[steviedotboston]

Hamas has been considerably weakened. Their arsenal of rockets and weapons is depleted. At the beginning of the war thousands of rockets were being shot into Israel and now there are very few and the ones that are are quite crude. Hezbollah entered the war immediately and said the only way they would exit is if Hamas exists. Israel retaliated, killed their leader, decimated their forces, and negotiated a ceasefire that got Hezbollah to back off on their original terms. Lebanon just elected an anti-Hezbollah President.

During all of this, Assad was deposed. Israel's main adversary is Iran. They are the ones who fund and supply Hamas and Hezbollah, and were the key ally of Assad. They attacked Israel multiple times during the war and Israel responded in kind, the assesments seem to be that Israel's responses were quite strong.

So prior to October 7, Iran had strong proxies and allies all over the region. They are now either in shambles or deposed.

The goal of the war for Israel is to prevent another October 7th style attack from occuring. I'd say they have made significant steps towards accomplishing that from a military perspective.

[verdverm]

Israel has likely also created multiple generations of anger and hate against themselves. They may have reduced the likelihood of another Oct 7 in the near term, but 50 years is not something I would count on

[breppp]

Probably the most efficient way of creating multiple generations of anger and hate is letting a radical terrorist movement control 2 million people, which can completely mold the education curriculum and free to draft anyone to their quasi-army

So whatever it has done, it cannot possibly be worse than pre-war

[oa335]

> letting a radical terrorist movement control 2 million people, which can completely mold the education curriculum and free to draft anyone to their quasi-army

“Terrorist” groups Irgun, Haganah, Lehi all became part of Israeli government and army post 1948. Israel has mandatory military service for its citizens.

[breppp]

Haganah was a paramilitary organization formed after a few rather violent massacres of the Jewish population in the 1920s, climaxing with the Hebron massacre in 1929 which included horrors similar to October 7, hence why it's name in Hebrew is "Defense". Except for a short stint of a few months of something in between guerilla warfare and terror attacks against the British, it was mainly a military organization foremost, tasked with defense of the Jewish population from Palestinian attacks until the 1948 war

Irgun and Lehi were both offshoots which can be categorized as terror organizations, however they were very small, with a few hundred members and never reached the size or level of support of any Palestinian organization

While the Haganah formed most of the IDF leadership, the new country civilian leadership was based on the Jewish Agency which predated the Haganah and had completely civilian leadership.

There are many other differences between Hamas and these organizations, but in general this is an invalid comparison

[oa335]

I believe the comparison is valid - I put "terrorist" in quotes for a reason.

All three groups at times participated in violent activities targeting the British, Arabs, and even at times other Jews.

Haganah was proscribed by the British mandate and was an unlawful, underground militia. Lehi had 100s of members but Irgun had 4000-8000.

You yourself admit that Lehi and Irgun could be categorized as "terrorist" and Haganah engaged in what you describe as "something in between guerilla warfare and terror attacks".

The British certainly thought of all three as "terrorist" groups, which is why they targeted them with military and police action - https://israeled.org/british-round-up-resistance-fighters/

Hamas would also not describe themselves as "terrorist", they also describe themselves as a "resistance" movement.

Haganah both planned and executed the "Plan Dalet", which killed and forcibly expelled the vast majority of non-Jews from their lands - they actually did what people accuse Hamas of wanting to do.

[breppp]

The relations with the British was more complex than you think, including many years of cooperation, including British training of Haganah forces in the SNS and fighting together during the arab revolt. As common in this conflict I think your original comment was superficial in its resorting to labels rather than content.

Regarding Plan Dalet, saying that most of the non-jews were killed or forcibly expelled is simply not true, not chronologically or factually.

Fact is that most of the Palestinians in 1948 fled on their own accords, while forced expulsions happened they were rare and were done for military reasons, mostly preparing for the imminent attack of five regular armies, as happened by the other side as well (e.g. kfar etzion)

While Israel proper has a sizable Palestinian population that is larger than the population of the Gaza strip

[whatshisface]

What could a radical terrorist organization possibily tell Gazans about what happened to their parents that sounds worse than the truth?

[Tainnor]

Something like this maybe? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow's_Pioneers

[oa335]

I see that one show cited a lot - What in particular about that television show was problematic and “worse” than what Gazans have endured over the past 15 months?

Also, how does that compare with Israeli schoolchildren singing about destroying Gaza?

https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/11/20/israeli-children-sing...

What sort of military solutions and violence, if any, should be employed to root out that sort of extremism?

[Tainnor]

> Nahoul lectures to the audience that "we will liberate Al-Aqsa from the filth of the criminal Jews." [...] Later, Izz Al-Din from Ramallah calls in and Nahoul suggests that "we will go on Jihad when we grow up

> Nassur and Saraa have a disagreement about what the "expulsion" of the "Jews or Zionists" means. Saraa adopts the argument that they should be "chased away" and that "we don't want to do anything to them, just expel them from our land." Nassur, on the other hand, endorses the view that they should be "erased" and that "we want to slaughter them so they will be expelled from our land." Saraa eventually concedes, and the two compromised that "we will expel them from our land using all means, and if they don't want to go peacefully, by words or talking, we'll have to do it by slaughter."

No, it's not problematic at all.

[verdverm]

I'm not trying to say if it is better or worse. Perhaps a better phrasing is "Israel has solidified another 2 generations of hatred by how they prosecuted the war." Leveling a country, killing and maiming as many as they did, the indiscriminate nature and war crimes, these things worked against their stated goals in the long-term

[jncfhnb]

This is the narrative that the extremists want to push, but it’s hardly the truth. Hamas was not some grassroots movement of frustrated Palestinians. It was an Iranian proxy force masterminded, funded, supplied, trained, and instructed by Iran.

