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Israelis and the endgame

The New Neo Posted on by

Biden said something recently about October 7th that reflects a sentiment I’ve heard others express as well:

You can’t look at what has happened here … and not scream out for justice,” Biden continued. “Justice must be done. But I caution this: While you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11 we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”

What a muddle. “Justice” and “rage” are two very different things. But both are different than war – although war can be motivated by either or both. “Mistakes” in war don’t necessarily stem from rage, either, although I suppose that a war waged only out of rage could be particularly prone to tactical mistakes.

But our mistakes in our post-9/11 wars had little to do with rage. I think they stemmed from beginning wars without a clear plan for the endgame, and without considering how changes of administration would affect any endgame we set up along the way.

I also think that it is offensive to compare Israel’s situation to ours after 9/11. Yes, both terrorist attacks had some superficial similarities. The perpetrators were jihadis, and the intent was to kill many civilians in an effort to frighten, humble, and intimidate. People often say that the scale of 9/11 was smaller than what happened in Israel on October 7th. Biden himself compared it to fifteen 9/11s.

But there’s another huge difference, and the Israelis are quite aware of it: America is a very big country and was not existentially threatened by 9/11, but Israel is tiny and is existentially threatened by an attack of the scale and ferocity of October 7th, committed by people who not only say they want to obliterate the country but who live next door. Not only are these jihadis right there as neighbors, but they are joined, trained, and supplied by a much larger and more powerful country – Iran – intent on acquiring nuclear weapons and very possibly willing to use them to take out Israel once and for all.

It is also deeply Orwellian for the pro-Palestinian protesters to characterize Israel’s intent as “genocidal.” Not only does Israel itself have a population that is 20% Arab and not Jewish, and therefore is multi-religious and multi-racial (Israel has a sizable black population, for example), but Israel has never expressed or demonstrated a genocidal impulse towards the Palestinians and in fact could have wiped Gaza out some time ago had it wished to do so. What’s more, the word “genocide” describes what the Nazis tried to do to the Jews, and almost succeeded in accomplishing. It is a very special abomination to accuse Israel of such a plan vis a vis the Palestinians.

In that article Biden is also quoted as having said that “the Palestinian people are suffering, and that the vast majority of them are not represented by Hamas.” I don’t think anyone would dispute that they are suffering, although I would place their suffering squarely on their elected leaders, Hamas, and their own desire to wage war rather than accept the statehood which they could have had 75 years ago and have been offered several times since then.

But how does anyone know how many of them are “represented by Hamas”? One doesn’t hear of dissidents in Gaza, but that’s because anyone bold enough to speak out against Hamas would almost certainly be silenced and perhaps murdered. Biden – and others – are postulating a sort of “silent majority” of peace-loving Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere. This is a mere speculation, one for which there is no evidence at the moment.

But perhaps it’s true – I’d like it to be true. If it is true, getting rid of Hamas would probably solve the problem, in a real-life equivalent of this scene:

But I think it’s naive to believe that, once freed of Hamas, the Palestinians would not come up with something similar or worse. So even if the Israelis are successful in removing Hamas, what replaces it, and how?

Comments

Israelis and the endgame — 71 Comments

  2. I think I’ve seen talk about some kind of caretaker Israeli supervision after smashing Hamas. Not ideal, but there are no ideal solutions.

    If the world actually cares about ending this: Defund the UNWRA, both in Gaza and in the West Bank. It literally feeds and promotes the violence. There is no valid reason for the continuation of “refugee camps” for a war that was first fought before any “refugees” were born.

    While we’re at it, ending the UN would also be a plus.

  4. We started wars with the seeming full support of everyone. Three days into Iraq and the new media was talking about how we were bogged down in a quagmire.
    I realized that we can’t go to war expecting support from our left flank. They will always betray us since they now believe that we are always the bad guys.

  5. In Israel’s place, I would flatten 10 blocks of Gaza every hour until the hostages are released.
    I would then decrease it to 5 blocks per hour until Hamas leaders publicly renounce their intention to destroy Israel and pass a new Constitution that explicitly recognizes Israel as a sovereign nation.
    The extent of destruction would then be entirely under Hamas control; the responsibility is theirs.
    As a separate venture, something like a fuel-air explosive would be detonated in their 300 miles of tunnels that they hide in.
    YMMV.

  6. West TX, reckon dozens (hundred, even?) of horizontal drill strings are verging on HamasTunnels in Gaza as we write? I wouldn’t doubt it, myself.

  7. If the following two articles are at all accurate, and given their authors there is every reason to believe they are accurate, Biden’s honeyed and encouraging words are merely another massive coverup to try to assuage “Biden”‘s decision to cut Israel loose.
    That “he believes “he” must cover this up—massively—may be due to several things:
    – electoral considerations
    – the need to continue to snow-job the American Jewish community, at least the part that still want to be assured of the Democratic Party’s support of the Jewish State
    – an attempt to reassure America’s allies that America is still a reliable ally (though one ought to believe that those countries are likely smart enough to understand what’s really going on).

    In other words, the latest—massive—“Biden” coverup is really massive damage control.
    These articles aren’t new and I believe have been linked to before and are related.
    The first, by Tony Badran, describes how Israeli intellegence was blind-sided by “Biden” and was in essence “flying blind”. The second, on “Biden”‘s perfidy—which should really be “ongoing perfidy”—is by Lee Smith.

