Israel at War

[BoSoxGal]

I’ve been trying to start this thread for the last few hours but don’t even know what to say.

The horror.


What awful things will happen next?

[Jarlaxle]

50th anniversary of Yom Kippur, 1973.

[liberty]

I feel sorry for the Jews of Israel; I don’t see how they can avoid eventual extermination, but we should not lose focus on which war that is really important to us.

[Bicycle Bill]

I foresee a replay of the Seven Days War ... Israel has proven time and again that it is a country that ain't gonna take shit from nobody.   Witness how they left no stone unturned in their huntdown of the Black September terrorist organization after the Munich Olympic atrocity.   Their vengeance will be swift and sure.   And this time they shouldn't stop until they've retaken the Gaza Strip once and for all, and reached the Egyptian border.

-"BB"-

[liberty]

My basic Principles of war are: 1. What you do to your enemy your enemy has a right to do to you. 2. Wars tend to degenerate to the lowest level of the two sides. And as far as the hostages that were captured by Hamas are concerned, they’re dead. You can’t allow your enemy to use human shields; I’m glad it’s not one of my children being held.

For Israel to have peace near Gaza they will have to destroy Hamas and to do that they’ll have to destroy the Gaza Strip. It isn’t going to be pretty. However, the non-combatants of Gaza could be evacuated by sea to neighboring Islamic countries; that would save a lot of lives.

[Jarlaxle]

Might be time for Israel to take the gloves off.

[Big RR]

Take the gloves off...and leaven the entire world blind and toothless. Sure they'll have to respond, but don't cut off you nose to spite your face; you don't "win" by exterminating your enemies--you just keep the battle going. Only a peace among equals can last, but most of us have lost sight of that. And for a country as strong as Israel saying it is "at war" with a terrorist group only encourages others to support them and escalate the entire affair.

[Sue U]

As I said a few weeks ago, the events in Israel and the Occupied Territories over the past year have been extremely distressing, most of which I blame on Netanyahu and the assholes he brought into government, very much not coincidentally to keep himself out of jail for corruption and turn public attention to other matters.

This attack by Hamas was shocking, horrific and utterly revolting; there appears to be no strategic military or diplomatic goal other than murder and hostage-taking, and the only predictable result is going to be more misery for the people of Gaza as Israel retaliates. They could not have possibly thought this type of attack would provoke a new intifada in the West Bank or generate political support anywhere in the world (other than their patron states). As sympathetic as I am to the Palestinian cause, this kind of terrorism is at best pointless and unhelpful, as Hamas together with Islamic Jihad have shown themselves to be violent criminals rather than freedom fighters. The intensified siege and punishment of Gaza as a whole is immoral and likely unproductive, and I hope Israel finds alternative methods of bringing the perpetrators to account.

I do not have the time to discuss here whether or how much of this horror show is the result of Netanyahu specifically and right-wing Israeli governments generally playing Hamas against Fatah/PA in order to keep Palestinians divided, sabotage a two-state solution and play to the far-right constituent parties needed for a majority in Knesset. But suffice it to say I do have opinions.

[Jarlaxle]

Take the gloves off...and leaven the entire world blind and toothless. Sure they'll have to respond, but don't cut off you nose to spite your face; you don't "win" by exterminating your enemies--you just keep the battle going. Only a peace among equals can last, but most of us have lost sight of that. And for a country as strong as Israel saying it is "at war" with a terrorist group only encourages others to support them and escalate the entire affair.

Or you wipe them out completely. I recall Carthage was never an issue for Rome after 146BC.

[Burning Petard]

I have strong feeling of sorrow for all who live in Israel. However, this is clearly a 'here we go again." Israel has been caught in a clear intelligence failure. The Gaza Strip is a geographical area about twice the size of the District of Columbia. Yet this aggression was a complete surprise. 24 hours later, Hamas still controls territory beyond the Gaza Strip.. It is as if the Allies of WWII managed to plan and begin Operation Overlord all within the Isle of Man without the Germans catching on. Perhaps most scary, Iran has demonstrated an ability to plan and execute a complex combined air-sea-land operation remotely.

And finally, The Balfour Agreement was no secret. Since 1948 Israel and Palestine have repeatedly tried to achieve the same political end with the same military strategy with the same failure and destruction. It looks to me like a duel with hand grenades, repeated each time with bigger hand grenades and bigger collateral destruction.

snailgate.

[BoSoxGal]

Thoughts from an Israeli reservist military officer as he goes to war:
(translated by Google)

It's half past nine in the evening now, two hours ago I came back from abroad. I'm already in uniform and armed, on my way south to the reserves. I'm going to fulfill my duties as a general officer of the brigade responsible for protecting the border with Jordan and Egypt. Like everyone else, I have no idea how long I will be recruited and what day will be born. As with all the countless times I served in the reserves, this time too, as long as I'm in uniform I won't write my personal opinions here.
But just before I silence myself, I would like to write here some of my thoughts.

