More than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in the month since Hamas’ terrorist attacks inside southern Israel, the group’s health ministry in Gaza says.
But Hamas officials say the mounting death toll, believed to include thousands of children, has not caused the group to regret its actions in southern Israel, which Israeli officials said killed 1,400 people.
In fact, Hamas leaders say that their goal was to trigger this very response and that they’re still hoping for a bigger war. It’s all part of a strategy, they say, to derail talks over Israel normalizing relations with regional powers — namely, Saudi Arabia — and draw the world’s attention to the Palestinian cause.
Hamas, these officials say, is more interested in the destruction of Israel than what it sees as the temporary hardships faced by Palestinians under Israeli bombardment.
“What could change the equation was a great act, and without a doubt, it was known that the reaction to this great act would be big,” Khalil al-Hayya, a member of the group’s governing politburo, told The New York Times in an interview.
“This was our plan all along!” Lol? At this rate there won’t even be a Palestine to pay attention to…
Try and remember where things were prior to the attack. There was a legitimate movement happening where people were starting to recognize the apartheid state that Israel had set up. The conversation was materially shifting to focus on the abuses of the Israeli government. Things were happening that seemed like the whole thing could come to resolution without Hamas being involved. The terrorist attack was as much about maintaining the status quo of conflict as anything else. Hamas and Netanyahu both had their power waning as a function of the failed strategies both have been employing for decades. The attack reset the clock for both of them. It justifies Israels decades of shitty policies that have objectively compounded the situation and made it much worse, along with justifying Hamas position about this being a war for survival. Both hawk factions benefit from this, no people benefit from this.
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I never thought about it like this. I never realized that this was Hamas’ motivation. But yeah, it makes perfect sense when you look at it from this point of view.
I guess I thought that Hamas…cared(?)…more about the Palestinians, so when people would say that this is the reaction they wanted from Israel, I was confused. But yeah, okay. Thanks for that.
If it’s not a democracy, the leaders don’t have to care about what the normal people think. They will never have to risk getting voted out. All that matters is power and terror. Keeping people scared. Using violence to keep people’s heads down. Execute your enemies and allies perceived as weak. Imprison them if killing them would make them a martyr, such as Navalny.
China uses a much more refined version of this to keep people in legitimate concentration camps with forced sterilization. But they have such a grip on who gets in/out, and control so much trade, that even for people who do know of the Uyghurs can’t do anything aside from toothless statements about them. But most people don’t know. Or simply don’t care what happens in an authoritarian country half a world away.
Ideology is one hell of a drug.
They care more about the idea of destroying the state of Israel than about the liberation Palestinian people. Hamas was born out burning anger and vengeance, not a desire to rebuild. That would the PLO or PFLP.
The fact is a one state of Israel-Palestine with equal rights for all, reparations and right-of-return to displaced Palestinians, is the only real solution to end this cycle of violence once and for all.
But Hamas doesn’t want that. Neither does Bibi or the Israeli majority. Each are so filled with hatred, one side from revenge, the other from supremacy, that they can’t see a future where they live in peace with each other.
The best people who really want peace can do is support the PLO and the PFLP, imo. If they get strong enough to overtake Hamas in Gaza, that would be a very big step towards actual solutions. At least from the Palestinian side. And Israel wouldn’t have much of a leg to stand on, “self-defence” wise.
This is an excellent overview. Thank you.
When someone gives you knowledge— Listen. Thank You.
This is utter fantasy. There was/is a growing movement on the left in the west recognizing the abuses of the Israeli regime but that movement was very marginal and would probably remain so in the near future. The governments and ruling elites in the west still overwhelmingly supported Israel and were willing to turn a blind eye to the abuses, even as they have increased under the new far right government that came to power recently. Even the Arab countries that previously championed the Palestinian cause were defecting.
The trajectory of this conflict before Oct 7th was a slow legalistic ethnic cleansing in the west bank backed unquestioningly by the United States. A few more leftists might protest it in the U.S. but they are fundamentally impotent against the inertia of the current system as a majority of the people don’t know or care about Palestine. Doesn’t matter if a tweet calling Israel an apartheid state gets millions of likes if the U.S. Congress still votes 430 to 5 for aid to Israel every time it comes up.
The Palestinian cause needed something to keep it relevant and shake up the status quo that was slowly killing it. Oct 7th was probably one of the worst ways to do it, but at least more people know about how horrible the system is.
Palestine isn’t the point. Destroying Israel was the point. And the more this goes on, the more likely other countries (such as Saudi Arabia) are likely to step in and go after Israel. Which could result in the destruction of Israel.
That’s my understanding of what this article was about anyway.
As long as Israel has Uncle Sam parked off the coast there is no destruction of Israel happening anytime soon. The us could decimate every nation surrounding Israel and then some, probably with just the assets we have in the region alone. They know that so there won’t be any mass attack on Israel. Hamas planned to trigger Israel into a genocide and then have all of the terrorist groups/ Muslim nations launch an attack on Israel. They want a massive world war. But that’s just not happening with where global politics are at. The us is going to provide the protection for Israel to do essentially what they want. We are too chicken shit to pressure Israel into stopping this genocide so we are stuck.
I expect to see terrorist groups in all of the surrounding nations continue to try to trigger a global conflict by attacking Israel and US assets in the region, but its just unlikely to go anywhere.
So Hamas poked the hornets nest, gets nothing but thousands of their people dead. Israel is revealed to be the hard right genocidal dictatorship we have all known it to be. The US continues to sink millions into foreign wars. Round and round we go.
No way would SA sacrifice their sweetheart deal with the US to do this. They are dependent on the US for security. This is about proxy sectarian politics between moral enemies Saudi Arabia (Sunni, ally of the US who is Israel’s pal,) and Iran (Shia, backers of Hamas and Hezbollah.)
Not to mention, SA probably isn’t stupid enough to attack with intent to destroy (relevant because a state being under credible threat to survival is the kind of scenario usually given for that state actually using weapons of mass destruction) an almost certainly nuclear armed state, especially one that is close enough by to have no time for warnings or interception, and especially when they have no equivalent weapons of their own as deterrent.
SA has already shelved normalization plans with Israel that took years for the US to broker.
They called the white house in the last few days and said normalization was a go to continue.
The stuff they say publically to win PR points with the common folk is not what the monarchy actually thinks is the best idea.
Oh, I hadn’t heard that. Do you happen to have a link handy? If not no worries, I’m sure I can find it later when I’m off work.
It was in the littany of things coming out of the white house the last few weeks.
https://www.axios.com/2023/10/31/saudi-megadeal-normalization-israel-biden
Here’s one report. Overall seems like SA is somewhat pissed too because the Yemeni rebels it’s been bombing the shit outta started launching missiles and UAVs over their territory, and attacking Sunni hospitals in Egypt.
The state Media has been noticeably critical of Hamas, including during interviews with their spokesman.
So it sounds like while normalization is still on the agenda, it is not really possible to proceed until things change regarding the Israel/Palestine situation. But that’s more than I had last heard, where they were saying they were scuttling the whole deal.
Thanks for the in depth response! I really appreciate it.
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