Aesop had a fable for this (as for so much else).

The North Wind & the Sun
The North Wind and the Sun had a quarrel about which of them was the stronger. While they were disputing with much heat and bluster, a Traveler passed along the road wrapped in a cloak.

"Let us agree," said the Sun, "that he is the stronger who can strip that Traveler of his cloak."

"Very well," growled the North Wind, and at once sent a cold, howling blast against the Traveler.

With the first gust of wind the ends of the cloak whipped about the Traveler's body. But he immediately wrapped it closely around him, and the harder the Wind blew, the tighter he held it to him. The North Wind tore angrily at the cloak, but all his efforts were in vain.

Then the Sun began to shine. At first his beams were gentle, and in the pleasant warmth after the bitter cold of the North Wind, the Traveler unfastened his cloak and let it hang loosely from his shoulders. The Sun's rays grew warmer and warmer. The man took off his cap and mopped his brow. At last he became so heated that he pulled off his cloak, and, to escape the blazing sunshine, threw himself down in the welcome shade of a tree by the roadside.

Gentleness and kind persuasion win where force and bluster fail.

From The Æsop for Children

Agreed, the sun will shine again over Gaza, which is to be expected in such a climatically favorable region. With its tragic history, the sad present, a kind and sunny future with gentle winds should also be possible there.

.... a kind and sunny future with gentle winds should also be possible there.

... but it won't happen just yet. Predictably, Israel's response to atrocities is that its government has given an ultimatum to people that have next to nothing to clear out and lose the little they have, so that thousands of their homes can be flattened with carpet bombing instead of surgically removing Hamas members. Thousands of innocent people will be made homeless, their children will grow up angry and resentful and join Hamas or Hezbollah or whatever and be told to commit more atrocities as revenge.

And the cycle continues.

---

You are right it is unthinkable that Israel would only go after Hamas, it would be far to expensive, take too long and expediency is a requirement. As such carpet bombing and tanks running over every house will be used along with contaminating the water, the destruction of basic infrastructure so disease gets any who escaped..
Religion, pride, entitlement and cost cutting will be the justification for the slaughter of over one million people. It is a war crime, genocide, the likes of which has not been seen very often on this planet. Perhaps Israel won't quite match Pol Pot's numbers, but the comparison is fair.

I hope Iran doesn't decide the moral high ground requires it to remove Israel from the planet. Such thinking it very possible, unless Benji does not do what he says he is going to.

I seem to remember something about a plague on Egypt that Pharaoh picked, I think Benji has just picked again.

What are Israeli forces supposed to do with buildings in Gaza that above the surface look like ordinary apartment blocks but have ammo storage facilities or entrance/exits to the extensive tunnel system.
Or to public buildings such as hospital and schools, where Hamas uses the parking space outside as a rocket launch pad or artillery fire point. The Israeli forces are not going to cancel counter artillery fire just because they haven't got high precision rounds available, they are going to fire normal artillery rounds asap, with a precision of ± 50 m, on a calm day at a time when barrel droop is not a problem.

Aren't they going boots on ground? Seems like they should do the same as the USA did in clearing pillboxes in the Pacific. Evacuate the civilians first. Then advance on the enemy on foot and kill them and seal them off from the tunnels to prevent reuse.

Cowards fight wars by pushing buttons.

As to precision, when you fight an enemy in a civilian area you better use high precision rounds. You better have a stockpile of them. You better be able to make them faster than you use them. You also have to know with certainty what you are aiming at. Shooting at a parking lot that was emptied of the enemy ten minutes before you get your first shot off, is at the least wasteful and at the other end a war crime when your not accurate shell takes out a maternity ward. There is no moral justification for that, just rationalization.

BTW what kind of shells is Ukraine using?

BTW what kind of shells is Ukraine using?

Whatever they can get hold of, there are reports that the L119 howitzers (105 mm) have run out of ammunition.