    “Eyeless in Gaza;
    “How the U.S. blinded Israeli intelligence gathering efforts on Hamas and other Palestinian groups inside Lebanon”—
    https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/america-leaves-israel-eyeless-in-gaza

    “The Biden Administration Tries to Hide What It Knew About an Impending Massacre, While Leaving U.S. Backing for Iran Untouched”—
    https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/biden-administration-tries-hide-knew-impending-massacre-leaving-iran-untouched-hamas-lee-smith

    Note that if any proof of this perfidy is required, “Biden”‘s refusal to implicate Iran in the splendidly planned attack provides it.

    Many questions remain to be answered, such as why Israel continued to trust the “Biden” administration (if, in fact, it really did), especially after its “eyes” inside Lebanon were being rolled up one by one.

    For a more sober, and rational assessment of what went wrong, Daniel Greenfield provides a cogent answer, though this was written before “Biden”‘s latest performance in Israel and may have been “overtaken by events”.
    “The Hamas ‘Inside Job’ Truthers Don’t Understand Israel or War
    “An attack that no one saw coming.”—
    https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-hamas-inside-job-truthers-dont-understand-israel-or-war/

  8. About 10 years ago I was talking with a coworker who I was friends with. Not friendly but friends. He is a bit younger, and his ideology is largely libertarian with a tickle of conservatism, and knowing that I was willing to talk, partly because I was his friend, and because I just don’t care about other peoples opinions about my opinions, while respecting that others have differing opinions, he asked me what I thought about various things. Snowden, (traitor) Assange (victimized journalist) the syrian attacks on Allepo. (propaganda) and a few others, he then asked, because he knew I was Marine at one time, and that I’m a relatively hard-line guy when it comes to foreign policy if I regretted supporting (he assumed I assumed from the beginning, which I did not) Iraq and Afghanistan with how long it’s been going on.

    I explained to him that I did support both at the start, and changed my mind later, not because I think we shouldn’t have done either, I think both were righteous originally. Then I explained my philosophy on foreign war making and the projection of US power.

    I leaned over, this was at work, and I pointed to his work table, which was a perfect square of aluminum and UHMW plastic.

    “This is a terrorist nation that attacked the US, we will call it Squarvia. Squarvia just attacked The Homeland United States, and we can’t have that. We send it a bunch of people approximately here (pointing to the center of the table) and kill everyone who tries to kill us. We set up a fire base with a short strip or a few strips, and then radiate our righteous vengeance on those who caused the attack, and defend against any new threats created by our presence, then once we are done with what we know we can accomplish, or are satisfied for the time, we draw back into our base, maintain security of the base, but otherwise let the country run itself. We do nothing. If the surroundings chose to try to attack us at firebase, then we go back out and we kill a bunch of people. It continues over and over, until they either realize there is no value to attacking The US, or we just keep killing them over and over again. It’s an ugly reality, but that is how it works.

    None of this nation building bullshit, we go in, we kill, and let them know that whenever they act up against US, we kill them again. It’s a cycle but every cycle ends.. . . when is the last time you rode a bicycle?”

    He thought it was cold, and so do I, but we are talking about killing on a large scale by both participants. I’m on the side of killing the most people who deserve killing, rather than wait our turn while they kill more of us and we have to do it all over again.

  9. West TX – there is no threat or leverage against people who crave martyrdom. You could kidnap Khamenei’s family and hold them hostage, it would not make a difference.

    The hostages will only be found alive as a result of intelligence + a carefully planned Israeli surprise mission. Not negotiation.

    That is one reason among many that Israel is moving slowly.

    Regarding the endgame: that is also why Israel is going slowly, getting the diplomatic visits out of the way – because many Israelis don’t intend to stop for anything. And the politicians know it.

  10. wicked
    It isn’t even necessary to have a base in country–see Soleimani.

    “nation building” is oversold. Any infrastructure improvement to help ourselves, not a dime of which would be spent without military necessity, can be called “nation building”.
    We didn’t get run out of Astan because the locals wouldn’t pose for a Norman Rockwell calendar.
    What we would like is a country which doesn’t export terrorism. This usually requires some kind of representative government. And nearly every country on earth has had at least a few weeks’ acquaintance with parliamentary government. It’s not hard to set up the wire diagrams–so to speak–and run cleaner elections than we do.
    Helping out the national university–they pretty much all have one and it’s probably good in STEM–with women’s studies or something isn’t even chump change and doesn’t bother anybody worth worrying about.
    On the other hand, a dictator who stays home is okay, too. Except it gives the lefties reason to support communist revolution.
    But, then, so does a representative governement.

    But you’re right. Killing those who misbehave is most economical.

  11. With regard to,”Palestinians are hurting” – from Daniel Pipe’s latest:

    Gazans led normal lives under Israeli rule…Gaza and the West Bank in the 1970s, historian Efraim Karsh recounts, “constituted the fourth fastest-growing economy in the world—ahead of such ‘wonders’ as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself.”

    So then what happened?

  12. sdferr;

    Vertical boreholes are cheaper and faster. But that requires IDF engineers to be in Gazaland.

    Directional drilling from the Israel side of the border to reach Gazamite tunnels 80 to 100 ft below land surface in unconsolidated sediment (soil) IMO is probably not possible or cost effective.

    How the IDF chooses to blow up the tunnels will be of interest. Can’t happen too soon except that the minimum number of IDF casualties is hoped for.

    Gazamite casualties and destruction of Hamasland? Too late for that concern, they lost that on 10/7/2023.

