Knowing that the Israeli govenrment has been breaking the international law for all those years, the UN, the world leaders, etc., have done nothing to deal with it. They can condemn Netanyahu all they like, but the truth is, there is no law enforcement. Absolutely toothless.

As has been well documented for many years by the UN, Amnesty International and other NGOs, Israel’s settlement policy is one of the main driving forces behind the mass human rights violations resulting from the occupation. These include:

Violations of the right to life
Violations of the rights to liberty, security of the person and equal treatment before the law
Violations of the right to access an effective remedy for acts violating fundamental rights
Violations of the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly
Violations of the rights to equality and non-discrimination
Violations of the right to adequate housing
Violations of the right to freedom of movement
Violations of the rights of the child

And the list goes on and on: [amnesty.org]

Most people do not like it when I say Israel is a classic case of the abused becoming the abuser. I realize it's a bit over simple since Jews have been in that area for over 3,000 years but damn what Netanyahu has done to the Palestinians is criminal. Just as our invasion of Iraq led to Bin Ladin taking hold in the vacuum we created by refusing a 2 party state or actually helping Palestinians the powers that be in Israel set the stage for Hamas to enter.

@silverotter11 Now Israelis have to suffer the atrocities of Hamas, the Islamic millitant Palestinian nationalist government. This horrible situation is so not the fault of ordinary Israeli or Palestinian citizens. Don't forget that there are also foreign residents in Gaza, like Brits and Americans.

Yeah, it's not as if the Palestinians have ever done anything to incur such abuse...

@racocn8 In 2006, Hamas won parliamentary elections; it was democratically elected, so its views on Israel were not a minority position then. But now, many Palestinians do not support Hamas as they have been witnessing the atrocities committed by Hamas on civilians. Hamas also violates the international humanitarian law.

Is it violating international law to use your own children to dig tunnels knowing they'll be killed in cave-ins? Is it violating international law to hang the corpse of your victim from a window or otherwise destroy the bodies of your victims? Is it wrong to engage in war crimes as the starting point for terrorizing your opponents? How about tying up children, then stabbing them before shooting and burning them. Having a policy of genocide as one's intent and policy, is that a demonstration of governing qualification? Was it only Hamas that was cheering in the streets of Gaza after 9/11? Carter endorsed the application of the word Apartheid to Israel, but how do Islamic countries operate?

@racocn8 I hear you, mate.

Credible reports now indicate that Netanyahu received warnings of an impending Hamas attack from both Egypt and the US. In the days preceding the attack, no public warning was given, nor were IDF forces repositioned from the West Bank back to Gaza. Israel has a very strong reputation for having good intelligence as to what is going on with Hamas, so not having ANY warning of the attack was not believable, even immediately afterwards.

All that strongly indicates that Netanyahu INTENTIONALLY allowed the attack to proceed without any increased defense, OR offense. Israel periodically engages Hamas giving rise to the expression: "Mowing the lawn." While this activity often starts in response to an attack by Hamas, inaction by Netanyahu in the face of warnings fits with the "Wag-the-dog" scenario wherein a country's leader allows an attack that provokes military engagement, and this military action serves to solidify political support for said leader.

Because he stopped being a pragmatic conservative politician focussed on security and became the puppet of right-wing extremists like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, who want to increase Jewish settlements in the West Bank at all costs. About 70% of the army troops near the Gaza strip had been moved to the West Bank in order to protect the aggressive settlers there, which caused a fatal security weakness near Gaza - with terrible results

@racocn8 What are the credible reports? Can you name one or two so that I can take a look at them, please?

Possibly the most catastrophic military and intelligence fail in Israel's history. Who else would be responsible? Hard for most Americans to understand I expect, where when leaders fail they blame everyone but themselves, or pretend it didn't happen ... and their followers buy it.

@Ryo1 Credible reports Israel was warned:

[cnn.com]

[bbc.com]

@racocn8 Ta!

@racocn8 Ta means thanks in British English.

@racocn8 Sounds a bit like what I think happened with 9-11 here in the US. Our intelligence communities knew something like 9-11 was going to happen, but they did nothing and let it happen, at the very least, because it served the political purposes of Cheney and the Bush admin.'s advisors, who wanted to have the excuse for a war with Iraq and an invasion of the Middle East, both for oil, and for their strategic interests. Same shit that keeps happening all the time, whether the superpower is the US, China, or Russia..

@TomMcGiverin I found this interview extremely interesting for the points of disagreement between the two speakers. The touch on the failure to communicate between the FBI and CIA, and the inaction of the administration.

@racocn8 The video is now unavailable, so I will have to take your word on it.

@TomMcGiverin You can left click to see a menu that includes copying the URL. That can then be pasted into a new window to pull it up.

Nobody ever wins war

Experience strongly suggests that such a war cannot be "won". Indeed, if anything like a positive outcome were somewhat widely perceived, Netanyahu would deserve considerable credit. I give that about 2% probability.

@Liam991 Well.... the Allies and the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany. They did win this war. And the US won the war against Japan.

why should anybody change their minds? If you hate Israel now, you'll hate it after the war too. If you support Israel now, why should you end your support ?

@Thibaud70 I am still of the opinion that nobody ever wins a war considering the large holocaust at that time. At the end I think they’re all losers. Prior to israel - hamas war. In my opinion, hamas seems to be the enemy of it own people causes he should know better that the retaliation is going to be an enormous destruction of its own people. however, I don’t see israel to be innocent either. Also, the outcome of this would affect both countries at the end. Lots of families are yet to recover from the pandemic disaster. I’d just say humanity has failed to protect itself and our mother earth . And this is due to humans selfish interest.

@Liam991 In conflict, civilians always pay the highest price.

@Ryo1 No doubts, perhaps, is it right that we result to conflict to settle our differences?

@Liam991 All conflicts are complex and implications are manifold.