The real reason for not using precision rounds is, as usual, $ $ $, a standard 155 mm round cost about $2,000 an Excalibur round is well over $100,000.

edit] https://www.csis.org/analysis/rebuilding-us-inventories-six-critical-systems U.S. only making 2,400 Excalibur round per year.

As to precision, when you fight an enemy in a civilian area you better use high precision rounds. You better have a stockpile of them. You better be able to make them faster than you use them. You also have to know with certainty what you are aiming at. Shooting at a parking lot that was emptied of the enemy ten minutes before you get your first shot off, is at the least wasteful and at the other end a war crime when your not accurate shell takes out a maternity ward. There is no moral justification for that, just rationalization.

It is by international law the Commanding Officer who uses a civilian area to launch an attack who is responsible for the safety of the civilians in or close to that area.
Médecins Sans Frontières - The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law, Attacks

And all us armchair warriors have what for an ultimate solution for that area?

... And how practical/costly for any of those 'solutions'?


Meanwhile, Putin and those strange bedfellows in Iran laugh as they rile the rest of the world into an unholy frenzy...


Your solution is?

Hopefully onwards to a fair and lasting peace?
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

As to precision, when you fight an enemy in a civilian area you better use high precision rounds. You better have a stockpile of them. You better be able to make them faster than you use them. You also have to know with certainty what you are aiming at. Shooting at a parking lot that was emptied of the enemy ten minutes before you get your first shot off, is at the least wasteful and at the other end a war crime when your not accurate shell takes out a maternity ward. There is no moral justification for that, just rationalization.

It is by international law the Commanding Officer who uses a civilian area to launch an attack who is responsible for the safety of the civilians in or close to that area.
Médecins Sans Frontières - The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law, Attacks

Israel and Hamas have not signed it. I'm sure that is just a minor unintentional oversight by otherwise highly moral adversaries.

Thousands of innocent people will be made homeless, their children will grow up angry and resentful and join Hamas or Hezbollah or whatever and be told to commit more atrocities as revenge.

And the cycle continues.

I wrote about the destruction of my city by Americans in 1945, the thousands of victims and homeless, which were still insignificant compared to Hamburg or Dresden. It took total defeat to escape the cycle of violence. But totalitarian ideology was only in power for 12 years and only poisoned the minds of a minority. After defeat, a large (silent) majority knew who was to blame. Post-war hardships shaped thinking, not revenge.

The Palestine conflict has been going on for a full century now, and the guilt narrative is diametrically different for generations of Palestinians and Israelis. The blame is spread across many countries and non-governmental acteurs involved, starting with the British's escape from responsibility in 1948 (for understandable reasons), which makes a peace so difficult.

I heard an interesting argument by Ahmad Mansour [wiki (german or arabic only)], an Arab Israeli (author, islamism expert, political adviser), born in Israel in 1976 near West Bank. His ancestors didn't flee in the 1948 Independence War when all Arab neighbours invaded Israel just hours after declaring indepence. They became Arab citizens of Israel (20% of citizens). He explained: If his ancestors had decided to flee in 1948, he would be living in Gaza today, fighting Israel all his life and hating it deeply.

(Israel's army only expelled a minority of Palestinians from their territory during the war. Many left their villages instead for fear of fightings, many were forced out by invading soldiers from Arab countries. After the war, Israel rejected the return of most Palestinian refugees.

Before hearing this I thought Israeli Arabs are a different people than Palestinians. They prefer to live in Israel than in Gaza or West Bank. Of course, the large number of refugees---no... after 75 years not them, but rather the overwhelming number of their descendants, cannot return to Israel, since it would then no longer be predominantly Jewish. There is no alternative to a two-state solution.

It is by international law the Commanding Officer who uses a civilian area to launch an attack who is responsible for the safety of the civilians in or close to that area.
Médecins Sans Frontières - The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law, Attacks

Israel and Hamas have not signed it. I'm sure that is just a minor unintentional oversight by otherwise highly moral adversaries.

Well then... If both opponents renounce international law, why is there such a fuss about the Palestinians' lamentation? Why is Israel being critizised for possible violations? Then it's an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, isn't it?

