Gaza Crisis: Ceasefire Finally

[Light Cleric]

Well that lasted, what, 5 hours?

 

[DinoDoc]

What the cease fires, you mean? In some senses, yes.

Then how does that benefit any party other than the loosing aggressor in a military conflict. For the sake of Upper Gazan residents, what's the problem with attacking Lower Gaza in the type of operations described here? None of the people in those tunnels are civilians.

 

[DinoDoc]

Well that lasted, what, 5 hours?

90 minutes.

 

[Gary Childress]

Then how does that benefit any party other than the loosing aggressor in a military conflict. For the sake of Upper Gazan residents, what's the problem with attacking Lower Gaza in the type of operations described here? None of the people in those tunnels are civilians.

The person in the tunnel (if such was the case) would have been a belligerent. A cease fire usually means BOTH sides (both belligerents) will stop shooting at each other. The ceasefire is for the civilians and wounded. If an "aggressor" is "losing" then they may lose anyway. The only reason ceasefires are usually agreed to is because both sides want to help the innocent among them. Otherwise they would just keep shooting at each other in most circumstances.

Are you against cease fires or something? I don't understand what the fascination is with maintaining ONLY that a ceasefire will help a fight. Fighting helps fights. Ceasefires probably often can give people on both sides a chance to take a breath and realize they are just as human as everyone else they are shooting at. don't you think? Or are you hell bent that Israel needs to just blow Gaza off the map and be done with it?

 

[EgonSpengler]

Well that lasted, what, 5 hours?

I remember walking up to an Israeli friend, feeling cheery about the recently-announced ceasefire. She shrugged, seemingly indifferent, and I didn't understand why. That was in 1993.

 

[kochman]

They probably hadn't gotten word!

 

[Gary Childress]

I remember walking up to an Israeli friend, feeling cheery about the recently-announced ceasefire. She shrugged, seemingly indifferent, and I didn't understand why. That was in 1993.

Well, try, maybe to think of it this way. Had there NOT been a ceasefire in 1993, the war might still be going on just the same. So at least no "harm" was done probably (hopefully). Or maybe the ceasefire cooled things down for a moment so one or two decent people could escape or get out of the way. Or perhaps Israel would have exterminated all the Palestinians by now?

I don't claim to understand why the Israeli "friend" you knew "shrugged". I know nothing about the person. She may have shrugged then because she thought a ceasefire would not be good for Israel to win the war. She might have shrugged because she thought a ceasefire wouldn't help people understand that the belligerents need to solve their differences peacefully before everyone around them get's killed. She may have shrugged because she didn't feel comfortable telling you what was "really" on her mind back then.

Do you know the answer now? If she's your wife or something, maybe she has since given you what she thinks deep down inside her brain? People often put on "masks", sometimes because they think others around them will not accept what they really think. And sometimes they put on "masks" because they get some piece of info from a source and think they have the "appropriate" mask on.

What people "really" are behind their "masks", if I know myself well enough, are a combination of very complex inter-tangled webs of meaning and language created through sensory experience which is partially created by events going on around them, events that happened 66 years ago (such as a world war, for example) or events that happened a thousand years ago (such as a book from a philosopher, for example) AND also mediated and affected by "instincts".

 

[EgonSpengler]

They probably hadn't gotten word!

Yeah, that's possible. One of the ongoing concerns with Hamas is just how "in charge" its leadership is, and command & control has been an issue for professional militaries since we discovered rocks and fire. There was a big battle in the War of 1812 that took place after the peace treaty had been signed, sealed, and delivered. I'm sure there are others.

 

[Gary Childress]

Yeah, that's possible. One of the ongoing concerns with Hamas is just how "in charge" its leadership is, and command & control has been an issue for professional militaries since we discovered rocks and fire. There was a big battle in the War of 1812 that took place after the peace treaty had been signed, sealed, and delivered. I'm sure there are others.

If I'm not mistaken Andrew Jackson's wonderful victory was after the official end of hostilities I believe. But you are most certainly "spot on" right about the command and control thing.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Well, try, maybe to think of it this way. Had there NOT been a ceasefire in 1993, the war might still be going on just the same. So at least no "harm" was done probably (hopefully). Or maybe the ceasefire cooled things down for a moment so one or two decent people could escape or get out of the way. Or perhaps Israel would have exterminated all the Palestinians by now?

I don't claim to understand why the Israeli "friend" you knew "shrugged". I know nothing about the person. She may have shrugged then because she thought a ceasefire would not be good for Israel to win the war. She might have shrugged because she thought a ceasefire wouldn't help people understand that the belligerents need to solve their differences peacefully before everyone around them get's killed. She may have shrugged because she didn't feel comfortable telling you what was "really" on her mind back then.

Do you know the answer now? If she's your wife or something, maybe she has since given you what she thinks deep down inside her brain? People often put on "masks", sometimes because they think others around them will not accept what they really think. And sometimes they put on "masks" because they get some piece of info from a source and think they have the "appropriate" mask on.

What people "really" are behind their "masks", if I know myself well enough, are a combination of very complex inter-tangled webs of meaning and language created through sensory experience which is partially created by events going on around them, events that happened 66 years ago (such as a world war, for example) or events that happened a thousand years ago (such as a book from a philosopher, for example) AND also mediated and affected by "instincts".

No, I haven't seen her for years, and I wouldn't be able to more than guess. What I was getting at, though, is the fact that a "ceasefire" in the Israel-Palestine conflict is more or less meaningless, and I think she knew that before I did. When I read this morning that this one had already fallen apart, I thought "it must be a day that ends with a Y."

 

[Gary Childress]

No, I haven't seen her for years, and I wouldn't be able to more than guess. What I was getting at, though, is the fact that a "ceasefire" in the Israel-Palestine conflict is more or less meaningless, and I think she knew that before I did. When I read this morning that this one had already fallen apart, I thought "it must be a day that ends with a Y."

