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From an outside perspective, this doesn't appear to be the case.
It's like that old management consulting saw: "Strategy without execution is useless — execution without strategy is aimless." Israel's actions appear to be entirely reactive; they're on the back foot, and they don't have a clear set of strategic objectives. Execution without strategy.
In essence, they're responded to one chevauchée raid with another chevauchée raid. It's only going to end in tears for all involved.
But from IDF side, it took two weeks to take over the whole border with Egypt. Rafah is empty and by the end of the month, it will be Israeli. So yes, they spent months not doing anything while the government was trying to secure hostage release and Biden was screaming do not touch Rafah.
But in general what strategy do you need? Take over, destroy the military infra and prevent smuggling. That's all that is needed. Gaza is thousand years back, it will never recover. It is not a threat anymore in any meaningful way.
And are you really sure it's a good idea to wallow in war crimes like this in relation to the rest of the world? Something like, the UAE kind of gets away with it in Sudan currently, so Israel can use IDF like its own janjaweed?
Efficiently killing civilians doesn't make a nation moral.
Impressively amoral post, but this is insanity.
(1) Israel doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is not self-sufficient.
(2) There's something monstrous about keeping 2M people herded up in a closed pen.
Whether or not those people are "threats" shall remain to be seen, but Israel is going to lose (is, already, losing) the hearts and minds of everybody on the planet under age 40 -- and you're going to see what being a real pariah state feels like. Israel won't survive as a state very long after that; it is a hard thing, to be despised. And yet, if it comes to that point, it will be very richly deserved.
What you need is a strategy which improves the lives of Gazans -- not one that bombs their homes to rubble and sets them back a thousand years. You need to address their very real grievance. Without this, you're both sunk. Gonna end in tears, like I said.
At this point, I think these are not the real power dynamics.
I used to think Israel needed western support to exist. I don't do anymore. Now I believe that Israel needs any support, and they are perfectly fine with the idea of allying with Russia, China or whoever seems reliable enough and willing to put up with their stuff. Which means that Israel is not dependent on the west, more specifically, the US. The US is reliant on Israel for presence in the middle east.
Which would explain why they seem to do whatever they want, ignoring warnings from the US. The warnings aren't real, Israel is going to commit unspeakable abuses on a population either way, so might as well have them on our side. I believe that to be the current state of affairs.
Given rapid adoption of alternative energy, how much effort will the US continue to invest in having a presence there?
On the other hand, the US certainly doesn't need an ally that creates far more problems than it resolves. Their solid, oil-rich ally in the region is Saudi Arabia. The power dynamic between Israel and the US is not that of a client-state and its powerful protector or even one between allies; it resembles more that of a narcissistic, abusive lover towards their submissive partner. This is why we have been seeing the entire US government utterly humiliating itself for the past few months, finding pathetic excuses to pretend they haven't been slapped in the face every single day, while reiterating their unconditional love and swearing that their partner never did anything wrong.
Really, there is no rational (in the sense of geo-political or strategic) explanation for this. It's a psychological subjugation.
(OK, I only got one).
Please consider not shooting from the hip and respecting other users' comments here, yourself.
There's no "right" to disrupt the conversation. I feel bad about doing it here, now. But, I hate having my reading disrupted by that "vibe".
If you're a friend, please follow the guidelines.
I understand that people want to see things put right, but we must understand what world we live in and how the cards are dealt. There are three great powers, the US, China and Russia, and Israel has a um special relation with one of them, whereas none of its enemies do. The Arab countries want to make peace and do business, Iran might like to be a regional power but has no friends in the region and the Palestinians have nothing to negotiate with and nobody to stand up for them; nobody with any clout, that is.
There is nothing and nobody that can make it all end in tears for Israel. You and others misunderstand the geopolitical situation in the Middle East: Israel can do whatever the fuck it pleases, and it does.
To be perfectly clear, it is a shitty situation, but there is no obvious way out of it.
The US is not above dropping allies when politically convenient, and as Israel burns its public image (or seeks geopolitical independence), both parties stateside can entertain anti-Zionism.
Watch what was previously far-left/right become normalized as legitimate considerations regarding US support of Israel. That Iran would entertain its recent long-range strike should tell of regional estimations of how likely the US would be to intervene, and then extrapolate from there.
But that doesn't change the geopolicical situation: Israel is an important ally of the US in the Middle East and the US is an important ally of NATO, so whatever Israel does, the US will stand behind, and Nato will stand behind the US.
