Larry Johnson takes a strictly military view of matters, comparing the coming battle in Gaza to the WW2 battle of Iwo Jima: WILL THE BATTLE OF GAZA STRIP BE ISRAEL’S IWO JIMA? The analogy here has to do with the way the Japanese had honeycombed Mount Suribachi with tunnels and deep bunkers to withstand US naval bombardment. Just so, Hamas has, for years, been preparing the urban landscape. It took the Marines a month and massive casualties to take Iwo Jima—a far smaller area than Gaza. So LJ writes:
Wow. “Kill them all” seems like a definite theme. An impossible task, and peace in the ME will not come from that direction, no chance of that at all. Crooke’s analysis of the “why” as to Hamas motives was also seconded by Mercouris in a very recent Duran. The problem of the mosque and the temple occupying the same space (kind of a metaphor for the whole thing, eh?). The Mosque is right behind Medina and Mecca in its importance to Islam. This means nothing to almost all Westerners. Hamas rage has been on a slow simmer and the current Israeli government supports a position, per Crooke, which is not conducive to peaceful relations.
The mistake was Oslo. You don't make peace with someone who doesn't want peace. Now the situation is hopeless. You survive. This time Hamas has made the mistake of hitting the liberals and the youth especially hard. Hopefully they will remember not to be concerned about the lives of those who want to kill you. The Abraham Accords offered the Palestinians a solution. That is now finished. Now the surrounding Arab countries would be better off ignoring the Palestinians, and so would the Israelis, even to no longer providing water or electricity. If the hostages are not released unharmed, that should be permanent.
Is Iran using Hamas to bleed Israel? Provoke with an outrageous attack and then draw the IDF into a maze of concrete, ambushes, and booby traps. Endless civilians as human shields around every corner. High intensity urban combat with high casualties. Perhaps many small drones will be used to hunt the enemy rather than endless clearing of buildings, rubble, and tunnels. To remain ethical and avoid the equivalent of just sending the B-52s down town let us hope that after the fight against Hezbollah the IDF began to think seriously about what they are facing: urban combat against a suicidal cult of fanatics who have suicide vests for all. And years to prepare their ambush. All the while when we are trying to ramp up production of basic things like artillery shells. Iran has chosen its moment. When the IDF is heavily engaged perhaps Hezbollah and whoever else wants to have a go at Israel will join in. Has the Taliban offered to join the fight? Will we face the choice of getting involved or watching a new genocide? Will Israel, facing a genocidal army of psychopaths, choose to use nuclear weapons if the alternative is the breaking of the IDF and mass murder of defenseless citizens?
Good question. Are they motivated by money or by the destruction of their enemies? Both? BRIICS is another means to weaken the west and thus Israel. If Israel is the sequel to the Ukraine Drain of war stocks then it moves the ball on both. BRIICS is a path to wealth that can enhance Iran’s ability to wage war along with its new friends Russia and China. Russia benefits from the new front in the war on the west as a distraction. Iran gains by threatening its regional rivals with internal unrest if they side with Israel, perhaps driving a wedge in between the Aran states and Israel, ending the Abraham Accords, an alliance designed to balance Iran. Perhaps stirring the pot helps them a lot. It helps Russia with distraction from Ukraine Drain. It helps China by spreading is out more thinly with two regional conflicts. Can we support two regional conflicts? How about three when China moves on Taiwan? Is it 90% of the advanced microchips in the world made there? That is the real prize. It could cripple our economy. Can we support three regional wars given current readiness and manufacturing capabilities? The three powers Russia/Iran/China could very well be making their move.
Identifiable significant military issues in three places of deep interest already (Ukraine, African Sahal, and now Israeli ME); yes, I agree, easily could go to (and beyond) a fourth (PRC-ROC, and any open border flashpoint you'd care to point to). The fine-grained historical & cultural depth of the Middle East really matter, especially at horrendous moments in the ME as is now. I am scandalized by the poor depth I can muster on Israeli-Palestine state details (shame on me). This is a blow-mind intense arena: literally life and death stakes on debateble terms; emotional, religious, intellectual terms. To me, a Cain & Abel dialogue - with all the difficulty that entails - wherein the principles and by extension "us", have a chance to do better than the best parts of our times die at the hands of the worst. A chance. For me, I approach the exercise in humility, and ask for grace and endurance and community.
