I don't disagree with you. But because this is a predictable result, it's also part of the calculus that Israel has to weigh as part of the choice to deploy its soldiers in those positions in the first place.

I do think that Israel doesn't have to be fighting this fight; instead it could be playing the soft power game in Gaza much better, and it's barely even trying to. In my opinion the carrot almost always works better than the stick, and Israel should be throwing a Marshall plan at Gaza, literally truck-tons of money making Palestinians rich and happy, under the one condition that they turn over the hostages and any Hamas militants who don't surrender. All that would cost pennies compared to the costs of waging war (and the eventual rebuilding, and the next century of anti-terrorism policing, all of which Israel will undoubtedly be footing the bill for). Instead Israel is choosing to stir the pot in the West Bank at the same time, removing any chance of getting the Palestinian Authority as an ally against Hamas, and burning through what was left of the post-WW2 international goodwill that got it statehood in the first place.

It's understandable and predictable but I think it's still deeply mistaken, and very sad for me to watch.

What makes you think that?

You mention the Marshall Plan, but the Marshall Plan worked in part because of Germany's unconditional surrender and the Allies complete assumption of control of Germany. If Israel wanted to follow the same game plan, they would have to do what they are doing, until Hamas was utterly defeated militarily.

It's important to recognize that Germany's surrender was not conditioned on any aid or support or anything else. Imagine if the Marshall Plan had been started prior to Germany's defeat -- it would only have prolonged the conflict.

Their strength in armaments almost doesn't matter; even if every tunnel is collapsed and every rocket launch site obliterated, even if a ceasefire is reached and the hostages returned, even if Hamas leadership capitulates, you still end up with two million angry people swearing revenge for the injustices they've suffered.

There are two stable equilibria that this can settle into: no grievances, or no surviving civilians. I think the former is the only hope although Israel is making all the wrong moves. I am sure there are right-wing hardliners who would push for the ethnic cleansing route, but most Israelis are peace-minded moderates who would never forgive that option, and so I really think that result would eventually collapse the state of Israel from the inside out, doing more damage than any Hamas rockets ever could.

$40 billion over 26 years does certainly sound like a lot of aid money, but it works out to just around $300 per Palestinian per year, which is, I think, not even enough to counterbalance the economic damage that Israel imposes on Palestine (and especially Gaza) through movement restrictions and trade barriers and blockades. It certainly pales in comparison to the budget of the Israeli military (which, admittedly, obviously has more on its plate than just Palestine, and couldn't be entirely repurposed towards aid). At any rate it's not in the realm of what I contemplate as a Marshall plan approach.

And for it to work, that aid all has to come prominently stamped "courtesy of your friends in Israel". International aid from other sources can improve living standards but doesn't build much goodwill with the neighbours.

But I agree with you on the rest of what you say.

And even before this war, the peace treaty gave Israel big control over the Rafa crossing. They have a camera and watch everything going in and out, and can ask for extra searches if they don't like what they see. And in all, it's just for individuals, not cargo. Whatever cargo goes through, there is just a limited amount that requires prior approval from Israel.

So Egypt really doesn't have any power over the situation unless they are willing to risk a war, which they can't win.

That would normally be a great plan, however, that doesn’t work with an enemy like Hamas. It doesn’t work with a people so thoroughly indoctrinated by Islamist extremists for decades. It’s something that us westerners just don’t comprehend readily.

It’s challenging to know what solution would work that doesn’t end up being as brutal as the Islamic countries often are to their own citizenry.

The wars in Yemen and Somalia are just as terrible as in Gaza but with 10’s of times the number of people and a fraction of the world aid Gaza gets. It shows what happens when those governments aren’t in strict control.

It’s also why almost every non-Islamic state in the Muslim world ends up being brutal military dictatorship. Hussein’s Ba’athist (atheist) party survived by being more brutal than the religious extremists. But in the west we think we can bring democracy or prosperity to such cultures and that it’ll flourish. The US spent trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan and decisively lost. Hundreds of thousands of people died and nothing changed.

Hamas literally kills and tortures any dissenters to gain power and to retain it.

Hamas infiltrated every Mosque in Gaza and installed their own clerics where they indoctrinate children from the youngest age that destroying Israel, killing Jews, and being a jihadist martyr is the loftiest goal.

