the Nakhba can also be correctly framed as a forced cleansing of sections of Israel.
But, if we have learned anything it’s that humans have an almost unlimited ability to hold killing level grudges against other humans. All those cool old towns in Europe built on hills with neat palace forts- that was from a time that you just assumed you would be at war, constantly with THE TOWN NEXT DOOR!
All of human progress over the last 100 years or so is based on the ability to say, “it’s in my enlightened self interest to let this grudge go. It’s not happening in Israel, or for that matter the middle east in general. That’s whats sad.
I could imagine some series of moves by Israel or Hamas but Scent has convinced me to not bother. At least tonight
Excellent point in that we would probably be no better under similar circumstances, but then I suspect pretty much ANY country would be no better under similar circumstances. Many would be far worse. It is hard to overestimate how much 10/7 angered Israelis.
The problem with your account is that you give it in terms of groups rather than individuals, as if that is what matters, and so miss that the real problem is that there are millions of people who have been stateless for more than 50 years (or for those who are younger for their whole lives) with a promise from Israel that they will remain in that status forever unless they turn themselves into refugees.
The problem is not that Israel cannot get anyone to accept its borders, but that it wants to control a set of borders, but not to have a significant portion of the people who live there and that is not something the world should ever accept. Israel has been fortunate that so much of the world accepts it as a temporary situation, when that temporary situation has lasted over 50 years and Israel has made little secret of the fact that it wants it to last forever.
Most of the world would be happy to forget the history and accept an Israel that was built on land it had no right to (as most countries were) but has gotten into a situation in which it is not abusing the non-Jewish inhabitants under its control. But Israel's position remains that it should not have to do that. It should be able to keep millions of people stateless forever and anyone who disagrees is an anti-Semite.
Note we would still be subject to attacks from the Native Americans if we were treating them the way that Israel treats most of the Palestinians under its control. But the Native Americans have full citizenship rights in the US (Plus certain sovereignty rights on reservations).
The use of unmonitored AI to select targets was something I did not know about. See this article: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
Given the relatively high error rate that AI can have (especially in the described application) and the willingness to kill multiple civilians per suspected Hamas member, the human cost has soared.
I think there is a growing acceptance on the left, and worldwide generally, that what Britain and Zionists did under the Mandate was a profound wrong inflicted upon the Palestinian people, who had the right to violently resist. Once you accept this premise, the narrative of Jewish victimhood with respect to this conflict largely evaporates, and they become the aggressors at most points in the conflict.
Israel was both waging war generally upon Palestine on 10/6 and committed a discrete act of state-sponsored terrorism that day, which was hardly unique in the last several decades. While the gratuitous violence and deliberate harm to civilians on 10/7 was wrong, Palestine or its allies were fully justified in a general military attack of any scale.
I suspect you are throwing together a number of views there. The left certainly makes the historical argument you describe, although I think the historical argument is less convincing than what you briefly describe in the second paragraph. The worldwide view is much less clear. The US and much of Europe still seems to accept the imperative of a Jewish state, even at the expense of the Palestinians. Countries that were victimized by colonialism, like Ireland, seem to be less accepting of the Israeli claim to victimhood.
But ultimately I think it is Israel's recent behavior, and not a reappraisal of the history, that is driving the changes in attitude.
The real peril for Israel, the one its current course seems to encourage, is that its recent behavior will lead to changed attitudes that in turn bring on a reappraisal of the history.
Ironically for a son of one of his country's leading historians, Netanyahu himself doesn't care about any of that-- for him all that matters is keeping his coalition together so he can stay out of jail. Nor do his settler-fanatic coalition partners care about any of that. It's just that, you know, anyone who cares about the nation's future needs to care about that.
"A lot of leeway" should never have been for calling another ethnicity "human animals" or for announcing a blockade of all essentials of life including food. Both by Gallant already on Oct. 8. " A lot of leeway" should not have extended to the targeting of hospitals at any moment, let alone after Israel's stories about a Hamas command center at Al Shifa were debunked. "A lot of leeway" should have ended after the first killings of journalists, nurses, children and UN workers that could not be explained away as collateral damage.
In short, it's not the leeway given to Israel after Oct. 7 that people like me don't get but that it just kept on going beyond any humanitarian red line or any respect for international law. Look at how far that "leeway" goes when Israel breaks several international norms at the same time by striking an Iranian consular building - and Biden reacts by threatening Iran if it doesn't lie down and take it.
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