Have to say, it is tough to acknowledge that, on the one hand education in the West is so self-convulsed that it is truly a struggle to make a path to a deep & useful education, and on the other hand we all have internet speed access to the store of discussions that would also be a source of deep education. Truly funky times
Hello Bruce a great comment. Education is slowly being rebuilt. If we do not understand where we come from how can we understand the millennia-deep roots of other ancient civilizations? I am just learning what classical education is, much less obtaining one. It seems like a lifelong endeavor. We have a lot of smart people who seem to have a very similar misdirected education from elite institutions. We likely need new institutions to restore the type of deep education needed for civilization to continue. As for Cain and Abel it seems as if nothing has changed since their time. Seems as if those who describe human beings as having a nature that does not change are on to something. If we are created by a divine being that is omnipotent it seems we would be created with a nature. Could we then change that nature and become gods? In ourselves? In others? Perhaps with enough terror and killing the socialists will some day arrive at their version of a perfected humanity through forced conformity and many generations of selective elimination of those who refuse to comply. In other words humanity would no longer be human. It would be some sort of domesticated animal. This is how we created the domestic animals we have, through hundreds of generations. The most spirited get culled first. After many generations of this one gets animals that serve the purposes that humans ‘created’ them for. Socialists/leftists/globalists see us as the same. You will eat your designated ration, travel as permitted, and live in your assigned paddock. Just like any other domesticated animal. And after Hillary’s deprogramming you will like it. The liberals already do.
One wonders whether the visibility of the atrocities will give any of Hamas' fellow travellers and comfortable supporters pause; it is a truism, after the first group comes the next ... and somewhere in that short set of links is ... the figurative You
Thus, I begin with what I think is the answer, or necessary endstate, first. Then I work backward to the present.
My sense is that
"Hamas delenda est."
How to go about doing that best is a matter of tactics. Getting to the necessary endstate is the heavy lifting. Knowing what the endstate must be is simple, just not easy to accomplish.
Yeah, Iwo was tough. Destroying Hamas will be tough, too.
One trusts, believes, (hopes?) that the technological smarts which Israeli scientists, engineers, and military are known for, have been working for years now on super-duper solutions to this very difficult problem.
I'm not being glib now on saying co-existence is not possible. This is a binary problem. Israel wins and Hamas loses.
Or... Hamas wins and Israel is destroyed. There's a word used all too often these days, existential.
Destroying Hamas does not = Israel wins. It just creates more rage and probably reawakens a new age of terrorism worse than the first. Which is not wishing Hamas to win. It's repeating what Ross and Mercouris said in different ways about lost opportunities. The way forward requires opportunities to be created.
I wonder if the Palestinian people are onboard with Hamas. It seems to me that normal people do not want constant conflict. They just want to live peaceful lives. If Israel can convince that cohort to come to Israel and live peacefully there as have many Arabs, that would take away the rationale for war.
True. But that, in a way, is Crooke's point. While Palestinians, if allowed to live normal lives--right now they live in the largest concentration camp since WW2--would likely not be drawn to orgs like Hamas, the constant provocations of Israeli fanatics targeting Palestinian identity as Muslims works to raise the prestige of Hamas as defenders of their human dignity.
They should abhor having Hamas as defenders of their human dignity. Savages. While it is anathema to them, Jesus Christ is the greatest defender of their dignity. Hamas can’t offer them freedom - Christ can.
Yeah, that's what was also said about going into the middle east adventures in the early oughts... And, I'm not unsympathetic to that concept. The problem is that not responding shows weakness, and in that area of the world, the Strong Horse is respected.
Damned if you don't, damned if you do.
Some might say, kill them all and let God sort it out. I'm not unsympathetic to that view, too.
Israel, whether they go for the siege or for a broad ground invasion, would first, I think, cut Gaza at the Egyptian border because that is the only land route open to those that would supply Gaza with material with which to survive and fight. A siege of course would require a naval blockade of the Gazan coast and an air blockade enforced by the Israeli air force
G'Monday to Mark and all MIH readers, This is a very good time for some historical revisitation. Such is why I find Meaning in History - that is - Mark's writings, postings and information accumulations presented so compelling.