  13. All Gazamite tunnels have entrances; some likely have multiple exits. So drop explosives down the holes and gun down the murderous rats as they use their exits. It is too bad for hostages; that is an old story, and hostages usually do not survive so let them go. A live hostage is more valuable than a live Israeli soldier? I do not think so.
    Whatever the outcome, the international Leftist press will condemn Israel, as always. Plus, of course, our Democrats.

  14. Ben David-
    I totally agree with everything you said, with one exception.
    The admirable but futile effort on Israel’s part to do everything possible to save hostages over the years has made matters worse. There will not be another Entebbe. Hamas has so many booby traps set up that the hostages must be regarded as doomed. I have read that one of the masterminds of the Oct 7 attack was a terrorist who was one of the thousand who were exchanged for Gilad Shalit. No doubt many other were enthusiastic participants.

    I would not count on surprise- it appears that Israeli intelligence has been compromised extensively (not unlike our CIA and FBI).

    There are two intended outcomes to my “make the rubble bounce” plan:
    1. “Pour encourager les autres” Hamas may crave martyrdom, but not all of Israel’s hostile neighbors do. It will signify that there is a new sheriff in town, or at least the old sheriff is now playing by rules set by the enemy, not by a committee of rabbis and lawyers.
    2. It will solve the problem. Guaranteed? No, but nothing else has, and this has never been tried by Israel. The USA did it to both enemies in WWII. The only way it will not work is if Biden or his handlers decide that they really want Hamas to win. I don’t know how close Israel is to running out of ordinance; if they don’t have a huge stockpile, they really aren’t as smart as I think they are.

  15. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/cairo-summit-participants-fail-to-agree-on-statement-condemning-hamas/

    Arab diplomats say an international summit in Cairo on the Israel-Hamas war broke up without a joint statement as Arab and Western countries split on whether to condemn Hamas.

    Western delegates demanded “a clear condemnation placing responsibility for the escalation on Hamas” but Arab leaders refused, a diplomat tells AFP on condition of anonymity.

    Instead the Egyptian hosts released a statement — drafted with the approval of Arab delegates — criticizing world leaders for seeking to “manage the conflict and not end it permanently.”

    The statement says such “temporary solutions and palliatives… do not live up to even the lowest aspirations” of the Palestinian people.

  16. Tablet Mag, Samuel Tadros, “Why Egypt Leaves Palestinians in Gaza to Die”: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/why-egypt-leaves-palestinians-in-gaza-to-die

    Viewed from Washington, Hamas’ barbaric attack on Israel must have seemed a gift to the Egyptian regime. Shunned by Washington due to its dismal human rights record, and confronting a serious economic crisis, Egypt’s fortunes were running downhill fast even before federal prosecutors indicted U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez on charges of conspiring to act as a foreign agent for Egypt, putting the prospect of a continuation of the U.S. annual aid to the country in question. With Hamas’ massacre of Israeli civilians, and the certainty of a massive Israeli ground invasion to follow, it seemed like Cairo would once again become a desired partner to bring stability and peace to the region—in return for much-needed financial assistance of course.

    Instead, with many innocent Palestinian lives at stake, Egypt has strongly and consistently rejected the opportunity to play a constructive role in a major regional crisis. Not only has Egypt refused to open the Rafah crossing to allow the evacuation of Americans from Gaza, but it has insisted that under no circumstances would it allow Palestinian civilians to flee to Sinai. U.S. Secretary of State Blinken was also on the receiving end of a bizarre tirade by Egypt’s dictator, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, who insisted that Jews had never been oppressed in the Middle East. Coming in the aftermath of his humiliation in Saudi Arabia, Secretary Blinken’s ordeal at el-Sissi’s hands must have seemed a good metaphor for the Biden administration’s failure in the Middle East.

  17. What to do in Gaza? Locate tunnels and find/make a hole in each into which a hose is inserted. Put other end of each hose in the Mediterranean. Rig pumps. Run until satisfactory results are obtained.

  20. I respectfully disagree with those who advocate “making the rubble bounce”. Yes, a war of total annihilation would achieve the goal of avoiding any repetition.

    But a better way is to follow the advice of Caroline Glick, https://carolineglick.com/bidens-impossible-demand/, and “make the siege hermetic”, “block all resupply”, and force the Gazans to deliver the Hamas perpetrators and hostages without losing Israeli troops in urban combat.

    Either way, Israel is going to have to buck world opinion and forgo manipulative US “assistance”. My bet at this point is that she won’t. Her leaders are still more willing to curry world favor than risk its wrath.

  21. @ miguel – Although I vaguely remember reading about this 2011 terrorist attack on Israel, I did not expect to see this in Claire Berlinski’s Itamar post (dated March 14, 2011, three days after).

    “We went yesterday to Itamar, the West Bank settlement where Udi and Ruth Fogel, and their children–Yoav, age 11, Elad, age 4, and Hadas, their 3-month-old daughter–were murdered. A detail that wasn’t widely reported, or reported anywhere that I’ve seen, is that their newborn baby was decapitated.”

    Sheds some more light on the specious wrangling about if and how many babies were beheaded this month. There is nothing new in the Hamas playbook.

