Disruption is good. As noted, any question of a ceasefire before those tunnels are ll destroyed is out of the question.
I’m surprised that they didn’t have a network of seismometers. I’d think they would have told them what’s going on. And of course, as usual, the UN was probably complicit.
[Update Saturday morning]
All we are saying, is give war a chance.
Well, “peace” certainly hasn’t worked very well.
[Update a while later]
“I won’t apologize for surviving.”
For surviving missiles intended to kill me. The fact they didn’t kill me doesn’t mean they weren’t sent with the intention to murder. We have a defence system, shelters, evacuation procedures and governments who take care of us – I will not apologise for living and surviving thanks to being prepared because we have a culture that celebrates our lives and cherishes them instead of sending 10-year old children to be fighters and bombers. I will not apologise for having a business, a home, a family and friends here who want normal lives and to live in peace with our neighbors. I will not apologise for existing and I want nothing more than to co-exist quietly with neighbors who accept me here.
But this is not what Hamas wants.
Let me be very clear. Hamas is trying to kill ME. My family. My baby son. All of us here. That is their purpose. Get it through your heads – that is what is happening. And it’s VERY personal. For all of us here.
But it’s NOT FAIR. Who are you people to defend yourselves, anyway? It’s not their fault that they suck at killing you. Why can’t you just off yourselves like those Masada people?
Don’t they have seismic equipment? It seems as if Israel has known about this and picked a good timing for stopping it. Arabs digging holes in the ground is not an impressive enemy. They are rats.
During sieges in the 17th century, if not much earlier, tunnels were dug to put explosives under the walls of the fortification. And the defenders built counter tunnels to intercept them. Horrible underground battles ensued as they encountered each others. I don’t think that tunnels are as hidden as they were back then, but arabs have no industry or technology, so they keep digging.
It would be a fancy set of seismic equipment that could distinguish someone digging underground from traffic on nearby roads.
It’s pretty standard oilfield technology. Lay a network of seismic sensors, then use dynamite or a “thumper” truck to set up the seismic waves. They can get a pretty detailed view, depending how much dynamite they want to use. Heck, the shelling alone might be enough.
Bob-1 says an invasion by Hamas to murder mothers and children ain’t no big thing. Israel should just take the losses and be peaceful. Maybe as Hamas is going door to door exterminating women and children, Israel could mobilize a police force that uses riot gear and pepper spray, maybe if they didn’t actually use the pepper spray on the mostly peaceful Palestinian protesters.
What in the world are you talking about? That’s not my argument AT ALL! My argument is that Palestinian terrorists should be treated like Hezbollah. Shame on you.
Israel is not murdering the Palestinians. They are destroying weapons caches and such things. But, Hamas has basically piled a bunch of civilians on top of their weapons caches.
What exactly do you expect should happen in this scenario?
I expect the results are exactly what is happening right now.
On the flip side, I don’t know what the long term solution is, and I don’t necessarily like euphemisms like “finish the job”. Please give specific wording about what you want please, not euphemisms. Say something like “keep going until all identifiable Hamas personnel are dead” or “they should go Old Testament and kill every man, woman, child, ox and lamb” (not that I am saying I agree with the second one). But, something like “finish the job” doesn’t mean anything. I want specifics of what people want. No fuzzy language please.
Someguy, I posted my comment before I saw yours. Funny that we both used the “flip side” expression, but it is a coincidence. (I wonder why Rand’s blog is so asynchronous?)
Someguy, I think that’s a very good question. I don’t know what “Finish the job” means either. The rightwing(ish) Times of Israel published an interview with a British military guy who likes Israel and judges it impossible to “finish the job”:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/a-supportive-british-colonel-and-a-bleak-vision-of-endless-costly-military-operations/
The short summary can be found just by reading the unusually descriptive URL above.
The flip side of my argument: should Southern Lebanon be re-occupied by Israel, or is it better to attack it from the air, with artillery, etc. The latter gives the Lebanese a state if they can get along with each other enough to make one for themselves. I think Israel should give the Palestinians the same opportunity that they give the Lebanese: an opportunity to make a state or an opportunity to get bombed – their choice. This is not anything like urging Israel to accept their losses. I’m urging Israel to stop being a jailer or a colonial power, and start behaving like a normal modern state with well-defined boundaries which will use disproportionate and deadly force to defend its citizens against aggression.