The secular revisionist worldview rejects Israel, [if you'll permit me, God's Chosen People] roughly 3,400 years ago fled slavery in Egypt being freed by God and were to occupy land HE gave them. Known, extra-biblical history confirms the convoluted conquests, losses, invasions, more conquests and etc. however, God never took away His 'Deed' given to the Nation we know as Israel. Has mankind screwed this plan up? Well, Abraham and Hagar - and their historically factually resulting child Ishmael. God said He'd make a nation of this offspring of Abraham's as well - not fulfilling God's original promise to Abraham but in addition. Sift that beginning into today: 2 nations of Abraham remain in conflict because of human sinful nature lacking faith. This reality, along with other historical and denied facts (such as denial of the Judgement against mankind resulting in a ferociously denied World-Wide Catastrophic flood known as "Noah's Flood" ), is a very long historical war in which our secular-thinking world is observing and actively engaging in heinous participation of. We'll send 'modern weaponry' to more efficiently kill one-another all the while denying God and His Sovereign Will for humankind.
I once had a car which I put on the following bumper-sticker: "No God - No Peace: Know God - Know Peace". I'll submit when we choose belief or rejection, the side of that statement you are on will determine your ultimate destiny - the eternal one. Denial doesn't change reality friends. But it's a mess in the process of making this that we call History. Blessings - (WrH)
While LJ takes a MIL view of matters--and he's very good at divining things--I look more at the financial side of this and was surprised to see the markets entirely in the green at today's close.
Even WTI *only* rose to ~$86, down from the $90-ish in the days before the weekend excitement.
Wow. “Kill them all” seems like a definite theme. An impossible task, and peace in the ME will not come from that direction, no chance of that at all. Crooke’s analysis of the “why” as to Hamas motives was also seconded by Mercouris in a very recent Duran. The problem of the mosque and the temple occupying the same space (kind of a metaphor for the whole thing, eh?). The Mosque is right behind Medina and Mecca in its importance to Islam. This means nothing to almost all Westerners. Hamas rage has been on a slow simmer and the current Israeli government supports a position, per Crooke, which is not conducive to peaceful relations.
The mistake was Oslo. You don't make peace with someone who doesn't want peace. Now the situation is hopeless. You survive. This time Hamas has made the mistake of hitting the liberals and the youth especially hard. Hopefully they will remember not to be concerned about the lives of those who want to kill you. The Abraham Accords offered the Palestinians a solution. That is now finished. Now the surrounding Arab countries would be better off ignoring the Palestinians, and so would the Israelis, even to no longer providing water or electricity. If the hostages are not released unharmed, that should be permanent.
Is Iran using Hamas to bleed Israel? Provoke with an outrageous attack and then draw the IDF into a maze of concrete, ambushes, and booby traps. Endless civilians as human shields around every corner. High intensity urban combat with high casualties. Perhaps many small drones will be used to hunt the enemy rather than endless clearing of buildings, rubble, and tunnels. To remain ethical and avoid the equivalent of just sending the B-52s down town let us hope that after the fight against Hezbollah the IDF began to think seriously about what they are facing: urban combat against a suicidal cult of fanatics who have suicide vests for all. And years to prepare their ambush. All the while when we are trying to ramp up production of basic things like artillery shells. Iran has chosen its moment. When the IDF is heavily engaged perhaps Hezbollah and whoever else wants to have a go at Israel will join in. Has the Taliban offered to join the fight? Will we face the choice of getting involved or watching a new genocide? Will Israel, facing a genocidal army of psychopaths, choose to use nuclear weapons if the alternative is the breaking of the IDF and mass murder of defenseless citizens?
