Give Hamas a state???

[NewsGuy]

As the Palestinian Islamic army of Hamas continues to rocket Israeli population centers, Israel's government has agreed to yet another truce with the Muslim terrorist group.

The current truce, of course, is not expected to last, if it will take effect at all. Just like all the other truces and understandings with Hamas, this one too, is simply intended to give Hamas a chance to smuggle in more Iranian long-range missiles and terror-training personnel.

At the same time, the IDF has evacuated troops from a major Southern army base out of fear of a Hamas attack. IDF generals seem to agree that Israel does not have a military solution to stop the rocket attacks completely. In other words, the Israeli Defense Forces admits that it cannot accomplish its mission of defending Israeli citizens. Not in Gaza, and not in Northern Israel for that matter.

As much as supporters of Israel do not want to hear that the IDF is largely powerless, that's the fact. The Israeli army, long a source of pride and expression of Jewish power, is actually incompetent and powerless when faced with guerrilla warfare by those who do not "play by the rules."

Some of us may presume that Israel's corrupt government is at fault for the IDF's failures, and that if not bound by Europe's Leftist rules of fair play, surely the IDF could prevail. Unfortunately, that is not true.

The IDF itself reflects the problems of Israeli society, like incompetence, laziness, fearfulness, and most of all -- a lack of Zionist values. Without believing in a cause, the IDF is nearly worthless. That's why Islamists around the world continually beat armies with far greater resources: The Islamists believe in their terrorist cause, while Western soldiers want to get home to watch their DVDs.

So, if we understand that Israel is basically unable to win a war against Hamas, there is no choice but to give them an independent state, with control over their own borders, taking into account that it will be yet another Iranian outpost, and that it's just a matter of time before it will stock Iranian nuclear weapons which can reach Tel Aviv and every other point in Israel. Scary? Sure, but this is actually no different than the current situation in Lebanon.

Some time ago, Israel has decided that it will tolerate potentially nuclear enemies on its borders. And even without nuclear weapons, the Muslim terrorists have proven that they can burn down chunks of Israel with simple Katyushas.

Next month, the UN security council will pass a resolution against Israel's blockade of Gaza, and from there, things won't go well for Israel. There might be sanctions, and other repercussions.

So, that's why I say, either revamp the IDF so it can destroy Hamas, or accept that Gaza will become an independent state.

[Achihud]

The IDF itself reflects the problems of Israeli society, like incompetence, laziness, fearfulness, and most of all -- a lack of Zionist values. Without believing in a cause, the IDF is nearly worthless.

I think after three years of serving in the IDF the physical and mental exhaustion is complete. It's simply too much, no?
I watched a program where the youth on mass flies to India where they release all the pressure in an almost self-destructive way. They party and take drugs until they literally drop down, the same ritual follows on the next day and the day after. Some don't want to return at all but most of them I feel, are more pragmatic about the situation. There are some social and spiritual workers active but not every kid can be reached, certainly not on a personal level. I think there should be people working there who have experience in the psychological effect of all sorts of drugs who could give advice on how to use drugs in a most rewarding way so that the youth can learn to appreciate them but also understand that drugs are relative as is everything else. You can use drugs to gain insight in yourself, in life itself, start thinking positive again about yourself, build up a stronger personality and be well-balanced!

It's not just about getting high and **** up your brain...

[Yala]

I support writing off Gaza as an independent state. There is no other choice really. The world will not support another occupation, even if it is only a military one. The status quo with Israel controlling their borders and supporting them with food and oil is stupid. Why did they "disengage" if they would still have to engage them?

Close the borders permanently, don't let any of them work in Israel. Let Shimon Peres go to h*** with his ideas about making a Palestinian economy while all they do is attack Israel. Are any Arab countries, who don't have oil, a success story? I wish I had some of what Peres is smoking.

They need to be cut off and then hopefully one day Jordan will take over most of the WB. That's the best scenario we can hope for really these days.

[dayag]

I support writing off Gaza as an independent state. There is no other choice really. The world will not support another occupation, even if it is only a military one. The status quo with Israel controlling their borders and supporting them with food and oil is stupid. Why did they "disengage" if they would still have to engage them?

Close the borders permanently, don't let any of them work in Israel. Let Shimon Peres go to h*** with his ideas about making a Palestinian economy while all they do is attack Israel. Are any Arab countries, who don't have oil, a success story? I wish I had some of what Peres is smoking.

