this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
316 points (95.7% liked)

World News

38970 readers
3492 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 43 points 1 year ago (4 children)

In any given exchange of violence for these actors, it is a pretty reliable bet to say that there will be about a 10:1 ratio of Palestinians versus Israelis killed. I expect that we will see between 10k and 20k Palestinians killed, and probably somewhere less than 2k total Israelis killed. I think there will be fewer people killed by bombs and bullets than by the blockade. I suspect 90% of the casualties will be civilians. I think that all of the people who die in fear and pain while hiding in their homes as well as those who die on the barricades will be forgotten in a year or so.

I also suspect that the remaining checks on Bibi’s already significant power will end, and that Hamas will effectively cease to exist as a political power.

[–] Mrkawfee@feddit.uk 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Much like the 2.5 million Palestinians trapped in the Gaza strip, Hamas ain't going nowhere.

[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Shelling civilians will definitely make more Hamas members out of people still there as well

[–] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Their existence depended on their existence being more politically palatable than the level of effort necessary for their elimination.

A modern nation-state like Israel or the US relies on a principle of disproportionate response to deter aggression. You have the most far-right, violent, and most corrupt government in the history of the state in charge and, as a result of the scale and targets of the “unprovoked” attack, they have the support of the only countries whose support matters in situations like these. The level of violence executed against Israel was enough to piss it off, but not to hurt it at all. None of their very significant military capacity was diminished. Hamas doesn’t have an Air Force. They don’t have any SAMs to speak of. They are cut off from resupply. They have no armored vehicles nor the ability to defend against them in significant number. Their “artillery” consists of unguided rockets they can fire in a general direction and which inflict so little damage as to be militarily ignorable and which only count as a “terror weapon” because it helps Israeli propaganda. They are politically and geographically isolated. They will not be resupplied. Israel on the other hand has a blank check and supply lines that cannot be interrupted.

If Israel decides to effect a ground incursion, it will be over rubble. They will call in airstrikes from fighter-bombers that the Palestinians will not be able to defend against. This is not Afghanistan. This is not Ireland.

Netanyahu is going to proceed as if he has a mandate to end this, and he is a very hard person. I do not think it gave him enough inertia to do to Gaza what Putin did to Crimea - I don’t think they can simply call it part of Israel now - but there’s going to be a reckoning.

What we are seeing right now is the limited response. I’ve been on the wrong end of irregular infantry. I’ve never been on the wrong end of modern armor, air, and artillery. I don’t recommend either, but the effects of the latter are indescribable. That’s not even touching on intelligence and special services, who I am very certain are being tasked as we speak.

Life in Gaza is about to get intensely worse for civilians. It will remain much worse than it was long after the last shell gets fired.

I honestly cannot see any way that this results in anything but an across the board loss for hamas. I also think it’s going to crush Gaza. Making life in Gaza even worse than it was is really hard, but I think they managed to make sure that comes about.

[–] Unaware7013@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Their existence depended on their existence being more politically palatable than the level of effort necessary for their elimination.

And, ya know, also Netanyahu/Israel themselves.

[–] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

I agree, but all I am going to say is that it will be interesting to read additional facts as they start to come out in the next several years with leaks and memoirs.

I am not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t think Bush did 9/11 and I don’t think FDR did Pearl Harbor. Human failure in war - including intelligence failure - is a constant that has been observed from something as foundational as Clausewitz to the Want of a Horseshoe Nail.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Want_of_a_Nail

[–] assassinatedbyCIA@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The thing is America already tried bombing an idea out of existence twice in Vietnam and Afghanistan and it failed twice. I just don’t see how brutal conflict does anything more then inspire the next generation of extremist. We need to break the cycle of violence.

[–] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I’m not saying that the desire for Palestinian autonomy is going to be ended. I’m saying that Hamas-the-organization is going to cease to be an effective factor in it. It will be replaced by another organization, or several. I could certainly see another intifada coming out of this.

But you can most certainly bomb (and buy) an idea out of existence. There was a time when there existed a pan-Arab movement. Partly post-colonial, partly anti-Israel, partly Third World-ism in reaction to the Cold War, it tried to unite the Arab world across the borders drawn by the colonialist countries.

It went down in flames due to

  1. Their inability to do the one thing they set as their biggest goal, which was the military conquest of Israel.
  2. US and USSR intelligence operations, diplomatic engagement, and economic and military cooperation
  3. Internal factionalism and personal greed

That’s actually where politicized Islam has its roots - in the defeat of modern, semi-socialist Arab internationalism. Looking back, we would probably have been better off with the pan-Arab movement becoming an entity that could make peace with Israel (like Egypt did) than have political Islam replace what at the end of the day was basic national aspirations in the post-colonial period.

[–] hotdaniel@lemmy.zip -3 points 1 year ago

What a useless statement. There is no way to break the cycle while Hamas exists. You know that.

[–] Madison420@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Historically since 2008 to just before the conflict was 21:1, it'll be more 100:1 by the end.

[–] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’ve been out of that business for a while and was going off of memory, so I’ll go with your numbers.

I do think the world will pull the plug on this particular situation before there are 100k Palestinians dead unless Iran or Syria gets involved. I think the problem is going to be that the rate of death is going to go vertical, and it won’t be possible to stop before it hits 10k, which could happen in a month or less depending on what they do with electricity and fuel.

[–] Madison420@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's what the UN states showed last I checked.

I remain hopeful I just think it's very unlikely anyone can or will step in.

[–] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

I think that other states will step in, and I think Israel will step back and say “What the fuck did we do?”

But history doesn’t make me think that’s going to happen nearly soon enough.