Hamas isn’t shy about this either. Their original charter reads:

> The Motto of the Islamic Resistance Movement Article Eight > "Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model to be followed, the Koran its constitution, Jihad its way, and death for the sake of Allah its loftiest desire."

It states its goal is to not rest until the Quranic prophecy is fulfilled:

> the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to realize the promise of Allah, no matter how long it takes. > The Prophet, Allah's prayer and peace be upon him, says: 'The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,' except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews.' (Recorded in the Hadith collections of Bukhari and Muslim)."

I watch videos from Gaza and hope and pray that the Palestinians there will realize that Hamas cares nothing for the lives of their children or them. Only for their ideology. Then perhaps Israel can do what you suggest.

Israel is in a tough place. The easiest option for them would to become what many people claim they already are and become right wing religious extremists on par with the Arab dictators. However, even now most Israelis don’t want that I believe. They’ve returned the Sinai to Egypt in the past. They withdrew from Gaza. What they got was Oct 7th.

Except that it was the currently Israeli government to prop up Hamas power in the Gaza strip in order to de-legitimize the other (non terrorist) Palestinian political authority the PLO.

It's very convenient to have a terror organization as your counter party when you want to crush any hope for a two state solution.

In fact, the current Israeli government and intelligence helped Hamas fund and arm itself. And they knew about a huge terror attack coming and did very little to prevent it or defend their own people.

I agree the current Israeli government should have continued working with the PLO. Netanyahu has been a terrible leader for Israel. However they didn’t create Hamas either.

Some people accuse Israel of being a colonizer. I disagree. The proof that Israel is not a colonizer power is that every colonial power understood much better than Israel how to control a hostile foreign population. The trick is that no society is truly homogeneous, so you find a dividing line and split them along it, and richly reward the side that sides with you.

Israel needs to provide as much help as possible to Hamas' opposition, and undermine their state power. It can do that relatively easily because it can shelter dissidents and their families out of reach of Hamas, amplify their stories, and make Palestinian voices the most prominent ones that denounce Hamas. It can sponsor a government in exile and work to grow their legitimacy. It had a perfect chance to do so with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank but so far Israel has almost completely blown it.

Israeli government is relentless with this. Those suburbs are incentivized with subsidies for the settlers, more so than people inside Israel itself.

Oct 7 was horrifying, but for a nation that wants to expand out and build suburbs inside Palestine, it was a lose-win situation. Oct 7 was a loss, but now they don’t have to pretend about building those suburbs anymore. They can just say “each home is on top of a Hamas tunnel”, and boom (literally), clear lot for new housing.

Anyway, the deed is done. All other discourse on this thread is between Israeli apologists and just about everyone else that is not morally bankrupt.

Last but not least, everyone apologizing for Israeli, please save your faces. Please. IDF does not even allow foreign journalists into Gaza. That’s all you need to know. But again, I believe the apologists are no longer trying to save face. It’s an insidious “well, what needed to be done, needed to be done”. Beyond immoral.

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Prayer is in order, as I don’t know what else anyone can do (it’s all be done).

My hope is the Israeli people at the very least prosecute war crimes internally just for the purity of their own soul, and educate their future generations on a modest truth, that being - “we Israelis in 2025 could not find a better solution, and may you never seek a solution we sought in those dark times. May you be better, for we sinned on a scale the bathroom mirror in the morning won’t allow us to forget”.

Before my words are twisted, let me make it clear I am pacifist. I have to literally turn away whenever scenes from Gaza are shown. I don’t support Hamas or the IDF. I believe Hamas commits child abuse by indoctrinating young Palestinians into terrorism. It’s literally a carbon copy situation of black gang violence that’s perpetuated by gang culture (Chiraq, Chicago gang violence). Yeah, believe it or not, teenagers are impressionable and vulnerable everywhere in the world, stop radicalizing them. Hell, we can’t even stop the kids from entering the manosphere here in America, they’ll gravitate right to Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan.

The children cannot fight an endless fucking war, and that is what both the Israelis and Palestinians are doing to these children. It’s child abuse on an epic scale.

Now, in America, we’ve got some sense not to virtually nuke Chiraq, but over there in the Middle East, they have no qualms about bull-dozing the problem.