During last week’s air war against Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had it comparatively easy. All he had to do was keep escalating attacks, and despite mount casualties among Gaza civilians, the war remained quite popular domestically, allowing him to pat himself on the back for “standing up to” Hamas and its feckless rockets.
But escalating day after day brought a ground invasion, and while that seemed popular on paper as well, the growing casualties among Israeli soldiers, including 25 soldiers killed through today, has the public quickly souring on the idea of war.
A nation with broad conscription, the Israeli media has offered intense coverage of every slain soldier, and images of young Israelis sent to die for a war with no clear objectives nor real endgame strategy is not selling well at all.
Netanyahu has feared the political risk of ending the war too soon, after being panned by hawks for stopping the 2012 war after only a week. Yet in continuing the war for the sake of avoiding peace, Netanyahu risks an unpopular war-for-nothing and no way to easily extricate himself.
Netanyahu’s Likud Party has long seen these Gaza wars as a political winner, but careening ever deeper into a conflict for conflict’s sake runs the risk of more Israeli soldiers dying, one thing that can derail public support for the invasion.
It's always the same, every time. The only thing that can stop the bibi the criminal's genocidal campaign is when israelis get tired of burying their handful dead.
Have you noticed that Bibi's lip curls when he opens his mouth? I don't trust anyone whose lip curls up. They are usually liars (just like Cheney).
The dead Israeli soldiers are adding up at a surprising speed. Hamas seems to have learned some things from Hezbollah. From what little we are told, they are using the same tactics.
It will be interesting to see if they use anything post-Hezbollah, like the giant IED's that destroyed even M1 Abrams tanks. Now THAT would shock the Israeli public, because it would touch on a think they think invulnerable, part of their superiority complex that makes them so comfortable and self-righteous in their killing.
Probably not cool for me to wish for such a thing on a site nominally called 'anti-war,' but would it be too much to hope for just one LIttle Big Horn moment? The Warsaw Ghetto pUPrising analogies are all well and good, but the Warsaw resistance that survived was able to flee to the Polish woods and countryside. Here, there are far fewer lines of retreat for the resistance.
I don't think it's "not cool". Yeah, I'm antiwar, but the people of Gaza are fighting a war in defense against an invading force. The Zionists have been waging a war of aggression, a war of extermination, against the Palestinian people for many decades.
Israel is willing to spend endless American tax dollars, and in the case of Iraq, American lives, on it's aggressions. Their own shekels, their own lives, not so much. Peace will not be attained until Israelis are compelled to pick up their own tab for blood and treasure. At that point the world will discover that the boisterous warriors are mostly hot air. Minus free high tech weaponry the IDF is a third rate fighting force opposed by fifth rate armies.
Hezbollah in Lebanon showed them up as the imperialist paper tigers they are.
Israeli public my a**, if they cannot take it they should not dish it. A nation of vindictive criminals.
The Palestinians are a tough people. Tougher than the Zionist scum invading Gaza.
The IDF, if not for USG hardware, would be another (third) world fighting force.
What bothers me is the amount of carnage the Zionist cowards will inflict on the
people of Gaza to save face before putting a stop to this senseless conflict.
The Hamas fighters seem to have given a good account of themselves in the few clashes of troops of both sides. The Israelis prevail when they stick to artillery barrages and aerial attacks. Which leads to a heretical speculation: what if Israel prefers an enemy that sends poorly-aimed rockets into its territory to an enemy armed in parity with the IDF. In the latter case Israel would be deterred from attacking, depriving Israeli governments of the occasional bursts of popularity that assaults on a relatively-defenseless Gaza provide.
"Benevolent and compassionate" Israel dropped leaflets to warn the Palestinian civilians to get away, to go from one spot of hell and into another.
The brave Palestinian freedom fighters should adopt the same "humanitarian" strategy. Leave a note of regret written in Hebrew on the dead bodies of the Israeli men and women who were conscripted into the army. Say how sorry they feel for these young men who died and to remind Israelis that Zionism is an evil perversion that has betrayed Judaism. Arabs and Jews coexisted before the Zionists came into the Middle East. Israel can live side by side with the Palestinian people in peace if they reject the Zionists in power.
In August of 1961, President Ronald Reagan said in a famous speech in West Berlin, Germany, "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
Israel must tear down not only the concrete walls that surround the Palestinians but the "political walls" as well.
King Bibi, as he is called there could be like Custer lured into a trap that unites The Arabs. The crazies in Israel are now screaming Death to all Arabs and Leftists.
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2014/07/22
With Netanyahu’s supporters now screaming "Death to all Arabs and Leftists!" his fear of a free Palestine and with Gaza having been declared an enemy of Israel he just may be inadvertently pushing for the Arabs to unite. We’ll see Love and Peace someday!
Brave palestinians. So brave in face of such an horror.
The nazis must be laughing in their grave, looking at what Israel has become.
Only about 25 IDF deaths? The boys in Hamas are slacking- maybe they need some Hezbollah vets to give them some pointers.
I don't want anyone to be killed- I want it to stop, now- but if Israel is willing to go to war, guess what? You have to willing to face the reality of the dead soldiers who come back home.