Israel Is Winning in Gaza
foreignaffairs.com
foreignaffairs.com
Lasting peace would require some changes in Israeli Regime and military doctrine.
So long story short this is a complete mess but its very early to declare winners and losers.
I do wonder whether history backs up this statement. When I hear about hostages taken by terrorists in the news, most of the time, if they are released, and if I remember accurately, they are released via negotiations. I think I hear politicians talk about not negotiating with terrorists, but in reality I think hardly any nation has that as an actual policy, and do in fact negotiate the release of hostages. Even Israel falls into this camp.
I don’t think we have any examples in recent history of a country going on a genocidal rampage to free hostages. So I do in fact think that most—if not all—other countries would have indeed reacted in different ways here, and negotiated to free at least all the civilian hostages within a few months, and the military hostages over the next year, and I do think most—if not all—countries would have done so with exactly 0 civilian casualties.
As for examples from history - we have the allies bombing of Germany, the allied reaction to September 11th, Afghanistan etc. Almost no one considers any of them 'genocidal rampages' although they all left millions of dead, we save that rhetoric only for Israel.
There are plenty of terror groups which the rulers of plenty of countries say are existential threats to those countries, some of them even take hostages, Israel alone responds to those attacks with genocidal rampage.
I think the closest behavior to Israel here is ironically Turkey who engages in brutal military campaign against Kurdish communities on a regular basis. But those reactions don’t come anywhere close in scope as the Gaza genocide.
EDIT: And just to flip the narrative here a little bit. The terror attacks by Hamas is actually something we see quite often in history. Occupied peoples usually resist, and if political means of resistance is not available, they almost always use violent and armed forms of resistance. You want to make the case that Israel’s behavior is to be expected. I don’t believe that, but if you do that, you should also apply the same logic to Palestinian resistance.
Such as ? When the U.S felt it was under existental threat it definitely responded.
The Madrid/London attacks don't resemble at all the situation between Hamas and Israel - even if Spain wanted to go to war against the terrorists - where would the war happen? Who would they attack? Hamas is right on the border, hell bent on recreating October 7th again and again (their words). And its not just their words Hamas has built an entire army with whatever means they could find, and had fired rockets on Israel repeatedly throughout the years. Madrid and London was one or more sophoisticated terror cell, without knowing what happened there in detail I find it hard to believe it was more than a hundred people involved. Hamas has/had tens of thousands of members, rpgs, explosives, tunnels and tens of thousands of rockets (low quality, but still). Not to mention the fact Israel was immediately attacked by Hezbollah and later on Iran. This comparison to Spain or the UK is simply silly. You simply choose to view Israel as uniquely evil due to your political ideology/own biases and thought processes.
Stupid and ultimately futile though the former mission was, the allied countries never thought they had a historical claim (or even any specific interest) in Afghanistan the way Israel covets (and certain factions within it openly proclaim their intent to fully displace the native population from) the West Bank and Gaza.
We save that rhetoric [accusations of genocide] only for Israel.
Plainly false, given the plethora of genocide rampages in recent decades.
And the extremely prominent media coverage of these situations, which cannot possibly have escaped your notice.
There's no much talk of historical claims on Gaza from Israelis besides very fringe groups who don't number a lot of people. Palestinians on the other hand are pretty much 100% united in their view that history necessitates they "free Palestine from the river to the sea", so if there are major historical claims they mostly come from the Palestinian side and their fans in the West and the Muslim world.
> Plainly false, given the plethora of genocide rampages in recent decades.
> And the extremely prominent media coverage of these situations, which cannot possibly have escaped your notice.
No not really, there was nothing resembling the circus around Israel not even close. Which ones do you mean were vastly talked about or protested against even with 1/100 the amount this does?
They're certainly quite obnoxious, these groups. But they can't be called "fringe" anymore, now that they've been made coalition partners in the 37th government (receiving very prominent cabinet positions to boot). Meanwhile Israel's expansionist claims on the West Bank have been the de-facto national consensus (and have been supported by every government to one degree or another) since the late 70s.
If there are major historical claims they mostly come from the Palestinian side
These aren't "claims" coming from their side as it has always been their land to begin with.
I don't see how Israel come back from it's current position, even with U.S. backing. Deliberately killing and maiming children and the vulnerable in the many thousands is not something that a lot of people can overlook, regardless of what type of context is provided.