[ChumpGPT]

It's interesting to me what the Hamas government thought was going to happen when they decided to attack Israel. Was there a plan if it went wrong, what kind of help or promises were they expecting from the Arab world? Did they not anticipate that the Israeli Gov was waiting for this opportunity to inflict a mortal blow? History has shown that Palestinian lives mean nothing to the Arab world. The Arabs want nothing to do with these people as evident by their reaction. Egypt seals it's borders, other countries ignore their demise. In what world did Hamas think this was a good idea?

I'm really struggling to understand what the benefit is to Israel to starve 1.1 million people to death. It would be a good way to turn the entire world against them. Not that anything might happen but there is always a chance it could cause some serious repercussions.

I think it would be a good idea to feed these people and not starve them to death. If you disagree with me and think they deserve to be starved to death, please let me know why. I would be interested to know your reasons....

[throwaway55479]

> Was there a plan if it went wrong?

It is sad, but Hamas leaders may just regard all this as a worthwhile sacrifice for their greater cause of Palestinian liberation.

> History has shown that Palestinian lives mean nothing to the Arab world.

They do care. They talk about it every day. They sponsor a good part of the aid. Not letting Gazans out is mostly because Israel may not allow them back in again.

I'm not saying palestinians are a priority to the Arab leaders. They are just doing what is safe for themselves. So no wars or economic blockades. Actually, the Houthis and Hezbollah are doing just that, and they are labeled as terrorists for it.

> What the benefit is to Israel to starve 1.1 million people to death. It would be a good way to turn the entire world against them.

The EU foreign policy chief and the UN said it simply: "It is probably used as a weapon of war." If what Israel had already done did not turn the entire world against them, why do you (or why would they) think this will? Because of the horrors of 7/10, Israel now believes it has carte blanche. It was bad before, but now almost all limits are off.

[ChumpGPT]

> Israel may not allow them back in again.

Never thought of that...

I really hope those people get food, it would be a shame for Israel to become the moral twin of the NAZI.

[Qem]

> Never thought of that...

By last year's end, real estate agents in Israel already started releasing concept art for beachfront properties built in stolen palestinian lands from Gaza Strip: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1846727/israel-real-est...

There is a recurrent misunderstanding in this conflict, where people think it is a religious war. It's not. It's plain old landgrabbing and pillaging. The best historical parallel it's not the crusades. It's what happened in the Americas after Columbus arrived here. The indigenous people got decimated and the remnants expelled because people from far away felt entitled to take their lands, and had the means to do so.

Also, we see lots of comparisons between Gaza and Ukraine, but one important difference, as pointed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb[1](the author of Black Swan), is that despite being an anachronistic expansionary nationalist, Putin views Ukrainians as Russians and wants to forcibly incorporate them in his nation. On the other hand, the Israeli regime considers Palestinians as just vermin to exclude, displace and exterminate. Once they are forced out of Gaza, the chance they will be allowed to return is zero.

[1]. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1761371368929554802

[dunekid]

I think these are to be read along with this comments from Jared Kushner. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/jared-kushne...

[ChumpGPT]

>Putin views Ukrainians as Russians and wants to forcibly incorporate them in his nation.

You couldn't be more wrong. Putin's goal is to exterminate the Ukrainian people. Russia has been trying to do that for over a century. Taleb needs to read some history, preferably not Russian written.

>we see lots of comparisons between Gaza and Ukraine, but one important difference

You missed the other important difference, Ukraine never attacked Russia, Hamas/Gaza attacked Israel.

Taleb is a fool if that is what he thinks.

[dunekid]

One correction, the entire palestinian territory was attached by israel, forcefully. It's as if ukraine attacking its own territory, which it does now, because the russians are ruling those parts. Not to mention the massacres committed against the people in 1948, as part of foundation. And the continued discrimination. EU and US are sanctioning people who settle in westbank now. Is Russia going to Kiev and attaching homes from the Ukrainians, and giving to people from Moscow?

[runarberg]

I think there are so many important differences it that any comparison is bound to be unhelpful.

To name a few:

- Ethnic differences: Ukrainians and Russians have a lot of shared heritage, while Arabic Jews have largely assimilated into the European settlers, so there is not a lot of shared heritage between Israel and Palestine.

- Size of respective military: While the Russian military is an order of magnitude larger than the Ukrainian one, the Israel army is several orders of magnitude larger than any armed resistance of the Palestinians.

- International recognition: While both the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem are internationally recognized Palestinian territory, and the Palestinian Authority is the recognized government of Palestine, Palestine is merely an observer state of the UN, not a full member like Ukraine. And importantly powerful western nations don’t recognize Palestine as a state (even though most of the world does).

- Nature of armed resistance: Palestinian resistance is done by non-state actors using guerilla tactics, while Ukraine has a conventional military controlled by the state.

- Control over territory: Ukraine controlled most of its own territory before the war, Palestine only controlled Gaza, and only partially, and the the limited control was held by a political organization which is distinct from the internationally recognized one.

I think if we want to look for comparisons, we don’t actually need to go all the way back to the crusades, it is enough to look at European colonial warfare post WW2. Where Europe was desperately trying to hold on to their colonies, e.g. in Algeria or Kenya in the 50s, Vietnam in the 60s, Angola in the 70s, etc. Even Northern Ireland in the 90s (although Ireland in the early 20s is more like it).

Nassim Nicholas Taleb actually started his tweet by saying:

> Comparisons between Ukraine and Gaza are bad verbalisms.

Bad indeed.

[runarberg]

I’ve heard some people describe this as the inevitable outcome of enabling Israel’s apartheid practices. That Israel has been using harsher and harsher policies against Palestinians over the years, dehumanizing them in the process, electing ever more right wing extremists into their government, etc. That Israel is functionally becoming a fascist ethno-state as a logical conclusion of practicing apartheid, and the international order not raising an issue. Starving an entire population of “the others” is simply something that fascist ethno-states do.

> It's interesting to me what the Hamas government thought was going to happen when they decided to attack Israel.

My theory is that they thought Israel would retaliate as they did, but then the International order would kick in, order a ceasefire and they could negotiate a deal using the hostages as leverage. I don’t think they thought that the international response would be as lackluster as we have seen (even the Bush admin did not veto a ceasefire resolution in 2008 like the Biden admin has done now 3 times).

We have to keep in mind that most (all?) Hamas members have family members who are starving and suffering. I very much doubt that they want that to continue.

[myth_drannon]

Hamas knew the response would be disproportionate, it banked on it. I think it's the first war where one party is trying to maximize losses in its own populace (using human shields or just lying and using basic propaganda/Pallywood style videos). The whole point is to try to isolate Israel, make it pariah state. And it's working at least from an international politics viewpoint. The thing is nobody in Israel really cares about it now. So the slow process of turning Gaza into a pile of rubble is progressing regardless.

Now the important point is when it's all over, Netanyahu is kicked out and the new Israeli government will work hard to prevent anything from growing back in Gaza. If the coward Netanyahu stays, everything will come back to the same old "Concept" and Hamas will be back (it's already happening, the port they are building). Netanyahu needs Hamas and Hamas needs Netanyahu.