As Hezbollah has not, as you note, attacked Israel lately, Israel should leave Southern Lebanon alone. It’s not as if the IDF needs to pick any gratuitous extra fights now – not that it ever has. The Lebanese will either settle their internal differences peacefully or they won’t.
If a major civil war reignites there, Israel may feel compelled to intervene by opening a second front against Hezbollah in preference to letting them exterminate their Christian and Druze opponents and complete the setting up of yet another terrorist-governed state in the Arab Middle East. As Hezbollah owes its continued existence largely to foreign assistance from Iran, the Maronites and Druze can hardly be faulted for inviting assistance from their own friendly foreign source, namely Israel. In such an event, I would encourage Israel to pursue its strategic interests and collaborate with non-Hezbollah Lebanese in effecting the final destruction of Hezbollah.
“I’m urging Israel to stop being a jailer or a colonial power,”
Every time Israel concedes territory, it is met with continued attacks. They gave Gaza to the Gazans and were rewarded with perpetual war. At what point do you hold the Palestinians accountable for their actions?
“That’s not my argument AT ALL! My argument is that Palestinian terrorists should be treated like Hezbollah. Shame on you.”
A key part of your argument was that Israel should just absorb attacks against it and not retaliate.
Israel is treating Hamas like Hezbollah. They wait and let the threats build up until they become intolerable and then they respond with military force.
This conflict will never end as long as Palestinian children are inculcated from birth into a culture of racism that wishes to exterminate their neighbor. Have you seen what the Palestinians teach their children? It would take generations to deprogram the brainwashing of the Palestinians.
“A key part of your argument was that Israel should just absorb attacks against it and not retaliate.”
No, it wasn’t – you must have misunderstood. Israel retaliates against Hezbollah, and pre-emptively attacks them as well. I think Israel should be no different toward Palestinian terrorists. Israel should give Palestinians the same opportunities the Lebanese have, but it certainly shouldn’t simply absorb an attack – it should fight the Palestinian terrorists just as it does against Hezbollah.
My take on what “finish the job” means: Kill all identifiable Hamas personnel, without regard to any supposedly innocent bystanders they have accumulated around them. (Arguably there are none, as the Palis elected Hamas as their government.) And keep doing it as new ones are identified. Leave not one stone atop another, and churn up the ground to a depth of 30 metres or so within 100 metres of all borders to eliminate all the terrorist tunnels. Total blockade of seaborne traffic. And, although it’s redundant, switch off supplies of everything to Gaza. And let absolutely no newspeople into the area.
They want to live in a barbaric 7th century hellhole; let them.
The latest conflict is only going to act as a damned effective recruitment drive for the most hate-mongering elements in Palestinian and Israeli politics, those that think if you kill enough people you can force submission. Iin the past that aproach could actually work. In the modern era it doesn’t because the world is tied together through trade and the media, and outsiders -the rest of the world- gets to meddle and stops the level of slaughter required to force such submission.
People think it’s an Israel – Palestine conflict, but in the end bringing about peace will come down to the balance of power between the radicals and the moderates within Israel and within the Palestinians.
It’ll only be when the whole thing can be cooled down so that the hatred abates, and people within both populations are moved to carry those politicians who believe the conflict can end without more bloodshed into power, that we’ll see progress.
One doesn’t have to be among “the most hate-mongering elements in Palestinian and Israeli politics” to also be among those who think that “if you kill enough people you can force submission.” Of course you can force submission by killing enough people. That’s how wars typically end. It’s how both World Wars ended. The Palestinians certainly believe this. They haven’t ever, and never will, have enough war-fighting capability on their own to constitute a genuine existential threat to Israel, but they keep hanging in there just the same
The main reason they do is that the rest of the Free World has never been comfortable with the idea that the Israelis should ever constitute an existential threat to the Palestinians. But, from the point of view of game theory, it’s easy to see why the Palestinians keep up their annoyance attacks on Israel, year in and year out – there’s almost no downside to doing so. There are even occasional upsides. After both WW1 and WW2, Germany permanently lost territory to its neighbors, much of it territory Germany had, itself, seized in previous wars. Israel took modest amounts of territory after the 1967 war, plus the entire Sinai Peninsula. Since then, they’ve been in a sort of punctuated give-back mode. The latest territorial concession was Gaza. Is it any wonder that, by their own lights, the Palestinians in particular, and the Arab world in general, think they are slowly driving Israel back on itself and, if they can just keep the pressure on, that it will implode and disappear?