No, this argument is misleading. International humanitarian law has become a customary law of peoples, so it's still binding, resp. a sovereign state ignoring it will become a pariah. For Hamas: You don't expect anything from terrorists, except atrocities and massacres. Tolerating them in a position of power is a cardinal mistake from day one.

Aren't they going boots on ground? Seems like they should do the same as the USA did in clearing pillboxes in the Pacific. Evacuate the civilians first. Then advance on the enemy on foot and kill them and seal them off from the tunnels to prevent reuse.

Cowards fight wars by pushing buttons.

Pacific Islands? Sparsely populated; forests resp. jungle? Admittedly, Japanese used shelters and tunnels. But Gaza is Stalingrad 2.0. It's not clearing boxes, but levels: the sewage system, the tunnels, basements, above or nearby: multi-storey highrise buildings... In the Pacific US fought against soldiers, against a state and its government: Japan. Terrorists like Hamas "convince" their civilians to stay near their fighters. I think, there are no handbook solutions for Hamas in Gaza. Osama bin Laden didn't hide in basements in Kabul but in distant cave systems of Tora Bora in the middle of nowhere. And still escaped.

See:


CNN News - Military buildup around Gaza ‘reminiscent of a scene from D-Day’


Note the very stark reality given by the trooper going into Gaza...

There are no winners. People die.

Is there any alternative?

Meanwhile, the self appointed leader of Gaza, whilst 'calling the shots', enjoys his luxury far far away in another world in Qatar...


The Palestinians are the "Disposables"? Or more simply, the "Expendables"?

In exactly the same way as Putin calls his 'shots'...?


All in a very deadly game of politics?...

Stay safe folks!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Know yourself for when NOT to watch...


CNN - ... everyone's mental health is 'at risk' from Israel-Hamas war...

... And from the various ongoing terrorists attacks from Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran inflicted upon the world.

... And from Russia's War upon Ukraine.

The effects ripple worldwide...


All in our overly political world,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

As such carpet bombing and tanks running over every house will be used along with contaminating the water, the destruction of basic infrastructure so disease gets any who escaped.

Diseases caused by destroyed basic infrastructure? That's bad, right? A few years ago, the EU gave 100 million Euros and built a new drinking water supply for Gaza to replace the many previous drinking water wells within dense, urban areas of Gaza City, whose water is contaminated. Large percentages of people suffer from illnesses caused by this water. Hamas had this new main water line dug up and sawn into pieces because of its high-quality steel pipes in sufficiently large diameter. They built rockets from the pipes to attack Israel. There's no sense to regret contaminated water in Gaza. Hamas has to go, ASAP. Nothing improves before.

Religion, pride, entitlement and cost cutting will be the justification for the slaughter of over one million people. It is a war crime, genocide, the likes of which has not been seen very often on this planet. Perhaps Israel won't quite match Pol Pot's numbers, but the comparison is fair.

Slaughter of over one million... war crime... genocide... quite matching Pol Pot's numbers...

Why does Israel exists? After WW2, the UN planned to establish a homeland for Jews scattered throughout Europe, Africa and Western Asia. The argument which convinced the required majority of states were the horrors and million victims of Holocaust, planned and perpetrated by Germans. Israel was founded solely to ensure one thing: Never again Jews should have to hide in closets of their homes, in attics or basements to avoid their abduction, disenfranchisement and brutal slaughter by anti-Semites. Israel fulfilled this obligation since May 14, 1948.

On Oct 7, 2023, Gina Smiatich, a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor who lived in Kibbutz Kissufim hide herself in her saferoom (air raid shelter) when Hamas terrorists dragged the old woman out, moved her to the living room, and shot her in the head. What most people in the Arab world don't realize, this Hamas attack questions Israel itself. All the talk about a Holocaust or the genocide of a million Palestinians will be met by a determined people who will fend off this existential threat, regardless of all those accusations. It seems to be a twisted view of reality, created in decades of anti-Israel propaganda and hatred of Jews in the Arab world... Israel is evil... Jews have to accept any atrocities without resistance... They are guilty of [add what fits you...], a view which is especially cultivated among most leftists in the West.