In any case, if the US wanted to stop the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza they would have done it months ago. I don't think they really care, and if the Republicans come into power, with all the looney tune characters from the Christian Zionist right in their ranks, I don't think there's going to be more care.
But, hey, we'll see what happens. It would be great if public sentiment and opinion counted for something in modern liberal democracies, but we have the recent enough example of the war on Iraq and the gigantic demonstrations against it in the UK, and how they didn't change one thing in the decisions of a liberal British PM.
Things keep going the way they're going, and that special relationship has got twenty years left on the clock, max.
I don't think that American support should be taken for granted -- and it's not like Israel is cozying up to the Russians or Chinese. They may well end up like South Africa, with investment bans, arms embargoes, sanctions, no participation in international cultural events, etc. That's a very hard fate for a nation. The white South Africans of those days weren't able to hold out for very long.
But even if that were not the case 20 years is plenty of time to cleanse Gaza, and the West Bank with it, of every last Palestinian. I'd say at the current rate it would take hardly a couple years.
Edit: to be fair, I don't know how to compare SA and Israel. Maybe you have a point, but I don't think it's that simple to impose any kind of, essentially, sanctions to Israel as long as Uncle Sam's got its back. That special relation is a pretty big trump card there. And, btw, we're still at a Democratic president. Can you imagine the Republicans letting Israel suffer arms bans and trade embargoes?
Surely you realize that this is completely unhinged?
You are apparently an intelligent person. Doesn't it strike you that there should be a moral dimension to this? That there is a right way to act that is independent of realpolitik? Do you not realize that those people are, quite literally, under the care of Israel's government, and that to "cleanse" them would be a crime of world-historical proportions -- even if it might make life a little bit easier for people in Tel Aviv?
Besides, I don't think you understand what the reaction would be. Also, I think you overstate China's willingness, and Russia's capacity, to meaningfully support Israel should the US wash its hands of the region.
I'm not endorsing the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians if that's what you mean. At the same time, you can say that Israel has lost peoples' hearts, that it goes against international law, that it's unhinged etc etc but none of those things will stop the people in power in Israel, who btw are textbook fascists who spit "peace" like a dirty word, from doing whatever they like.
Historically speaking, the Holocaust did not end until the Allies invaded Germany (and even then, it continued until the last moment) and the massacre of Palestinians will not stop until a large international force invades Israel. This will not happen, so the massacre will continue until the last Palestinian dies or leaves and Israel extends from the river to the sea, just like the settlers want it.
That's the facts on the ground. In Lord of the Rings, the bad guys lose. In the real world, they often get their cake and eat it. You can call it unhinged, or realpolitik, you can insult me and attack me, but you're just shooting the messenger.
My impression yet is that unless something radically changes, I don’t think Israel would lose US, the power vacuum in the region would be filled by somebody else, something US is unlikely to allow. Despite the show, I don’t believe Biden/Netanyahu’s fallout; it’s simply the only way Biden can do at least the tiny amount of damage control that allows him to keep the most of Jewish/leftist voting blocks.
The other thing to keep in mind is that Israel is a nuclear power and there are no others in the region (for now), so that, too, gives them some extra time and leverage.
I totally agree that all this is just hypothetical and I, too, am not convinced that Biden is going to take serious action on Netanyahu. I would think that he's royally pissed off at him, privately, though. Bibi has caused Biden no end of trouble and I think it's clear that if Biden lost the elections, Bibi would celebrate.
Israel exists because Jews were despised. They did not have support when the country was founded and got weapons on the black market. Today their security situation is a lot more stable.
There are western firms/nations trading with Russia today, money always beats popularity, geostrategic interest beats popularity, pretty much anything beats unsolicited opinions from college students on Israel.
In fact I believe support for Gaza will need a lot more political capital in the future and the countries supporting them actively will try to withdraw from this conflict.
The few Gazans that sold products on the world market will have their existence evaporated, since they had to trade through Israel. Those that worked in Israel probably will not return for a very long time.
People pointing their fingers at Israel often simply lack perspective.
Let’s please stop repeating this falsehood. It’s propaganda and the facts are clear.
Their vote cannot affect the government that governs them. They are israeli citizens with no say in the state that controls them.
The status quo is apartheid. The options to change that are one multicultural state, a two-state solution or genocide.