There are certainly many angry Palestinians before and after but this is foreign meddling through and through. Hamas would not exist in this form and have done the things that it did otherwise.

[imgabe]

They already hated Israel. So much that they attacked them and started this war in the first place. I doubt Israel is any worse off in terms of being hated than they were before the war.

Hamas is not a rational actor. Their stated goal is to destroy Israel and kill every Jew. That's it. There is no scenario in which they are going to stop hating Israel. They don't care if every Palestinian also gets killed, if they get to destroy Israel it's worth it to them.

[Aunche]

There are multiple generations of hate in the West Bank as well. Israel isn't threaten by them as much as they have much more difficulty accumulating weapons.

[kamikazeturtles]

Are the Palestinians in the West Bank supposed to love their armed illegal settler neighbors?

It feels like almost ever day that I see a video of a Palestinian's home in the West Bank being demolished or a Palestinian family being harassed by armed settlers

[pgalvin]

I think you might have misinterpreted the comment above you. I took it to mean that there are a set of circumstances unique to Gaza that cause greater conflict between it and Israel than between the West Bank and Israel, which is not sufficiently explained by generational trauma alone.

[firen777]

> Israel has likely also created multiple generations of anger and hate against themselves

Israel would have created multiple generations of emboldened anger and hate against themselves if they failed to respond to the massacre and mass kidnapping.

[spencerflem]

In 50 years there will be no Palestine :c

[robertwt7]

I don't understand how is this different to all wars? back then when the Nazis started the war and we had to declare war against them. Or when we nuked 2 cities of Japan, were we also afraid that we will create multiple generations of anger and hate? how is this different?

I'm not comparing Israel or Palestine to Nazi, it's just a bitter fact that war always create anger and hate. Something had to be done though?

[verdverm]

After WW2, (west) Germany was given massive support. We helped to rebuild the country. Same for Japan.

Will we (and/or Israel) do the same for Gaza? What about Lebanon and Syria?

We certainly failed at this in Iraq and Afghanistan, did we learn any lessons? Will the incoming US Administration fumble this opportunity?

As Stephen Kotkin likes to say "You can win the war and lose the peace. You can also lose the war and win the peace"

What comes after the war is as important, maybe more so, than the war itself

[Tainnor]

If you take the analogy further, Germany also completely surrendered after WWII and came up with a new, democratic government. In the meantime, 12-16 millions of Germans were driven out of their homes in East Prussia never to return. It wasn't until 1990 that the (now reunited) Germany finally renounced all claims to their lost territory.

[Cyph0n]

Perhaps weakened them from an equipment & infrastructure standpoint - along with the rest of Gaza - but not from a manpower standpoint: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-14/blinken-s...

The right way to fight an independence movement is to either do so from within/in a more targeted fashion, or barring that, meet their demands in some shape or form. Escalating the violence to the point where you’re destroying and displacing a people might settle things down in the short term, but the movement will not die, and will more than likely grow.

[halflife]

The difference being that the new manpower has zero experience, is mostly kids and has no leadership. They reverted from a terrorist army, to an unorganized guerilla

[Cyph0n]

Sure, but they are at least motivated; anyone would be after witnessing their family, friends, or neighbors being wiped out by “precision” bombing.

[halflife]

No matter how motivated they are, without weapon and training they pose much less risk than an army

[gitdowndirty]

Not only is Hamas weakened, Hamas' and Iran's supporter (China, Russia) has been severely weakened compared to the start of the conflict. Russia is in a stalemate in the Ukraine invasion, and has lost significant economic and military resources since. Russia also lost significant influence in Middle East, with the Assad regime fall. China is a severe economic decline. Also, China distanced itself from Iran, most likely due to wanting to not get sanctioned by US and Europe. https://thediplomat.com/2024/11/china-is-recalculating-its-m....

[forgotoldacc]

> During all of this, Assad was deposed.

And we've yet to see whether this is a good thing.

Gaddafi was seen as one of the most oppressive figures in the world during his lifetime. A few countries made it their goal to take him down and liberate the people of Libya.

Gaddafi was killed, Libya was free, and the media celebrated. Just like with Syria, media coverage was down to basically zero about a month after that happened and everyone was left thinking it was a job well done. Turns out Libya has been worse than it ever was under Gaddafi. Having an oppressive albeit relatively secular leader who maintained a stable hold on the country turned out to be better than an oppressive non-secular mess.

[xg15]

Good points there. Still not sure how much the ouster of Assad was connected with the war (though no doubt that the weakening of Hezbollah must have contributed a lot to it) but it definitely changed the playing field.

[jncfhnb]

It was 100% driven by the weakness in Hezbollah and Russia and Iran. There’s no doubt.

[FireBeyond]

> Israel's main adversary is Iran. They are the ones who fund and supply Hamas

Well, Israel started and has been funding Hamas (I'm assuming, but who knows, that it stopped with this war) since the PLO/Arafat days to the tune of (at times tens of) millions a month.

[ars]

That's not actually true. First Israel didn't fund them, they allowed others to fund them, second the Hamas back then was not the terrorists of today, they changed.

[myth_drannon]

The monsters are still there and already planning their next attempt in genocide. While the hostages coming back is a welcome news, none of war objectives were achieved. All the sacrifices were pointless if Israel exits Gaza and leaves Hamas in control (weakened is but still in control). Netanyahu again showed that he is a coward and easily pressured and has a pathological fear of a conflict. With thousands of monsters being released back into Gaza I fear the next 7 October will be worse.