I don't know what the solution is. People much smarter than me have tried to come up with one. What I can definitively say is large-scale civilian casualties in Gaza is unlikely to prevent another October 7th someday, and may well help cause another one.
Civilian casualties in Gaza are a tragic, unfortunate side effect. It's terrible. But October 7th changed things. 1,200 dead, 240 kidnapped, more than 100,000 still displaced. "Some problems are intractable" is not good enough anymore, our lives are in danger.
So Israel acts, with the goal of destorying Hamas's military ability. If you forcibly take away the other side's guns they can't shoot you anymore. That's not a syllogism, it's simple logic.
This is a solution with a terrible cost, brought about by Hamas's continued active use of their citizenry as human shield. Hamas can end this today by disarming and surrendering. The Gazans would get a functioning state and a better life for their citizens.
Israel doesn't have this option - right now it is do or die.
If there is a way to neutralize the threat from Hamas without civilian casualties, I'm all ears. If not, I assert that any reasonable westerner would act exactly the same. Go ahead and prove me wrong.
There's a huge difference. With Afghanistan, Americans living in Chicago or New York or Houston were halfway across the world. This is here. Gaza is 35 miles from Tel Aviv and 40 miles from Jerusalem.
I don't know what the goals were in Afghanistan. Short of ICBMs, I don't see how Afghanistan could ever threaten the US. The threat against us is local and immediate and has already proven to be real.
Rightly or wrongly, the US went into Afghanistan because of a "local and immediate" event in New York City in 2001. It serves as an illustration of how hard it is to change a population's ideology via force. The distance isn't really what matters.
Again, I don't doubt the threat. It's demonstrably real. I doubt the IDF's current response to that threat is going to be successful at neutralizing it. I strongly suspect the response to that threat is going to make things worse in the next few decades.
There's still a large difference. The Afghan government collapsed. The Afghan people, presumably, did not fear for their lives enough to stand up to the Taliban. Biden said "American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves."
This is not about Israel protecting someone else. This is about physically protecting our home. We do this or we die.
Hamas rockets have the range to reach about 80% of Israel's population. They've shown willingness to amass and fire them in large numbers. It's not a question of "if", but "when". Again, would you sit and wait?
> The Afghan people, presumably, did not fear for their lives enough to stand up to the Taliban.
I would presume, as with Hamas, that it's the opposite; that fear for their lives is precisely why they do not stand up to violent extremist groups controlling their area.
> Again, would you sit and wait?
I'd start with fixing the intelligence failures that permitted the attack to proceed.
I'd also be investing a lot in expanding things like Iron Dome and border surveillance.
There are actions available that are not "flatten entire blocks of Gaza and displace a million people, generating the next generation of pissed off extremists".
> "Some problems are intractable" is not good enough anymore
"some problems are intractable" isn't an argument here, it's a fact. You can't just say "this fact isn't good enough". The entire idea that an occupation of Gaza could possibly lead to a demilitarization of Gazans is incredibly naïve, Iran will never stop arming terrorists in Gaza. Occupying a hostile territory always leads to more terrorism, not less. There is no reason to believe that this occupation will make Israeli's safer, and many reasons to believe it will make them less safe. Obviously it sucks to be in this situation, but rejecting the reality of the situation doesn't help anyone.
So Israel acts, with the goal of destorying Hamas's military ability. If you forcibly take away the other side's guns they can't shoot you anymore. That's not a syllogism, it's simple logic.
This is a solution with a terrible cost, brought about by Hamas's continued active use of their citizenry as human shield. Hamas can end this today by disarming and surrendering. The Gazans would get a functioning state and a better life for their citizens.
Israel doesn't have this option - right now it is do or die.
If there is a way to neutralize the threat from Hamas without civilian casualties, I'm all ears. If not, I assert that any reasonable westerner would act exactly the same. Go ahead and prove me wrong.