1. There is nothing in the world that can justify the massacre of hundreds of innocent people. The hundreds of drownings are subhumans of the lowest kind. The same goes for those who support and justify them.

2. Now is a time of war, the first thing right now is to protect the home, the country.
Let's not get confused, this is not a "war without choice", it could have been prevented, but now it is too late. Now there is no choice but to take up arms and defend the citizens of Israel.

3. I am going to defend my country from our enemies. Our enemies are murderous terrorist organizations controlled by Islamic extremists. The massacre of innocent Israelis must not be answered by the massacre of innocent Palestinians.
It is important to remember, the Palestinian people are not our enemy. Millions of Palestinians who live here with us between the sea and Jordan, are not our enemy. Just like most Israelis, so do most Palestinians, they just want to live their lives in peace and dignity.
The two peoples who live here, the Jewish people and the Palestinian people, have been held captive for decades by a violent religious minority. On both sides, a violent religious minority drags the conflict into appalling violence. Yes, I compare the leaders of Hamas with the leaders of religious Zionism. On both sides, an extreme religious view dictates violent behavior.

3. This war will end sooner or later. At the end, both nations will have to reckon with the leaders. We must wake up and not let the extremists rule here. The Palestinians and the Israelis will have to denounce the fundamentalists. The Israelis will have to oust Ben Gabir, Smotrich and their gang from power, and the Palestinians will have to oust the heads of Hamas from power.

4. At the moment of the greatest rupture in Israeli society, the truth is revealed. The true lovers of the country are revealed, those who do. In contrast, the nakedness of the wretched Twitter tiktok is exposed, a bunch of zeros who, apart from slandering and inciting, contribute nothing to the State of Israel. This is the hour of the doers, the defenders of Israel. At the end of the war we will come to account with the zeros, the heroes of the keyboard.

5. In the midst of the terrible pain and the enormous brokenness, I try to look for shards of hope. Shortly after the terrible Yom Kippur War, a peace agreement was signed between Israel and Egypt. We must realize that there is no greater security asset than peace. Even the strongest army cannot protect the country the way peace protects. The path of peace will forever be better than the path of war, the one we have been walking on for too long.
At the end of the war, after thousands of dead Israelis and Palestinians have been buried, after we have finished washing away the rivers of blood, we will have to understand that there is no choice but to follow the path of peace, that is where the real victory lies.

That's it, now it's quiet, I'm leaving cyberspace. I will soon arrive at the base and make my contribution to the defense of the citizens of the State of Israel. The torn heart with the families of the murdered and missing.
We'll meet here or over a cold beer at six after the war, we'll do everything to make this the last war.

https://twitter.com/NirAC...6726666597

[Sue U]

Thoughts from an Israeli reservist military officer as he goes to war:
(translated by Google)

That was very well said. My cousin's two kids (19 and 21) are both in their years of compulsory military service, although it seems almost all the reservists are being called up as well. What happens next will be awful.

[liberty]

The war in Gaza could be a diversion to divert attention and resources away from the war in Ukraine. Russia has influence with Iran and Iran has influenced with Hamas. Russia may even have provided bribes to Hamas leaders to help it happened. I understand we are helping Israel with additional weapons. If we have weapons to spare, they should be sending them to Ukraine because as I’ve said before that’s the war that really matters to us.

[BoSoxGal]

The war in Gaza could be a diversion to divert attention and resources away from the war in Ukraine. Russia has influence with Iran and Iran has influenced with Hamas. Russia may even have provided bribes to Hamas leaders to help it happened. I understand we are helping Israel with additional weapons. If we have weapons to spare, they should be sending them to Ukraine because as I’ve said before that’s the war that really matters to us.

You keep saying that and I find it repugnant.

What is happening to Ukrainians really matters to me.

What is happening to Israelis really matters to me.

What is happening to Palestinian civilians really matters to me.


It is hard to read your posts in this thread without feeling strongly that they might be motivated by antisemitism, liberty. You first posted by declaring the eventual extermination of the Jewish people in Israel. Are we to believe that you are just entirely ignorant of the implications of using that language when talking about Jews? Please advise.

[Burning Petard]

I do not understand it. There seems to be a persistent 'meme' in human history to destroy the tribe of Isaac and Jacob. I have been contrasting in my mind the rhetoric I hear now about the utter destruction of Palestine as the only option if the nation is Israel is to survive. The Carthage solution -- kill everyone, destroy everything and cover the earth with salt. I contrast that with the story in my mind [perhaps a story very unlike reality] about the group of Western Europeans who determined a hundred years ago that the tribe of Isaac and Jacob should be removed from human existence. One of the accomplishments of this group was the death of six million jews. That people, the Germans, were destroyed as an enemy of Israel by transforming that nation into Friends. Now it is one of the strongest international allies of the nation of Israel.

Making a friend destroys an enemy. Yet that meme grows again in Western 'civilization'. . . . Skinheads. Holocaust denial. White nationalism. The only answer for Israel is to become more horrible than their enemies. I find it hard to find hope. The shortest verse in the English Christian bible is "Jesus wept."