Sorry to hear of your "pessimism". But I don't consider myself an "optimist", more like a "realist" or maybe a "here and nowist".

 

[EgonSpengler]

Sorry to hear of your "pessimism". But I don't consider myself an "optimist", more like a "realist" or maybe a "here and nowist".

I consider myself a realist too. Were you surprised that this ceasefire didn't take? Or that this iteration of the conflict occurred? I don't know if I can be called a pessimist when an Israeli general refers to fighting in Gaza as "mowing the lawn."

 

[Gary Childress]

I consider myself a realist too. Were you surprised that this ceasefire didn't take? Or that this iteration of the conflict occurred? I don't know if I can be called a pessimist when an Israeli general refers to fighting in Gaza as "mowing the lawn."

I was not "surprised" when it broke. I knew that it might. I was saddened at how quickly it did but when you fail once you have no choice but to try again (if it is a "good" cause you are working toward). I don't think blowing Gaza off the earth or "mowing the lawn"-in a desert no less-- is a good cause.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I was not "surprised" when it broke. I knew that it might. I was saddened at how quickly it did but when you fail once you have no choice but to try again (if it is a "good" cause you are working toward). I don't think blowing Gaza off the earth or "mowing the lawn"-in a desert no less-- is a good cause.

Yeah, I'm a bit alarmed by hearing that there's a discussion going on in Israel about whether the IDF should see this through and settle the matter, once and for all. As if that would even be possible. The wrong lesson to take from the "mowing the grass" analogy would be to burn the lawn down to its roots and pave it over.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

There is basically no communications infrastructure in Gaza at this point, not that there is any 'command and control' as there would be if Israel's 'opponent' were an actual military. Chances of Palestinians even knowing there was a ceasefire certainly aren't uniformly high. Given that, the Israeli terms of 'ceasefire yes but we are going to hang around blowing things up' has had the easily predictable result.

It's instructive that they refer to their soldiers as 'murdered' and 'kidnapped' rather than 'killed' and 'captured'. They are fully aware that the Palestinians have no military, including Hamas. Since there is no military, there are no military objectives to be achieved, and this is nothing but a military tasked with slaughtering civilians.

Since there has never been any military objective to achieve and declare victory, I doubt there is some magic number where they will suddenly say 'okay we have killed enough'. This is going to go on until someone with a big enough stick tells them they have to stop.

 

[Gary Childress]

@ EgonSpengler:

In fact, commenting further on me "not being surprised" I found out about the break in the cease fire by Googling "latest news Gaza" because I knew very well that it could be flaring up again by now. I had few illusions about it. Unfortunate, and someone needs to keep trying, (including both belligerents).

 

[ori]

There is basically no communications infrastructure in Gaza at this point, not that there is any 'command and control' as there would be if Israel's 'opponent' were an actual military. Chances of Palestinians even knowing there was a ceasefire certainly aren't uniformly high. Given that, the Israeli terms of 'ceasefire yes but we are going to hang around blowing things up' has had the easily predictable result.

It's instructive that they refer to their soldiers as 'murdered' and 'kidnapped' rather than 'killed' and 'captured'. They are fully aware that the Palestinians have no military, including Hamas. Since there is no military, there are no military objectives to be achieved, and this is nothing but a military tasked with slaughtering civilians.

Since there has never been any military objective to achieve and declare victory, I doubt there is some magic number where they will suddenly say 'okay we have killed enough'. This is going to go on until someone with a big enough stick tells them they have to stop.

From there being no formal military on the opponent's side to there are no military objectives to achieve is a leap that is not easy to defend frankly. Of course there are military objectives to achieve even when dealing with guerilla-like adversaries. Disrupting their supplies, routes (in this case tunnels), reducing their capability of launching medium range rocket attacks, depleting their weapon stores, capturing/killing their commanders, disrupting their command structure, reducing the number of active personnel they have are all quite real military objectives, some of which are relatively straight forward, others merely theoretical. Demonizing one side by claiming they are just tasked with decimating the civilian population is easy but utterly wrong.

Now of course Israel is achieving lots of their military objectives - though pretty much all of them short-term - how could they not, and frankly what we see is precisely not a campaign to just kill scores of civilians - that would have taken far less Israeli casualties to achieve - but a military campaign that has specific military targets and only marginally cares about reducing civilian casualties while going about their military objectives. This is mostly I think coming from them knowing full well that they have a rather limited time to achieve their objectives and that the exact number of civilian casualties actually doesn't matter much with regards to when they are forced to stop and that they have decided to not care all that much about civilian casualties putting the blame squarely on Hamas who are embedded within the civilian population. This while wrong is still different from claiming they are going about genocidal objectives.

 

[kochman]

frankly what we see is precisely not a campaign to just kill scores of civilians - that would have taken far less Israeli casualties to achieve

Absolutely.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

How far less? There's been what? 50? To be really significantly less than that they would have to be procreating while they're on duty.

As to these 'military objectives', please pick any one you named and tell me how achieving it has any impact on the present or future security of the state of Israel. I don't feel like going through one by one and showing that if achieved it will make no difference whatsoever, but you pick the 'best' one you think you can support.

Hint: all those glowing buzzwords would be really easy to support if there was actually an enemy force involved, but since there isn't anything but a radical political party supported by a civilian population that has very little in the way of weapons, infrastructure, or even basics like food the only way they could present any less of a threat is if they were all dead. If the Israeli 'military objective' is kill all of them then they should stand up and say so.

 

[kochman]

It would be zero if it was just to kill civilians, they have airplanes and bombs, and the civilians in the drop zone are crammed in tighter than sardines.