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Israel Must Invade Now
As the decision to invade Gaza drags on, it’s becoming clear that there will be many losers in this war. We hope that Hamas will be the biggest loser by losing the bulk of its people. But it may not be an exaggeration to say the entire Middle East, if not the conditions of the world, may be at stake.
Israel is not going to make its decision freely. They now have to bow to the demands of the United States, which has pressured them not to invade. Apparently, they hope Hamas will release more hostages, and everyone should be satisfied that progress is being made. Meanwhile, we don’t know how many hostages are actually alive. Also, they have had to agree to humanitarian aid delivery, which up to this point is not subject to visual inspection and could include arms; the aid could also end up in the hands of Hamas. Israel is apparently complying with the U.S. requirements, since they have been told the U.S. could withhold essential armaments otherwise.
The United States believes it has the optimal viewpoint on dealing with Hamas, a group that has no intention of cooperating on anything unless it sets the terms. No matter how badly they are wiped out, they will never give up the fight. Never. They will never agree to an unconditional surrender and everything that would entail. But the United States, married to the idea of negotiation, will also never give up. Our leaders don’t realize that they have sacrificed their reputation and credibility on their own failed military actions. I suspect Israel is only going along with their demands because they think they must. The U.S. is also still trying to maintain a balancing act with Iran. It refuses to call out Iran, actually applying sanctions and starving the mullahs. (After all, they might get upset with us.) And there are rumors that the U.S. wants to manage the war jointly with Israel.
Give me a break.
There are no good solutions to this horrible situation. But Israel must prioritize the best options in this war:
It must invade Gaza sooner rather than later, taking out as many tunnels and terrorists as possible, knowing that the hostages may die as will many IDF soldiers.
The consequences will be terrible. The entire world will call them monsters. The U.S. will be furious, but once Israel goes in, I think the U.S. will finally give them the weapons they need; the U.S. doesn’t want to cause another Holocaust. Many people on all sides, including the hostages, will likely die.
But we have to ask the simple question: do we want Israel to survive? The main issue is existential, and all the other arguments and justifications are secondary. Israel jeopardizes its future if it does not destroy Hamas. The longer it waits, the more opportunities Hamas has to re-arm.
Israel must go in now.
Published in Military
I gotta disagree a bit here. We can be “at war” in a philosophical sense (the unwinnable war on poverty, say) without being “at war”.
We are not currently at war with Russia. Things would look very different.
If we’re at war with russia, how come don’t we have soldiers and fighter pilots there? If Russia can tell the difference I bet you can, too.
Also, factories and factory workers were fair game. In Dresden, Germany in 1945, bombing killed 25K of the 368K residents and multiple factories.
Good to get another context for the casualties of war.
Modern squeamishness about civilian casualties in actual war is why we don’t win wars. We are unwilling to engage in actual war.
This may be a fantastic thing and a great leap forward for mankind — it’s hard to cheerlead for death. Yet, this must be balanced against the “War is not the worst of things…” line of thought, and a people does indeed have the right to not be oppressed, preyed upon, or wiped out. Yes, this applies to Palestinians (whatever those are) as well as Israelis, and and of Group A as well as Group B.
Fortunately, as people on both sides of the current war-like thing are fond of saying, events do not occur in a vacuum. Context sometimes provides the information necessary to resolve the otherwise unsolvable dilemmas. The context of the current “war” upon Israel makes it pretty simple for me. Israel is not responsible for the conduct of Hamas or the people among whom it resides. Israel’s hand is pretty wel forced. The long history of actions short of war demonstrates that this was hardly the goal.
No, genocide will not be necessary, nor will it happen. Wiping out those who implacably terrorize and prey upon you is not genocide. That’s just war. That group is a small subset of the geneme.
A very profound comment, BDB. Thanks.
This is a fantastic comment that is worthy of being it’s own post.
Yes, the problem with asymmetrical warfare is the people don’t see it as “war”. Innocence is a legal concept involving an individual and the State. War is the ultimate collective state where individuality becomes nonexistent. The Laws of War involve a series of multinational treaties, with signatories, that try to provide some protections to “non-combatants”. But even the slightest connection to war-making capability and support generally excuses attack. And while you can argue for avoiding “collateral damage” the reason for such an argument is the frequency with which non-combatants are killed and injured when any military operation is proximate to them. The doctrine of retaliation excuses deaths of non-combatants when responder to one actor’s deliberate attack on non-combatants. In short, any demand to avoid death or injury to non-combatants in Gaza is based on personal preference and not international law. Hamas is the government in Gaza. Hamas targeted non-combatants on the theory that all Israelis are legitimate targets. The doctrine of retaliation permits Israel to target non-combatants. Retaliation is supposed to be proportional, but that is an inexact measurement. And how, exactly, is someone to be proportional to rapes, beheadings, and baby killing? Pick whatever justification you need — retaliation, collateral damage in pursuit of military targets — and proceed. The best security is mutual respect and peace with your neighbors. But nothing in the history of the Jewish State suggests this is achievable until Israel makes the facts on the ground to be that warfare is too costly for anyone who attacks it.