    Details here, including the possibly late addition of the beheading.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Itamar_attack

  22. I have a strong suspicion John Hayward agrees with Caroline Glick about the terrorism cycle.
    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1715348915589988800.html

    A common technique for grabbing quick infusions of legitimacy is for the terrorists to associate themselves with a larger population. If you oppose the terrorists, then you must hate the people. If you care about the people, you must go easy on the terrorists.
    Making excuses for the actions of the terrorists or memory-holing their atrocities also confers legitimacy. If they can get away with committing unspeakable acts and then return to bargaining tables as legitimate parties with valid demands, they will commit more such acts.
    Terrorists reject the very foundations of civilization by perpetrating horrendous atrocities, and then demand to be let back through the gates. If this demand is met, the terrorist has achieved a vital objective: proving his enemies aren’t really committed to their principles.
    …
    If the terrorist commits unspeakable acts – the more heinous, the better – and yet he is granted concessions and seats at bargaining tables, he has effectively forced the civilization he hates to concede it has no right to protect itself against him.
    That’s the short-term goal of terrorism, the fuel in its engine. It’s also the goal of movements that seek to destabilize civilizations with methods a bit short of suicide-bomb attacks. Destroying you is much easier once you concede that maybe you don’t deserve to live. /end

  23. Remember that Iranian agent (not Malley, another one) that Biden Inc has working for them?
    The situation is worse than any corporate (IOW both mainstream leftists and alternative-mainstream conservatives) news report I’ve seen so far.

    https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2023/10/21/biden-and-special-forces-a-series-of-unfortunate-events/

    It’s hard to know what to make of this. Many readers will be familiar with the recent social media posting by President Biden’s staff in which the faces of Delta Force members were shown, and on two men’s arm tattoos were exposed that could be service-identifying.
    …
    …it gained enough notoriety to remind many of an episode in 2011, after Osama bin Ladin was killed by special forces, in which then-Vice President Biden “outed” the Navy SEAL team that had done the job.
    …
    Let’s not make too much of this.

    Except … well, then there’s the business of geopolitical analyst Ariane Tabatabai, the one who consulted with Iranian officials on her conduct of professional affairs and was recruited to an Iran-sponsored lobbying group of “experts” back in 2014, as diplomacy was kicking into high gear for the 2015 JCPOA on Iran’s nuclear program.

    Ms. Tabatabai is now better known to most of the public for her connection with those developments, and her work in the Biden State Department with former special envoy Rob Malley, than for the job she has today.
    …
    What, by the way, is the job she’s currently in?

    Nothing much. She’s the chief of staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, commonly known as ASD SO/LIC (“ASD so-lick”). (See Lee Smith’s excellent treatment at Tablet.) ASD SO/LIC is what’s called the “resource sponsor” of the U.S. Special Operations community at DOD. It’s U.S. Special Operations Command’s resource sugar-daddy in the Pentagon.

    But it’s always been a unique hybrid entity, carrying about as much weight and awareness as a service secretary like the Secretary of the Army or Navy. It has broad oversight of manning, training, equipping, resourcing, and operational-loading of the entire special forces contingent in the U.S. armed forces. It knows names. It has SSNs. It has tables of organization. It’s aware of operations with classifications so compartmented the classification markings run longer than the mission statement.

    So it seems pretty odd to endow someone with Ms. Tabatabai’s links to the Iranian regime – the state sponsor of that experts groups she was recruited to (not to mention the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism) – with the clearance to be the chief of staff for that particular assistant-secretary position.

    There’s more, however. There’s some interesting backstory on ASD SO/LIC over the past few years, with one of the features being an abrupt break at the Trump-Biden transition.

    Dyer has all the details, of course.

    For those who need a refresher, Brennan, in his capacity as czar, authored and pushed through the 2012 memo on information-sharing between NCTC and the FBI that resulted in the potential for cross-exploiting very intrusive data collection on Americans, using both counterterrorism and national security pretexts. While he was pushing the memo through to Obama’s desk, Brennan’s former company, The Analysis Corporation (TAC), was supplying contract workers to maintain and analyze databases containing that information to both the FBI and NCTC. One company had the contract for both agencies – and it was Brennan’s. (Follow all the links at this article from May 2020. They have all the research that validates the claims made here.)

    I have always been extremely uncomfortable with that. The “insider” nature of this was evident from the outset, as Brennan had been the first chief of what became the NCTC, back in the 2004-2005 timeframe. His company obtained contracts to populate NCTC and the FBI in 2008 and 2009, and the people involved were former government employees, most of whom would be known to Brennan or his close associates.

    Chris Maier, for his part, came from a period of working counterterrorism at the NSC, under Czar Brennan, and went from there to “various positions” at NCTC.

    It’s your choice how to read that, when juxtaposed with the December 2020 data point that Trump fired Maier from his Defeat-ISIS job. In making the assessment, don’t forget to also put it in the context of Biden moving Maier right back into a job at DOD: that of ASD SO/LIC – where Trump had put Ezra Cohen, the guy apparently on the polar opposite side of the “intrusive data on Americans” issue, a few months earlier.

    NCTC is not an uninteresting corner of the “data collection on Americans” saga (“Spygate”). It’s not one that should be ignored or dismissed. Through its connections with Brennan, plus Ezra Cohen’s reported findings at NSC about that data collection, Chris Miller’s positions in 2020 with both NCTC and ASD SO/LIC, Cohen’s short time as Acting ASD SO/LIC, and then NCTC-veteran Chris Maier’s appointment in 2021 as ASD SO/LIC, resubordinated to Colin Kahl in USD(P) – through all those intertwining threads, we can establish with confidence that something has been going on here.

