This used to be a controlling ethos in the US military — the movie “Saving Private Ryan” is an example, but there are other films with at least some recognition of that duty.

One of the most galling aspects of the Biden Afghanistan debacle was his leaving so many American civilians, Afghan allies, and possibly even service members behind (although I’m not sure on that last group, his precipitate and bungled withdrawal certainly led to the deaths of too many soldiers).

But we also have an opportunity to pursue a major psy op on these societies.
Recent Western scholarship (especially over the last few decades but extending back to the mid/late 1800’s) is showing that the Quran is just a man made book, with evolving content and changing interpretations, often with a Christian precedence or major influence, plus clearly copying stories and content from the OT and the NT. To some degree it is basically a bastardization of Judaism. Coupled with that is evidence Mecca was not the trading center it was claimed to be in the 7th century, and even that Muhammad as an actual historical figure never existed (or at a minimum not in Mecca, but maybe Petra?).

Perhaps we start with the more benign countries of Morroco or Indonesia? Work back through Pakistan and Turkey, etc. Of course Iran is ripe for a regime change if not a change in religion, per se.

We can’t really change them from the outside, but we can give some of the insiders the intellecutal ammunition they can use to help in a reformation and/or revolution.

If the operation in Gaza had continued, and if Israel had succeeded in crushing Hamas, the things that REALLY needs to be done is some kind of “de-Hamas-ification.” The children are raised on Jew hate. Text books contain story problems: “If there are ten Jews and a heroic Hamas soldier kills six, how many Jews are left to kill?” The children’s show that is supposed to be something like Sesame Street had characters talking about how evil the”Jewish occupiers of Muslim land” are. Personally, I’d love to see Israel invite an army of Mormon missionaries to work on converting the people of Gaza. That’d go a long way toward “de-Hamas-ification.”

Biden certainly did not give “great” support, nor did I say he did. However, he gave vital support in terms of arms and ammunition. Without that, Israel would have been in much bigger trouble. In practical terms, it needed American help. In the future, Israel plans to be more self-sufficient. But on October 7 it was not.

I don’t know what your “quick search” involves, but most Israelis do not support killing millions of Gazans.

The Arabs of Israel are not equivalent to a political group in the US that doesn’t like Trump. They are ethnically connected to the Palestinians and could constitute a terrorist group in Israel if Israel had done what you suggested.

And the Saudis et al gave support behind the scenes, and more importantly, stayed out of the way of what Israel was doing. The Saudis don’t care about Gazans or Iranians – in fact, they don’t like them – but in the eyes of the world they must pretend to care, and if millions of Gazans had been killed they would have had to do something to prove their pan-Arab bona fides.

Even Samson would have been hard pressed on this set up, there was much progress in these two campaigns, more than has been achieved in a generation, with remarkable resistance all around

They would have lost the support of what is really their most helpful (usually) ally, the US – and that’s just for starters.

Yeah, some really great support from America…

They would have lost the support of their own citizens except for a small minority of hardliners.

I haven’t done in depth research on that, but a quick search disagrees with your statement there…

In addition, 2 million Israelis are Arabs and that is 20% of the population, and that group would not have countenanced it.

?!? Roughly half of Americans don’t want Trump, but Trump gets sworn in tomorrow anyway…

Israel might also have lost the Saudis and that crowd, whose cooperation is valuable to them.

That would’ve hurt – if the Saudis really cared about Gazans & Iranians…and I’m not so sure they do. Making decisions based on what other people think isn’t always a good idea, IMHO.

We’ll agree to disagree.

Neo,

You weren’t kidding, great information in that video. Particularly around the nuances of some of terms of the agreement. I’m coming around to the view that this is a decent deal for Israel. They at least guarantee the release of some hostages, who may not have much time, and they will then restart the war as soon as Hamas violates the agreement.

I also think there is something to a society having that “no man left behind” ethos. Yes, it creates yet another incentive to take future hostages, and the release of so many Palestinian prisoners creates more future danger, but I can see how a culture could rationally “decide” that they as individuals will all take on some marginally higher future risk as the cost of returning today’s living and breathing and identifiable hostage.

Can they more easily track the movements of those prisoners released for some intelligence? I might send them back with pagers, or maybe spread a rumor that they have been implanted with tracking device or explosives that can detonated at any time.

On the lighter side, I chuckled towards the end of the video when he commented that they were very deliberate in the language used when they approached Trump, saying “only you can get this deal done. Only you.” Figuring that would give him just a bit more motivation to get it done.