Good question. Are they motivated by money or by the destruction of their enemies? Both? BRIICS is another means to weaken the west and thus Israel. If Israel is the sequel to the Ukraine Drain of war stocks then it moves the ball on both. BRIICS is a path to wealth that can enhance Iran’s ability to wage war along with its new friends Russia and China. Russia benefits from the new front in the war on the west as a distraction. Iran gains by threatening its regional rivals with internal unrest if they side with Israel, perhaps driving a wedge in between the Aran states and Israel, ending the Abraham Accords, an alliance designed to balance Iran. Perhaps stirring the pot helps them a lot. It helps Russia with distraction from Ukraine Drain. It helps China by spreading is out more thinly with two regional conflicts. Can we support two regional conflicts? How about three when China moves on Taiwan? Is it 90% of the advanced microchips in the world made there? That is the real prize. It could cripple our economy. Can we support three regional wars given current readiness and manufacturing capabilities? The three powers Russia/Iran/China could very well be making their move.
Identifiable significant military issues in three places of deep interest already (Ukraine, African Sahal, and now Israeli ME); yes, I agree, easily could go to (and beyond) a fourth (PRC-ROC, and any open border flashpoint you'd care to point to). The fine-grained historical & cultural depth of the Middle East really matter, especially at horrendous moments in the ME as is now. I am scandalized by the poor depth I can muster on Israeli-Palestine state details (shame on me). This is a blow-mind intense arena: literally life and death stakes on debateble terms; emotional, religious, intellectual terms. To me, a Cain & Abel dialogue - with all the difficulty that entails - wherein the principles and by extension "us", have a chance to do better than the best parts of our times die at the hands of the worst. A chance. For me, I approach the exercise in humility, and ask for grace and endurance and community.
Have to say, it is tough to acknowledge that, on the one hand education in the West is so self-convulsed that it is truly a struggle to make a path to a deep & useful education, and on the other hand we all have internet speed access to the store of discussions that would also be a source of deep education. Truly funky times
Hello Bruce a great comment. Education is slowly being rebuilt. If we do not understand where we come from how can we understand the millennia-deep roots of other ancient civilizations? I am just learning what classical education is, much less obtaining one. It seems like a lifelong endeavor. We have a lot of smart people who seem to have a very similar misdirected education from elite institutions. We likely need new institutions to restore the type of deep education needed for civilization to continue. As for Cain and Abel it seems as if nothing has changed since their time. Seems as if those who describe human beings as having a nature that does not change are on to something. If we are created by a divine being that is omnipotent it seems we would be created with a nature. Could we then change that nature and become gods? In ourselves? In others? Perhaps with enough terror and killing the socialists will some day arrive at their version of a perfected humanity through forced conformity and many generations of selective elimination of those who refuse to comply. In other words humanity would no longer be human. It would be some sort of domesticated animal. This is how we created the domestic animals we have, through hundreds of generations. The most spirited get culled first. After many generations of this one gets animals that serve the purposes that humans ‘created’ them for. Socialists/leftists/globalists see us as the same. You will eat your designated ration, travel as permitted, and live in your assigned paddock. Just like any other domesticated animal. And after Hillary’s deprogramming you will like it. The liberals already do.
One wonders whether the visibility of the atrocities will give any of Hamas' fellow travellers and comfortable supporters pause; it is a truism, after the first group comes the next ... and somewhere in that short set of links is ... the figurative You
Russia has shown it’s possible to destroy at a low cost to Russia In casualties fixed fortifications.
In Gaza is Israel willing to bear the Palestinian civilian casualties?
And Lebanon is similar.
Check out Israel and Russia on a map--you'll notice some differences. Demographically as well. Israel doesn't have years to do this.
Gaza is a smaller area.
I agree on the time constraint. Israel’s military model has a huge economic cost to be fully activated, where Russia has an acceptable economic cost.
Russia is talking end of 2024 or 2025, where Israel has months.
Non paywall version of article:
https://australia.sabeel.org/2023/09/10/far-from-the-eyes-of-the-world-an-unbelievable-population-transfer-is-underway-in-the-west-bank/
Fallujah, Pt. 3 with a new, larger cast of characters.
Remarks, revised and extended:
I was glib referring to Conan.
As someone else once said,
"the answer is simple, just not easy."
Thus, I begin with what I think is the answer, or necessary endstate, first. Then I work backward to the present.
My sense is that
"Hamas delenda est."
How to go about doing that best is a matter of tactics. Getting to the necessary endstate is the heavy lifting. Knowing what the endstate must be is simple, just not easy to accomplish.
Yeah, Iwo was tough. Destroying Hamas will be tough, too.