It would be nice if the Palestinians would agree to run an actual military so that we could target it.
But they don’t.
They hide among their women and launch missiles from their children’s schools and wail and ululate for the cameras when their women and children die. “How could this happen to us? How could they do this to us?”
Well, Mr. Work-From-Home Soldier, it’s because you painted the target on your own civilians and attacked Israelis until they returned fire.
By way of general comment, I have come to realise that Hamas can always count on a vast number of useful idiots in the West- politicians and media figures who parrot Hamas’s numbers of casualties; who blithely make allegations against Israel of war crimes, carpet bombing, targeting civilians, etc; who allow pro-Hamas/Palestinian panel members to speak freely, while interrupting the sole pro-Israel panellist (BBC an hour ago); and who, most egregiously, make sure to “condemn Hamas atrocities on October 7th”, but always followed with a giant ‘BUT…” (like the Secretary-General of the U.N. yesterday).
They can indeed count on them. They’re not interested in the truth, just appealing to the Leftist audience.
I like to see the mention of “just war”. Christianity has spent a 1000 years debating the idea of just war and I accept the wisdom that has emerged. The criteria read like a checklist for Hamas.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church lays out the conditions for just war in paragraph 2309:
I think in that context, “just” meant “only.” or “simply.”
No, it wouldn’t. I’m talking about the rest of the world, which is categorically incapable of putting themselves in Israel’s shoes, and whose first and last instinct is to castigate Israel regardless of what they do. Iran could nuke Tel Aviv out of the clear blue sky, and after a day of sadness of monuments lit blue and white there would be a concerted effort to condemn anything that looked remotely like tit-for-tat.
I’m talking about what the “world community” – the foreign services, the State Department, the chattering classes – believe will happen. I’m not saying it’s a correct or possible outcome.
We wouldn’t be the ones using it.
It sounds like the US is still setting up anti ballistic missile defense batteries and Israel is waiting out fuel supplies in Gaza. There are risks in both inaction and early action.
Did you know that two dozen US soldiers were lightly injured in three attacks in Syria and Iraq while Biden was dozing at the beach.
(VIA NBC) -Two dozen American military personnel were wounded last week in a series of drone attacks at American bases in Iraq and Syria, U.S. Central Command told NBC News on Tuesday.
The Pentagon confirmed the attacks last week, but the number of U.S. casualties has not been previously disclosed.
Twenty American personnel sustained minor injuries on Oct. 18 when at least two one-way attack drones targeted al-Tanf military base in southern Syria, CENTCOM said.
One of the drones was shot down. All of the wounded personnel were returned to duty, CENTCOM said, and there was no damage to any military installations.
On that same day, another four American personnel suffered minor injuries during two separate drone attacks against U.S. and coalition forces stationed at al-Asad base in western Iraq, CENTCOM said.
Who would be shooting a hypersonic nuke at China then?
The Israelis have made a major incursion into Gaza. It appears to be setting the stage for a major assault. Prayers, please.
Best I can do is some swear words while jumping up and down pumping my fist. Get ’em, boys.
That’ll do!
Where can I best read about this?
I first heard about it on Fox News, and then just searched the internet. I don’t think Israel is putting out much information yet, understandably.
Thanks. I’ll google it.
The U.N. is in emergency session. An Israeli is speaking live at this moment 11:00am
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6339902807112
Moderator Note:
This mocking will not be tolerated. You seem to have a creepy obsession with the post author, Jack.Redacted
I heard a really interesting interview with Matt Waxman and one topic was proportionality of response. I learned that the actual concept has nothing to do with hurting the enemy on a similar scale as he hurt you. This is a common misconception. A proportional response is defined as “are my action proportional to the results I will achieve by those actions”. For example if there is a single sniper in an apartment complex full of civilians, destroying that complex and killing all the noncombatants to eliminate one sniper would be judged as disproportionate. It’s more a sense of scale than a body count thing. If you take out a missile launcher that is purposely placed next to a civilian structure, that may be judged as proportionate.
Moderator Note:
personal insultIs there a list of approved Ricochet members we can have a conversation with? I would love to see it. I never denounce anyone personally. I merely engage with their ideas. Is there a list of ideas which can be posted but not responded to? I would love to have that also. Might I suggest an indicia be placed next to certain member posts indicating that it is understood that nothing in the post is to be taken seriously. My obsession, such as it is, is very seldomly responding to various posts. I rarely pay attention to the identity of the post author. Could you maybe have a creepy obsession protecting certain [redacted] posts? Food for thought isn’t it?
Moderators now have to be psychoanalysts?
Carthage – stopped a problem.
Or 30. The size and duration of their program and level of outside help suggests at least as much with likely breakout into the many hundreds when they are ready (e.g., have sufficiently perfected MIRVed ICBMs).
Its unhittable. Everything is buried deep and well protected. We gave up on nuclear penetrators that would be needed to attack such targets.
The existing warheads on MRBMs are well dispersed and would be launched mixed in a barrage of missiles with conventional and chem/bio warheads to overwhelm defenses.