[MajGenl.Meade]

FTFY

The nomination of Trump could be a diversion to divert attention and resources away from the war in Ukraine. Russia has influence with Trump and Trump has influence with brain-dead voters. Russia may even have provided bribes to Trump to help it happen. I understand we are helping Israel with additional weapons. If we have weapons to spare, they should be sending them to Ukraine because as I’ve said before we don't like Jews.

[Scooter]

This attack by Hamas was shocking, horrific and utterly revolting; there appears to be no strategic military or diplomatic goal other than murder and hostage-taking...

It's about upending the negotiations going on between Israel and Saudi Arabia, because (like the Abraham accords) recognition of Israel was going to happen without any commitment to Palestinian statehood. Iran is of course horrified at the prospect of an Israeli-Saudi alliance that would clearly be directed against Iran. Already having the desired effect as there have been declarations coming from official Saudi sources about the need to remain in solidarity with the Palestinians. Unlike his father, MBS doesn't give two shits about the Palestinians, yet must not get too far ahead of public opinion.

[Sue U]

This attack by Hamas was shocking, horrific and utterly revolting; there appears to be no strategic military or diplomatic goal other than murder and hostage-taking...

It's about upending the negotiations going on between Israel and Saudi Arabia, because (like the Abraham accords) recognition of Israel was going to happen without any commitment to Palestinian statehood. Iran is of course horrified at the prospect of an Israeli-Saudi alliance that would clearly be directed against Iran. Already having the desired effect as there have been declarations coming from official Saudi sources about the need to remain in solidarity with the Palestinians. Unlike his father, MBS doesn't give two shits about the Palestinians, yet must not get too far ahead of public opinion.

While delaying Saudi-Israeli normalization may be an incidental result, it doesn't appear to be the precipitating cause of the attack. Hamas leadership has pointed to recent Israeli provocations specifically at the al-Aqsa compound and more broadly in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and generally being fed up with the 16-year blockade of Gaza since Hamas took control, but nothing that warrants the massacre of hundreds of concertgoers, the murder of pensioners, the rape of women and the abduction of small children. To the extent both Israel and KSA are US allies, they already act as a de facto alliance against Iran, whose interests are aligned with Russia's both in regional conflicts and in international economics, particularly the oil markets. Normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel and KSA wouldn't produce much more of an alliance than has normalization between Israel and Egypt. As long as all remain within the American sphere of influence, we may achieve a "cold peace," but not warm bilaterlal relations.

And no other government really gives two shits about the Palestinians, their plight is simply an occasionally useful tool. But there are 5 million Palestinians and 9.5 million Jews living in the lands between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and neither group is going to be moving en masse to anywhere else, so if for nothing other than their own mutual security they need to fix the fucking problem.

[liberty]

The war in Gaza could be a diversion to divert attention and resources away from the war in Ukraine. Russia has influence with Iran and Iran has influenced with Hamas. Russia may even have provided bribes to Hamas leaders to help it happened. I understand we are helping Israel with additional weapons. If we have weapons to spare, they should be sending them to Ukraine because as I’ve said before that’s the war that really matters to us.

You keep saying that and I find it repugnant.

What is happening to Ukrainians really matters to me.

What is happening to Israelis really matters to me.

What is happening to Palestinian civilians really matters to me.


It is hard to read your posts in this thread without feeling strongly that they might be motivated by antisemitism, liberty. You first posted by declaring the eventual extermination of the Jewish people in Israel. Are we to believe that you are just entirely ignorant of the implications of using that language when talking about Jews? Please advise.

BSG, have I ever said anything anti-Semitic? Let me make this clear; I can’t be against the Jews my religious belief is that the Jews are God’s chosen people, and to be against the Jews is to be against God. I can’t do that, but as a military man I know a nation can only do so much. If we allow a second front to open up, we will lose in Ukraine; to win we have to concentrate all of our efforts there.

My honest belief is unless God intervenes to change the hearts and minds the Iranian leaders, or a giant meteorite takes out Iran out they will eventually wipe out the Jewish people of Israel. I’m sorry if it upset some people here but that is the way I see it. And what we say on this board has no effect on the real world.

[BoSoxGal]

Hamas beheaded babies in the Kfar Aza kibbutz outside Gaza. They killed 40 babies, and beheaded some of them.

I know human beings are capable of extreme atrocities.

What I cannot fathom is why there are elite universities in America issuing student statements of support for what Hamas has done on behalf of the Palestinian people - blaming Israel alone for the violence perpetrated on them in this horrific Yom Kippur terror attack. Thirty one student organizations at Harvard University made such a declaration yesterday!

After 9/11 I read Gore Vidal’s Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace which taught me lessons of American history that I never learned in school. It certainly made me understand better the anger and even hatred for America which some people in this world carry in them. But I would never be able to think that the atrocities of 9/11 were justified by the many terrible crimes of various American governments.