One trusts, believes, (hopes?) that the technological smarts which Israeli scientists, engineers, and military are known for, have been working for years now on super-duper solutions to this very difficult problem.
I'm not being glib now on saying co-existence is not possible. This is a binary problem. Israel wins and Hamas loses.
Or... Hamas wins and Israel is destroyed. There's a word used all too often these days, existential.
The battle against Hamas is just that.
Destroying Hamas does not = Israel wins. It just creates more rage and probably reawakens a new age of terrorism worse than the first. Which is not wishing Hamas to win. It's repeating what Ross and Mercouris said in different ways about lost opportunities. The way forward requires opportunities to be created.
I wonder if the Palestinian people are onboard with Hamas. It seems to me that normal people do not want constant conflict. They just want to live peaceful lives. If Israel can convince that cohort to come to Israel and live peacefully there as have many Arabs, that would take away the rationale for war.
True. But that, in a way, is Crooke's point. While Palestinians, if allowed to live normal lives--right now they live in the largest concentration camp since WW2--would likely not be drawn to orgs like Hamas, the constant provocations of Israeli fanatics targeting Palestinian identity as Muslims works to raise the prestige of Hamas as defenders of their human dignity.
They should abhor having Hamas as defenders of their human dignity. Savages. While it is anathema to them, Jesus Christ is the greatest defender of their dignity. Hamas can’t offer them freedom - Christ can.
Hot take there Sunny. So: the Jews and the Muslims should sort out their differences like good Christians.
Yeah, that's what was also said about going into the middle east adventures in the early oughts... And, I'm not unsympathetic to that concept. The problem is that not responding shows weakness, and in that area of the world, the Strong Horse is respected.
Damned if you don't, damned if you do.
Some might say, kill them all and let God sort it out. I'm not unsympathetic to that view, too.
In other words, let Israel demonstrate conclusively that it's on the same moral level with Hamas.
saw this and thought I'd share since many of us have commented on intelligence failures.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/israel-intelligence-failure-hamas-edward-luttwak
Israel, whether they go for the siege or for a broad ground invasion, would first, I think, cut Gaza at the Egyptian border because that is the only land route open to those that would supply Gaza with material with which to survive and fight. A siege of course would require a naval blockade of the Gazan coast and an air blockade enforced by the Israeli air force
G'Monday to Mark and all MIH readers, This is a very good time for some historical revisitation. Such is why I find Meaning in History - that is - Mark's writings, postings and information accumulations presented so compelling.
The secular revisionist worldview rejects Israel, [if you'll permit me, God's Chosen People] roughly 3,400 years ago fled slavery in Egypt being freed by God and were to occupy land HE gave them. Known, extra-biblical history confirms the convoluted conquests, losses, invasions, more conquests and etc. however, God never took away His 'Deed' given to the Nation we know as Israel. Has mankind screwed this plan up? Well, Abraham and Hagar - and their historically factually resulting child Ishmael. God said He'd make a nation of this offspring of Abraham's as well - not fulfilling God's original promise to Abraham but in addition. Sift that beginning into today: 2 nations of Abraham remain in conflict because of human sinful nature lacking faith. This reality, along with other historical and denied facts (such as denial of the Judgement against mankind resulting in a ferociously denied World-Wide Catastrophic flood known as "Noah's Flood" ), is a very long historical war in which our secular-thinking world is observing and actively engaging in heinous participation of. We'll send 'modern weaponry' to more efficiently kill one-another all the while denying God and His Sovereign Will for humankind.
I once had a car which I put on the following bumper-sticker: "No God - No Peace: Know God - Know Peace". I'll submit when we choose belief or rejection, the side of that statement you are on will determine your ultimate destiny - the eternal one. Denial doesn't change reality friends. But it's a mess in the process of making this that we call History. Blessings - (WrH)
While LJ takes a MIL view of matters--and he's very good at divining things--I look more at the financial side of this and was surprised to see the markets entirely in the green at today's close.
Even WTI *only* rose to ~$86, down from the $90-ish in the days before the weekend excitement.
Videos out of Hamas using drone dropped grenades to hit Israeli positions. Ukraine war is teaching a lot of lessons.