Genocide? In 1915 to 1916 the Young Turks movement in the Ottoman Empire killed around 800,000 to 1 million Armenians: women, children, men, indiscriminately. They were dispossessed, rounded up, shot or drowned, entire places were depopulated. That clearly was a genocide. Israel instead is going to overthrow Gaza's government, Hamas terrorists, remove them from Gaza, arrest or kill their fighters. Israel will rule out any further 'Aqsa flood', a further pogrom against their citizens.

Pol Pot? The Khmer Rouge transformed their society into an agrarian one locking all urban residents in death camps to determine which of these humans were allowed to continue living in their new society. Anyone who could read or speaks French (the former colonial power's language) was corrupted, "a Burgeois". Almost a third of Cambodia's inhabitants (1.5...2 million) were slaughtered in the death camps or destroyed through forced labor.

Any comparison of Israel's resistance against Hamas to genocides, particularly the Khmer Rouge's autogenocide, is not 'fair' but inadmissible and wrong. Such comparisions trivialize the actual horrors of the Holocaust, as well as the Killing Fields in Cambodia.

I hope Iran doesn't decide the moral high ground requires it to remove Israel from the planet. Such thinking it very possible, unless Benji does not do what he says he is going to.

Iran isn't capable to do this, whether alone, nor together with Hezbollah (Libanon) or Syria. They need 'the bomb' to do this, which they are working on.

Germany delivered a couple of modern U-Boats to Israel, larger models than the German Navy uses. Some were heavily modified, including vertical launch capability. Israel paid around 30...50%, German Government the rest. Israel is an undeclared nuclear power. Iran has to 'remove' all of them in the first attack. Not to mention how certain major powers respond to nuclear aggression. The US Senate recently issued a clear bipartisan statement regarding such attacks or accidents in Ukraine to Putin.

[edited for typos...]

The news and media need to be very careful to not themselves fall victim to inciting hate...

Great care is needed with the desperately deadly news that is dominating almost ALL the news at the moment...

We really do need a healthy mix of non-clickbait non-sensationalist positive news.


Regardless of what the news media presents, the greater reality is that there is a lot of good in our world.

Stay positive folks!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I hope Iran doesn't decide the moral high ground requires it to remove Israel from the planet. Such thinking it very possible, unless Benji does not do what he says he is going to.

Iran isn't capable to do this, whether alone, nor together with Hezbollah (Libanon) or Syria. They need 'the bomb' to do this, which they are working on.

Are you sure that it was Kim and not Iran that was testing in North Korea? Can you think of a reason Iran might not want to advertise it has nukes, just yet? Does it matter if Kim is willing to supply Iran (and Russia) with war materials for hard cash? And think of this, Kim has the radioactive materials, Iran has the precision manufacturing for the electronics.
The world needs to understand if Benji does what he says he is going to do, this will be a nuclear conflict. It will not be contained, so Benji must be constrained.

Perhaps you aren't understanding Benji. He says Hamas are all dead. He means this literally. Does he have a list of all their names? All of them? I doubt that. No he has to kill everyone in Gaza, he has to be sure to get every Hamas. He has sworn it. That is what he is going to attempt.

When Bush was faced with this he vowed to hold the planners responsible and degrade their ability so they were no longer a threat. He didn't vow to kill everyone.

One response is justifiable, the other is the crime against humanity.

While crooked Benji, the wannabe dictator and king of Israel (with as much more land that they can steel as possible) and his far right terrorist Zionist influenced government and their murdering land thieving terrorist settlers continue as they are things can only get worse. :-(

Get rid of all those lowlife cretins and we may eventually get some peace, but all I can see is it just escalating further and the atrocities getting worse.

The world needs to stop pandering to this terrorist government and I didn't put this thread here for the fun of it as I could already see this happening yet again with Benji and his mob of morons fueling the fire.