    Now. Now we’re ready to ponder why indisputably Iran-connected Ariane Tabatabai, of the regime-sponsored Iranian experts group, has been made chief of staff to ASD SO/LIC Chris Maier.

    It’s a choice you really have to have partisan blinders on to not acknowledge as a moral hazard. If Trump did it, the same people who are defending it (or at least carefully ignoring it) now would be manning the barricades over it.

    Tabatabai may have expertise on the regime policies of Iran’s mullahs, and background in analyzing terrorist groups associated with Iran. But, like the president she serves, she doesn’t come with expertise in special operations.

  27. @AesopFan
    I can well understand how cronies in the government agencies and the corporate ties they oversee do each other favors and grease each other’s palms. That’s simply personal benefit overriding public service, i.e. public choice economics.

    What I can’t so easily understand is how people outside of those circles so easily swallow the terrorists’ ‘love of the people’ once they see the barbaric atrocities. If these atrocities happened to relatives or friends they love, the general public wouldn’t go along. Isn’t it more that vast swathes of the general public simply don’t care about what’s happening inside their own little circle of life? And therefore the cronies run riot?

  28. A few paragraphs FROM JustTheNews short story:

    The Israeli Foreign Ministry reportedly sent a classified message to dozens of Israeli embassies across the world, warning them of Hamas’ intention to deploy chemical weapons after the Israeli military found a USB key with instructions for producing a “cyanide dispersion device” on the body of a Hamas terrorist who invaded Israel during the Oct. 7 terror attack.

    It is unclear whether Hamas, the terrorist group that governs the Gaza Strip, had attempted to produce the chemical weapons or had any serious plans to deploy them, Axios reported Saturday.

    The Israeli Foreign Ministry’s weapons of mass destruction agency sent the classified memo to dozens of Israeli embassies, including the one in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, with the headline: “Hamas intention of using chemical weapons.”

  30. It’s becoming difficult for me to see how Israel achieves security while Iran remains strong. And that is a particularly foreboding thought.

  34. Ain’t over till it’s over….
    “Israeli army releases footage of first operational use of ‘Iron Sting’ munition destroying rocket launcher;
    “The Iron Sting uses laser and GPS guidance systems, minimizes risk of collateral damage”—
    https://www.foxnews.com/world/israeli-army-releases-footage-first-operational-use-iron-sting-munition-destroying-rocket-launcher

    No doubt the usual suspects will rabidly accuse Israel of being “unfair” since this new weapon gives Israel a “disproportionate” advantage, allowing it to—so unfairly and unjustly—surgically interdict missiles and rockets and thus—HORRORS!!!—prevent Israelis from being killed, maimed, wounded and terrorized…by said missiles and rockets.

    One may well wonder, after intentionally destroying that Gaza hospital and murdering all those hundreds of people whether Israel has any values at all, any sense of morality, any ounce of decency…and now, THIS! This horrible, terrible unfair advantage.

  35. Cool technology, Barry M. If they can destroy rocket launch sites in real time, they could make real progress. I think Hamas moves them frequently. And note that Israel’s commendable efforts to minimize civilian casualties are enhanced by high-tech weapons which allow them to hit enemy launch sites and not everything in the area.

  37. @asdferr
    Worth watching.
    Summary of factors holding Israel back:
    1. How strong is US support?
    2. Any international backing versus UN Security Council condemnation / international pressure, “the sands of the clock running out” on world support?
    3. Is Israel ready operationally versus attrition by blockade to remove tunnel use?
    4. Internal politics left vs right including the nature of Netanyahu and of Palestinian goals?

    Today I spoke with a Christian missionary based in Libya who said that if Israel forced Gaza to buckle under siege, that would be perceived by the man-on-the-street Muslim as unfair collective punishment.

    Me: “Then is there no winnable solution for Israel?”

    Him: “If the IDF invaded Gaza, went house to house, and specifically went after Hamas and spared civilians, that would be considered fair.”

    If he’s right, then there’s no winnable solution for Israel that is not also extremely costly.

  38. And this missionary would further echo Neo’s point, “One doesn’t hear of dissidents in Gaza, but that’s because anyone bold enough to speak out against Hamas would almost certainly be silenced and perhaps murdered.”

    Only in his view, there would be no “perhaps” – they would be murdered. Justice in Muslim culture according to him is, “If you kill one of mine, then I will kill you AND your whole family.”

    So perhaps my hope of a successful siege was a dumb idea after all…

  40. Word comes now that the 2nd Carrier group of USS Eisenhower is not going to the eastern Med but will instead transit the Suez Canal bound for station at (near?) the Persian Gulf. This was one of the options prior to this announcement.

  41. sdferr:

    Persian Gulf? Is Iran listening? Hisbrother has declared war on Israel, or something to that effect. Read it on the interwebs.

  42. the PLA navy has been on maneuvers near the straights of Teran, just to be neighborly,

  43. Is Iran listening? Listening to what, we might ask? The squeaks of weakness blurbling from the mouth of our dodderer-in-chief most likely, eh? Deterred they ain’t, especially since it’s not mullahs doing the dying out there, but rather wholly (holy?) expendable Arabs, be they Hamasmonster Arabs or Lebmonster Arabs, Syrianmonster Arabs, Iraqimonster Arabs and whathaveyou. So, what’s the deal, we wonder? Possibly an attempt to calm afrighted Sauds, Emiratis, Omanis, Bahrainis, etc. Or maybe the DoD figures the Huthis are sure to act up again and it wants capabilities with which to pound them? I dunno. I can’t tell.

