And there is stupidity in Israel, too:

quote:

Israel’s Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu was suspended indefinitely after he said in an interview that dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip was “one of the possibilities,” the government announced on Sunday.

“Eliyahu’s statements are not based in reality,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on X.

https://www.politico.eu/articl...-war/#:~:text=Israel's%20Heritage%20Minister%20Amichai%20Eliyahu,the%20government%20announced%20on%20Sunday.

Aside from the obvious inhumanity of a disproportionate response that would eradicate civilians, which way does he think the wind blows?

quote:

What are your thoughts?

I am keeping up with this thread and may occasionally offer a link to an article that I think has value and that could contribute to the general pool of information. Otherwise, I won't be an active participant. Over the years, I've found it frustrating to try to participate in online discussions on complex and difficult topics such as this one. Somehow I never managed to develop the skill set and patience required. The asynchronous and delayed nature of the interactions is a large part of it. Add to that my lack of knowledge about this particular topic....best to stick to my strengths like pics of my garden or of my eternal basement cleaning project.

That said, I watched Fareed this morning and thought his "Fareed's Take" raised some good points. It's a WaPo link, and I was able to get to it without a subscription. I must be within my allowable limit of freebies. If someone has a WaPo subscription and wants to post a gift link, that would be great.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...ar-response-history/

Gift link for the article WT mentions: https://wapo.st/49ke0wu

I'll read it as well, I hadn't seen it.

is my reaction to the entire situation, not any particular post.

Our second invasion of Iraq created the same said bad guys who were the reason we invaded in the first place?

Ok, then.

Invading Iraq was sheer stupidity. The same situation isn't at play currently with Hamas-ISR, in my opinion. Not that people aren't responding in less than ideal ways. They're just not comparable.

https://youtube.com/shorts/XBy...?si=tUep6VH1ND51vQA0

Egypt and Jordan.

Hamas firing on civilians to prevent them from leaving:

https://x.com/mishtal/status/1...J4cXGfNA0BDLG5sZWeIg

This is a detailed explanation of the Geneva Code's proportionality constraint, if anyone is interested.

Proportionality

The Israeli Defense Forces tried to provide fuel to Shifa Hospital. The CEO of the Hamas Health Ministry wouldn't permit it.

There's audio.

https://x.com/IDF/status/1723753240162865350?s=20

Of course not. That might take some pressure off, and the international umbrage machine would have to find something else.

If they can, I would like to see Israel occupy that hospital and the other one that is nearby. That would allow the IDF to

1. Bring the press in to examine the tunnel network (when safe to do so).

2. Resupply the hospital and allow its staff, perhaps augmented by outside professionals (MSF, perhaps, if they would go), to go back to practicing medicine.

That would be a smart move.

Which is why it won't happen, I'm sure ...

Reported on Twitter by someone who is a reporter for the NYT and a political analyst for MSNBC:

quote:

A Gaza health ministry spokesman said that head of Al-Shifa Hospital refused to accept fuel because “taking this fuel would give Israel credit for allowing fuel into Gaza.”

Also, members of the government in Great Britain and Germany both said Israel is jusrified.

Great Britain: if they killed our people, it would be completely unacceptable to say we couldn’t go after them.

Germany: a long pause would mean that Hamas would have the ability to re-stock with more rockets.