They need to be cut off and then hopefully one day Jordan will take over most of the WB. That's the best scenario we can hope for really these days.

That is a vote for more Qassams. Today they are reaching S'derot and Ashkelon. Tomorrow they will be striking Tel Aviv and Be'er Sheva.
We have no choice but to reoccupy Gaza.

[redcake]

I can see Newsguy's logic. The larger picture is Israel has to address reality rather then media politics. This means Israel has no choice but to both accept a Hamas state in Gaza which is merely just reaffirming a commitment to handing the land over and all which that entails because it's too late to rethink that one, AND revamp the IDF.

Israel has thrived when they used innovative problem solving. Why have a traditional army in this day and age? Israel should continue the mandatory service, since it's become a cultural way of life and it can't dissolve it's reserve pool....but they need to reinvent the concept of a defense force through special ops teams. They need to go into a full scale war while concurrently revolutionizing how nations defend their borders, and battle.

Achihud - There's some burnout from working border guard duty and all that, but the ritual of Israelis going on travel has nothing to do with the IDF and more to do with the countries notion of status, and culture. It's not much different then kids from the States going backpacking in Europe after college. It's just a beachbum lifestyle thing and many of the Israelis taking up in Napal never saw any action on the front lines in the IDF at all. Now, living in Israel under such a hotbed political climate probably contributes to their need to party like a bunch of Japanese business men...but still.

[Yala]

That is a vote for more Qassams. Today they are reaching S'derot and Ashkelon. Tomorrow they will be striking Tel Aviv and Be'er Sheva.

They already have rockets which can reach Tel Aviv, and so does Hezbollah. They are just not going to use them. Yet.

We have no choice but to reoccupy Gaza.

It's not a possible action. As you know, Israel does not take a step without getting permission from the international community, and this is not something they would support...even knowing that Palestine will be a terrorist state.

Redcake is right that they need to focus more on special ops. The US and Israel are stupid to fight these terrorists with a regular army.

[dayag]

They already have rockets which can reach Tel Aviv, and so does Hezbollah. They are just not going to use them. Yet.

It's not a possible action. As you know, Israel does not take a step without getting permission from the international community, and this is not something they would support...even knowing that Palestine will be a terrorist state.

Redcake is right that they need to focus more on special ops. The US and Israel are stupid to fight these terrorists with a regular army.

Permission from the international community or the US? The international community is overwhelmingly against us. A lot will depend upon who wins the upcoming presidential race in the US.

I'd say do it now while we still have George W. to use his veto in the UN to keep the international community at bay while we clean Hamas' clock, but sadly we are still led by Olmert. Hopefully that will not last much longer.

[redcake]

Redcake is right that they need to focus more on special ops. The US and Israel are stupid to fight these terrorists with a regular army.

The cable news footage of Israel's troops lined up waiting to enter Lebanon was absolutely ludicrous. I kept hoping it was part of an IDF strategy, but nope. They were just stuck there waiting for Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army to give them their cue!

[Yala]

The cable news footage of Israel's troops lined up waiting to enter Lebanon was absolutely ludicrous. I kept hoping it was part of an IDF strategy, but nope. They were just stuck there waiting for Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army to give them their cue!

Yup and 12 of them were killed at once by a rocket waiting in that line-up.

I mean the strategy of that war was ridiculous to the extreme and this is coming from someone who knows next to nothing about wars...Bombing Christian areas??? Waiting a few days for the terrorists to leave South Lebanon and then sending the soldiers in, with, as you said, all the news cameras around? Then sending in soldiers to die after a cease-fire was signed...I simply cannot believe the chutzpah of Olmert to stay around.

[Yala]

Permission from the international community or the US? The international community is overwhelmingly against us. A lot will depend upon who wins the upcoming presidential race in the US.

I'd say do it now while we still have George W. to use his veto in the UN to keep the international community at bay while we clean Hamas' clock, but sadly we are still led by Olmert. Hopefully that will not last much longer.

There will be 0 support for this action. You saw what happened when Israel tried to re-occupy South Lebanon for a month. You see what is happening with our "occupation" of Iraq.

"Occupation" is not an answer and doesn't work. These are all old, sorry, tried methods. New methods need to be developed.

[dayag]

There will be 0 support for this action. You saw what happened when Israel tried to re-occupy South Lebanon for a month. You see what is happening with our "occupation" of Iraq.

"Occupation" is not an answer and doesn't work. These are all old, sorry, tried methods. New methods need to be developed.