    I think I can say that the Obama-Malley-Biden gang of thugs hasn’t been reversed in US policy corridors as yet, so there isn’t going to be any quit from the Mullahs anytime soon. What’s yer view?

  45. Listening to what Israel might do.

    Listening Brandon and the rest of the junta? Absolutely not, since Iran does have sources in the DOD (moles and open assets per AesopFan’s links), and the folks you also mentioned (BHO, Blinken, etc.).

    Events and best laid plans …

  46. @sdferr
    Given the lack of US statements to ally on the side of Israel should other countries decide to attack, I’d guess that transitioning to the Persian Gulf does indeed signal
    a desire to calm the OPEC countries. But who knows? Our C-in-C and DOD seem unable to articulate clear policy so much as make ‘gestures’.

    These days the US seems to be a fair-weather ‘leader from behind’ with a finger in the wind.

    So to answer a question with a question, suppose Iran declared war on Israel and the US were to abstain. Who would get the short end of that stick? IIRC, when it comes to air power, Iran has some old F4s and not much else?

  47. “Our C-in-C and DOD seem unable to articulate clear policy so much as make ‘gestures’.”

    If we look to this thesis ( https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/realignment-iran-biden-obama-michael-doran-tony-badran ) Bill K, these “gestures” are part and parcel of the “policy”, so not so much a “clear” articulation as they amount to an intentional obfuscation intended to cloak the genuine policy in a false appearance of concern. The actual policy is as ever still on track. By the by, the Israelis aren’t the ones being fooled — they’re not so stupid, but they are over a barrel — no, it’s the Americans who’re the saps in this game. And wouldn’t we have to admit, it’s working!?

  49. @sdferr
    Reading the Tablet article, it’s pretty distressing how much deception goes on. And although as you say, the article talks about obfuscation in the US administration, it seems from the things Caroline Glick says, that the Israeli government as well as all the Arab and Iranian governments engage in considerable deception with respect to their own populations. Reminds me of that verse that Abraham Lincoln quoted, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and no city or house divided against itself will stand.”

    A race to the bottom?

  50. “…intentional obfuscation intended to cloak the genuine policy in a false appearance of concern. The actual policy is as ever still on track. By the by, the Israelis aren’t the ones being fooled…”

    Absolutely.
    It’s part of the NECESSARILY massive coverup—in EVERY REALM, not just I/P—which is a huge part of the “Biden” MO.
    One might be tempted to say “THE huge part” of the “Biden” MO, but the coverup is merely a requirement of “Biden”‘s policy of destruction—of “his” policy of across-the-board TRANSFORMATION in EVERY REALM.
    (I.e., the MASSIVE coverup —and the eager collusion of the media and infotech in this massive coverup—is an ESSENTIAL adjunct to this policy of destruction, IOW, the “intentional obfuscation” aspect of the diabolical policy, as quoted above.)

    Disagree, however, with the “Israelis aren’t the ones being fooled” part of the equation.
    They were.
    The question is, why.
    Part of this is that they believed that had to be “on-board” with the Americans WRT the plan to “wean” Hamas off of the latter’s apocalyptic path—I mean, it’s “humanitarian”, right? And utterly “sensible”…
    More sinisterly, they were likely pressured by the Americans (and other enlightened geniuses) to get on board with that oh-so-logical policy.
    And it seemed to be working…to some extent.
    True, Hamas had its Charter intact—didn’t have to change a word of it (now WHY was that allowed to happen)—but wishful thinking does have its way of lulling even the most powerful to sleep…
    Alas.
    And so Israel let down its—vaunted—guard.
    Moreover, the relentless, Orwellian and totally unprecedented anti-government protests—chilling, sinister, intimidating and erupting at times into riotous behavior—pushed by a totally irresponsible opposition and mightily encouraged by “Biden” (and the feral media) helped to subvert and weaken the government’s ability to function; nonetheless, two major problems, it seems, were the tipping point: government fecklessness and amateurishness (not confined to only this government, necessarily) combined with Bibi’s need to overly micromanage foreign policy TOGETHER WITH the idea that somehow a kind of peace agreement with Saudi Arabia would be a huge achievement for Israel as well as a golden feather in Bibi’s own cap. (But why was it SO absolutely necessary? That is, from my POV, reliance on SA is always a doubtful proposition—forget about the Iranian angle…)

    HOWEVER, the MAIN blunder was in believing that “Biden” was/is an ally of Israel (also one of Yair Lapid’s great weaknesses); believing that the grand TRANSFORMATION of “Biden”‘s M.E. policy—the grand RESET—the TILT towards Iran (far more than a mere tilt, actually) could be somehow canceled out or compensated for; could be countered by Israel’s “value” as a US ally.

    This “Grand Illusion” to anyone remembering the hostility and animosity of the Obama years, while TRULY understanding what “Biden” REALLY is and represents, was/is sheer madness.

    And yet, it’s entirely possible that diplomatically, strategically, Israeli leaders believed they had—and continue to believe that they have—no choice but to continue the ugly, perilous charade.
    Tragically (well, except for the usual minions of suspects around the world)….

    And so here we are, having to play “catch up” big time…with a huge, global, fiery DRAGON unleashed and chomping at the bit…with threats of every variety waiting to be done.