The Israelis need to make it clear that starting fresh wars with Israel gets you, first, beaten, and then, territorially diminished. That’s why Israel should evict the entire Palestinian population of Gaza right now, dump them unceremoniously on their alleged brethren in the West Bank and annex Gaza permanently as part of Israel. That way, the beaches of Gaza can be, as they richly deserve to be, littered with tasty babes in tiny swimsuits working on their tans instead of with furtive smugglers landing contraband weaponry with which to work on their jihad.
The Israelis should also make clear than any future bad acting on the West Bank Palestinians’ part will cost them more pieces of this already diminished territory. Enough bad actions should earn whatever West Bank Palestinians remain, new status as involuntary ejectees into the arms of their alleged brethren in Syria – or perhaps the ISIS Caliphate if it is still a going concern by that time. If it is, it will likely have inherited the erstwhile Syrian border with Israel.
Mr. Eagleson – And while they’re about it, lance that festering boil known as the Dome of the Rock. Which should have been blown up, in as spectacular and thorough a fashion as possible consistent with safety, many years ago.
As satisfying as that might be to some, I don’t favor it. Nor, I suspect, do any significant number of Israelis. The Dome of the Rock is, if nothing else, a building of considerable historical and aesthetic value. The Israelis have considerable respect for both, as well they should being the present-day inheritors of a multi-millenial cultural tradition. It is the Palestinians who need removal, not Islamic cultural artifacts the Palestinians have appropriated as their own.
“in the end bringing about peace will come down to the balance of power between the radicals and the moderates within Israel and within the Palestinians.” Perhaps you forget that Ariel Sharon was the one who set up the Gaza plan, and turned Gaza free. He was one of the “radicals” within Israel, and the Arab world hated him as a “terrorist”.
Please don’t play false equivalence. The “moderates” within the Palestinians are former terrorists. The radicals in israel are people like Menachem Begin (former leader of the Irgun) and Ariel Sharon.
Perhaps you forget that Ariel Sharon was the one who set up the Gaza plan, and turned Gaza free.
“Sharon said that his plan was designed to improve Israel’s security and international status in the absence of political negotiations to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”[wiki]
Less to do with benevolence towards than Palestinians than separating the two populations to reduce opportunities for violence, especially against Sharon’s own troops.
In other words, easier to lock down.
“than separating the two populations to reduce opportunities for violence”
They were already separate unless you believe the voxplanation of a bridge between the two territories.
“In other words, easier to lock down.”
They did have one government until Hamas decided to kill all of their opposition. It wasn’t Sharon that is to blame for their being to different Palestinian governments. Why try and come up with a conspiracy theory about how Sharon wanted to oppress the populace when Occam’s razor and a knowledge of current events show something more likely?
There had been Jewish settlements established in Gaza that were a security headache for Israel.
It wasn’t a conspiracy, Sharon was quite open about the security advantages.
Another reason for creating a separate territory was political, it removed a million potential voters.
The “moderates” within the Palestinians are former terrorists.
You and I either have different definitions of “moderates” or of “terrorists”, though I’ll grant that “former terrorists” (or former freedom fighters) who now want to find nonviolent solutions could well be among the “moderates”.
Hamas: “We demand our own country and will kill as many women and children as we need to to get it!”
Israel: “Ok. Deal. You get your own country as long as you stop trying to kill out women and children.”
Hamas: “Those conditions are unreasonable. No deal!”
Interesting Quotes, got a link?
Thought it was apparent that I was making those quotes up. IMO, that is pretty much what has been going on though.
Another reason for creating a separate territory was political, it removed a million potential voters.
Under exactly what circumstances do you imagine the Gaza Palestinians were ever going to be allowed to vote in Israeli elections? Every time I think we’ve mapped the approximate outer borders of your delusional belief system you keep revealing that there are entire new previously unsuspected provinces of fabulation and hallucination to explore.