I disagree with you. I think George W. & McCain both would understand the necessity for such an action and would give us the backing we need in the Security Council to prevent the U.N. from interfering.

I think things were better when we occupied Gaza. After all there weren't thousands of qassams landing on our cities.
Do you think the current situation is an improvement?

[redcake]

Yeah but the fact that both of you have adopted the term "occupation" in relation to Gaza does a lot to determine how sensible it is for Israel to retain the strip. I don't think anyone expected the situation to improve, nor do I think anyone with half a brain still expects peace at the formal creation of a Palestinian state.

[Mediocrates]

What pray tell, is a 'state'? It appears that Gaza is more or less already a state. All that remains is to essentially recognize it as such and come to some enforceable agreement about supplies and services delivered to it, by Israel vis a vis payment. If the UN/EU is willing to pick up the tab, or, as part of its Mediterranean Neighborhood program with Israel co-shoulder the bill then that, as they say, is that. It doesn't really seem that anyone anywhere will take useful or meaningful steps to stop rocket attacks, to say nothing of 're occupying Gaza' which hasn't worked to that end before. In terms of carrots and sticks, say one rocket = 1 week closed border and make that a known term of the deal.

In the past year, the psychological disruption to Israel from rockets is far greater than material or human losses. About what?, 11 Israelis have been killed in the last year and a half? And at that the Palestinians lose from 5-10x each time. If that doesn't dissuade them nothing will. This is precisely what I called out 3 years ago when I said that what remains for Israel is establish for themselves is a new watermark for acceptable levels of violence and atrocities they're willing to tolerate as a steady state condition. And in a way the dark cynic in me welcomes a world which is willing to accept civil, sectarian, violence on their soils as a legitimate means to an end. One can only wish the minorities in France and Germany, Malaysia, Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil, Iran and Russia all watch and learn and listen and discover that if you have a flag and some rockets and a credo that makes even a little bit of sense you can pull a freedom movement fully formed down off the shelf and use it against 'The Man'. The old Soviet style Marxists and communists have been telling us this for 60 years and wouldn't it be arch to see it used against them?

So I wonder what this thing, a state is? It's obvious that the mundane widgets of bureaucracy are needed, but it's unclear who has to do them. UNRWA is the defacto domestic institution for social welfare and education in Gaza. Hamas is the political, military and religious authority. They already have elections which are no better or worse or more or less a violent sham than most of the rest of the world. So they need what? People to pave the roads, a post office, a way to establish credit and banking, a way to negotiate international trade agreements and treaties, someone to pick up the trash, keep the lights and water service on. And not much else. No one said Gaza has to be a well running state. No one said it has to be a little Singapore or Belgium. No one said it has to be prosperous and all the people are middle class metropolitans who go to the Gaza opera.

Gaza is about 2x the size of Washington DC, has about 1.5 million people or a little less than 3x the population of DC proper. So Gaza is basically a city state. Given that, it has to operate like a city state. Their future is not going to be in goat farming and olives. It's going to be in urban endevors like banking and trade, IT, leisure and gambling and such. That's just reality. Have them make of it what they will. A good state, a crappy state. Makes no which never mind either way.

[redcake]

Hard to disagree with that, but we know they have no intentions of just making do, to make of it what they will. Not only that, the expectation are for the creation of a prosperous country, which only goes to show how irrational the pro-Palestinian goals are.

It reminds me of the city planning discussion centering around the WTC. Forget just rebuilding a couple office buildings, and a mall, they're talking about solving community issues that predate 9/11 itself. If people were realistic, and honest about what they wanted out of Gaza and it was merely statehood, then there wouldn't be much discussion needed at that point.

[Yala]

But the fact remains that it needs to be declared an independent state and a state dependent on Egypt and their crossings, not Israel. Yes, they will import arms from Egypt, but they are doing that anyway through tunnels. If an independent Gaza becomes a failed state, and there are no doubts about it, let the blame fall on Egypt. Israel cannot continue controlling Gaza's borders, airspace, etc. They just cannot. Nor will any US president support a military "occupation."

Yes, there will be terrorism coming from Gaza, but what's the difference if Israel is controlling their Israel-Gaza border or not? In my eyes, they are just taking more responsibility, getting world-wide flack for it, and of course, getting nothing in return. They also need to distribute their own currency, or Egyptian currency and stop using the shekel.

They claimed they were going to "disengage" from Gaza, so enough of the BS already. If they are going to keep the borders open with Gaza, there was no reason to ethnically cleanse the Jews who were living there.