    OTOH,

  51. https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/status/1716111798384959892?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1716131278280675460%7Ctwgr%5Eccdb17b02630894f51504c1feb6d8d18f248634e%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Finstapundit.com%2F612828%2F

    I’m not a believer on this quite yet. I’d like to be though. I’m just not convinced the threat is credible. Wouldn’t such an act be the act of a wholly sovereign nation? And isn’t the question “Is Israel a wholly sovereign nation right now?” very much up in the air? At least, it is for me. Prove me wrong, Bibi, Gen. Gallant, MK Gantz. Prove yourselves.

  52. It’s called “deterrence”.
    Not that Israel is at the top of its game in that department at the moment.
    Still. It’s an attempt to, um, DISSUADE those neighbors (and their allies) who wish to destroy Israel from going whole hog. IOW, to PERSUADE them NOT TO.
    (AKA trash talk, except that in the current case, it may not be trash.)

    So will Israel’s enemies be dissuaded?
    I.e., will they be persuaded by such threats given everything that has happened so far?
    Or is this, for them, the chance of a lifetime?
    With Israel’s back supposedly on the wall? Limited resupplies? Limited resources? Physically, emotionally, economically wounded?
    With the global media breathing life and encouragement into Israel’s enemies
    With the global population itching to wreak wide-spread vengeance?
    With several other fronts to potentially open up (north, northwest, even perhaps from the south, i.e., Yemen, from the east, i.e., the sea, or from Iran itself)? What are all those missiles for, anyway?
    And—ESPECIALLY—with “Biden” pedaling furiously to attempt to conceal what everyone knows (or ought to)?
    (Which also raises the question, unfortunately, of what might happen in Egyptland…or the Kingdom of Jordan, for that matter)

    Indeed, the chance of a lifetime.
    And so, are you a betting man…

  53. A demonstration of Israeli sovereignty is as simple as ceasing with the folly of humanitarian aid into Gaza, getting on with the job there on Israel’s terms alone, don’t you think? No more permitting Biden and Blinken dictation. Put a g’damn foot down, for a change? But I don’t think this can be done, on many grounds, not least the perfidy of the American “alliance” as constituted. Still, I may be wrong. But they could show me. I dunno.

  54. That is what, in fact, might happen.
    Enough being enough, as it were…in spite of those existing threats of multiple fronts emerging—including rampant attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions in the diaspora.

    (To be sure, IRONICALLY, Israeli decimation of Hamas as a military/political force, should it happen, might well cause no little rejoicing—if sub rosa—amongst the Palestinians and other Sunni Arabs as well; including, if Iran should get sufficiently bloodied, huge swaths of Iranian citizens.)

    OTOH, “Biden”‘s hostility, vindictiveness and, especially, perverse geo-political goals run deep (and dark)…and “he” has ways of enforcing “his” diabolical schemes, if typically—cynically—couched in faux “humanitarian”, “beneficial” terms.
    (And who knows? THIS might in fact be the REAL reason for the appearance of that US carrier group in the eastern Mediterranean…)

    Of course, by some deus-ex-machina, “Biden”, given the amount of medications he’s on, may talk “himself” into being “the Saviour of Israel”…
    (Wouldn’t want to count on that, though. One is enjoined NOT to rely on miracles…)

  55. Oops, “northwest”, above, should (of course) be “northeast”…
    (Getting a bit dizzy in me’ dotage…)

  56. Ted Cruz talks about Iranian operatives in the Biden administration.

    Biden may be talking solidarity with Israel, but Iran knows it’s just bluster. At this point, I’m afraid Israel is standing alone. I don’t trust the Biden administration and Israel knows they can’t either.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3krZZVcKGow

    If Israel follows through on their ground war into Gaza, the agitation by the Muslim mobs worldwide will force governments to isolate Israel even further.

    In the waning days of the Obama administration they set the stage for the isolation of Israel.

    Peter Wehner in a RCP article from 2016: “Resolution 2334, a reversal of decades of American policy, assists the Palestinians in their diplomatic and legal war against Israel. It allows them to avoid direct negotiations with Israel and internationalizes the conflict by supporting boycotts and sanctions against Israel. And it makes a resolution between the adversaries less, not more, likely, reinforcing Palestinian intransigence.”

    A consequence of this war will be many European governments trying to impose a solution that would catastrophic to Israel’s future and the likelihood the US will not have Israel’s back.

    https://jcpa.org/article/understanding-resolution-2334-obama-administration-betray-israel-un/

  57. sdferr:

    The story about Israel warning the Persian mullaforkers was what I saw earlier today on Raptor News YouTube (interwebs).

  58. Related:
    “How the Biden administration tried to slow Israel’s invasion of Gaza”—
    https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2023-10-22/biden-israel-invasion-gaza-11795217.html
    H/T Instapundit.
    Opening standup routine:
    ‘Within days of pledging “rock solid and unwavering” support for Israel in the wake of Hamas’s vicious Oct. 7 attack that left at least 1,400 Israelis dead, President Biden began gently reminding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “democracies like Israel and the United States are stronger and more secure when we act according to the rule of law.”…’
    Love that “gently” (don’t you?)…
    Can’t really blame “Biden”, though.
    “He” HAS TO stick by “his” friends and allies through thick ‘n thin…
    (Otherwise, what might they think of “him”?)

  59. And WOW!
    Here’s a novel approach!!
    “Report: Ground incursion delayed to allow US to send additional forces to Middle East;
    “US voices concerns of Iranian attacks on its forces due to ground incursion, asks for time to send additional forces to the region.”—
    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/378999

    That “Biden”. He one pretty clever dude!….