‘You and I either have different definitions of “moderates” or of “terrorists” ‘ Apparently. I was pointing out the the people known as “fanatics” or “extremists” in Israeli politics (Begin, Sharon) are exactly the equivalent of the people known as “moderates” on the Palestinian side (Abbas, Fatah). There is _no_ equivalent on the Palestinian side of the entire rest (i.e., more peaceful) of the Israel political spectrum. There is _no_ equivalent on the Israeli side of the entire rest (i.e., more murderous) of the Palestinian political spectrum.
That is even if you accept (which I absolutely don’t) that people like Sharon on the Israel side are anything like the moral equivalent of Fatah/PLO.
You are somehow comparing a nation that basically wants peace with one that basically wants murder. As everyone knows or should know, if the Palestinians stopped fighting, there would be peace. If the Israelis stopped fighting, they would be dead.
The Palestinians did vote for Hamas over other equally vile barbarians. Unlike here in the US, only the living get to vote. If the dead Palestinians could vote it might go another way.
But probably not.
What does it mean to “finish the job”? Sun Tzu provides a clue: “Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. ”
Finishing the job means breaking the enemy’s will to fight. It means demoralizing the current crop of fighters, by killing lots of them, not necessarily the leaders.
Most of all, it means winning the PR battle so that 12 and 13 year old Arab boys start thinking of Hamas as losers.
Given how popular it is on this forum to claim that Palestinians use children as human shields, I found trhis interesting:
Israeli-Palestinian conflict[edit]
Israel[edit]
Prior to 2008-2009 Gaza War[edit]
The IDF admitted it had used Palestinians as ‘human shields’, in limited capacities; it acknowledged using human shields 1,500 times during the Second Intifada.;[14] the practice subsequently banned by Israel’s High Court of Justice.[14][15] The Israeli Defense Ministry appealed this decision.[14][16] Specifically, while acknowledging and defending the “use of Palestinians to deliver warnings to wanted men about impending arrest operations”, the IDF denied reports of “using Palestinians as human shields against attacks on IDF forces”, claiming it had already forbidden this practice.[15]
Amnesty International[17] and Human Rights Watch[18] said the Israel Defense Forces used Palestinian civilians as human shields during the 2002 Battle of Jenin. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said that “for a long period of time following the outbreak of the second intifada, particularly during Operation Defensive Shield, in April 2002, the IDF systematically used Palestinian civilians as human shields, forcing them to carry out military actions which threatened their lives”.[19][20] Al Mezan reported the systematic use of “human shields” during the invasion of Beit Hanoun in 2004.[21]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_shield#Palestinians
And there’s far more incidents covered that I think I should just cut and paste here.
B’Tselem is the creation of the surrenderist, pro-Palestinian Israeli Left. It seems barely to exist any more, though in its heyday it was mainly a mechanism to provide nominally Jewish cover for whatever lies and slanders the Palestinians wanted to promote about Israel. If one doubts its hate-Israel bona fides, one only has to note that the group received a prize some years ago from a group that includes former U.S. President, certified Israel hater and free-lance anti-semite Jimmy Carter. Nor do Amnesty International or, even more so, Human Rights Watch have any credibility where Israel is concerned. Both have long since been captured by Leftists and converted to propaganda organs pushing Leftist agendas of which stooging for the Palestinians is major. Your “sources” are about as credible as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
There are 15 sources referenced in that piece, B’Tselem is used just once.
certified Israel hater and free-lance anti-semite Jimmy Carter. Nor do Amnesty International or, even more so, Human Rights Watch have any credibility where Israel is concerned.
No doubt you’ll be able to provide the same level of referenced sources as you have to support the other bizarre claims you’ve made ie none.
You’re the one who’s short on sources. The few you provide all turn out to be Leftist propaganda organs. Simply quoting lies put out under the imprimatur of organizations that were either explicitly founded to slander Israel or which have long since been subverted to the same end is not “proof” of anything except your contempt for the intelligence of the readership of this blog. I’ve provided plenty of citations from credible sources to back my positions. Whenever I do, you generally change the subject.