  60. Enough of all this!
    Let’s take a break for an astonishing appreciation of radiant personalities—one venerable Dutch lady in particular—and astounding libraries down through the ages…
    (…Though it is true beyond words, alas, that books, too, can be sacrificed on the pyres of barbarism….)
    “An Extraordinary Library;
    “Remembering Mrs. Els Salomon-Prins Bendheim”—
    https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/library

  62. Related:
    “Anti-Israel sentiment has permeated Biden administration from the start”—
    https://justthenews.com/government/local/least-9-democratic-staffers-who-demanded-biden-hold-israel-accountable-are-now
    (Not that this should come as any surprise…)
    “Rather interesting” grafs:
    ‘…”Biden has appointed the most anti-Semitic, anti-Israel people to important posts we’ve ever seen,” Zionist Organization of America National President Morton Klein told Just the News.
    ‘ ZOA has identified dozens of current and former Biden administration officials with a history of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic comments.
    ‘ For example, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was on the list, in part because he opposed sanctioning Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and designating it as a foreign terrorist organization. Iran is a known funder of terror groups targeting Israel, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
    ‘ After the Oct. 7 attack against Israel, Blinken made a post calling for Israel to reach a cease-fire with Hamas. He has since deleted the post.
    ‘ “Almost every person appointed to an important post is hostile to Israel. This is anti-semitism,” Klein alleged.
    ‘ Another high-profile example of anti-Israel sentiment in the administration comes from National Security Council senior intelligence director Maher Bitar.
    ‘ As a student at Georgetown in 2006, Bitar led the Students for Justice in Palestine and hosted a student meeting about how to demonize Israel in the minds of Christians.
    ‘ The Georgetown Students for Justice in Palestine Chapter put out a statement blaming the brutal Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, as have many other chapters across the nation….’ [All emphasis mine; Barry M.]

    And we haven’t even gotten to the “embedded” Iranian cohort yet… (Gosh, how did THEY get there…?)

  63. Barry M.: The Biden administration was already the most overtly racist since Woodrow Wilson, and now, the most anti-Israel ever.

  64. All signs this morning point to a US takeover of Israeli sovereign decisionmaking. Suppose on hypothesis it is so.

    How then do Israelis hold accountable (for their very lives now at risk!) Joe Biden or his puppet-hands, whosoever those hands may be? Why, golly! They cannot.

    How strange to be absolutely (Democratically!) ruled by invisible men who answer to no people at all.

    “You and your children and grandchildren will die, while we blame you for the outcome!”, Joe’s puppet-hands will say.

    Very well, O Great King Joe. Israel bows before you. AS YOU WISH.

  65. In Trey Gowdy’s interview with Robert Greenway (see link below), one finds a lot of interesting information but also a lot of denial WRT “Biden”‘s de facto alliance with Iran. I guess it’s just too much for some to comprehend (in spite of all the cash that “Biden” has been streaming directly into Iran, directly into Lebanon—Hezbullah—and indirectly into Gaza.)
    To be sure, one can surely understand the reluctance on the part of sane, decent people to wish to understand the “Biden”-Mullah alliance….

    https://www.foxnews.com/world/blinken-says-us-ready-get-involved-israel-hamas-war-line-crossed-we-wont-hesitate

  67. Michael Rubin makes a few salient points: “Joe Biden Is Trying To Get Israel To Delay Its Invasion Of Gaza. That’s A Mistake”, h/t Powerline — https://www.19fortyfive.com/2023/10/joe-biden-is-trying-to-get-israel-to-delay-its-invasion-of-gaza-thats-a-mistake/

    The Biden administration reportedly seeks to delay Israel’s ground offensive in the Gaza Strip in order to provide more time to win the release of hostage through negotiation. This is exactly the wrong move to make, and President Biden and his Middle East team have no moral authority to make it.

  69. OK, but does Michael Rubin think that “Biden” can be shamed? That “he” cares about “moral authority”.

    That’s eminently goofy and demonstrates that Rubin, for all his experience, intelligence and analytic prowess has absolutely no idea whom he’s talking about.

    He’s not alone, so effectively has “Biden”, with all-to-wall media protection, been able to SNOW the Best and the Brightest(TM)…

    Which is precisely why, for “Biden”, the current crisis is so problematic: It threatens to reveal what “he” has so carefully been trying to hide.
    That carefully crafted curtain of lies and misinformation that’s been concealing “Biden” (and before “him” Obama) so effectively is in danger of being of torn asunder, revealing the truth about “that man behind the curtain” (as it were) to whom NOBODY must pay attention. About whom NOBODY must find out.

    To be sure, the question is, who will really care that “Biden” is who “he” is…. and if they DO care, how much power do they have to change anything.

    When they DO find out—and if they’re not still in deep denial—the liberals (including liberal Jews) may well be greatly dismayed. Some of them? Many of them? Possibly.
    But the Squad and their followers will party like there’s no tomorrow.

    Can American civilization survive? Can the West, generally?

    Stay tuned.

  70. I see no sign that Rubin supposes to be speaking to “Biden” nor to sway him. Rubin is speaking to the public writ large, and perhaps to Israeli leadership writ small, if however that latter is as unlikely as it seems (they’re going to be reading Michael Rubin in this hour of crisis? Hell no they’re not, and he would know it).

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