Sooo… Israel just gathered 300k troops to invade Gaza
Gaza has 2 million inhabitants, 42.3% of which are 14 and younger. Anyone else a little bit worried?
One of the most chilling things you realize as you grow up and attain even a degree of political and historical awareness, is that genocide is not just something that happens in the past. It doesn't happen because an evil army materializes and does bad things until the good guys save the day. It's something carried out, in the open, with the support or at the very least indifference of people around you. It'll happen on TV, in social media posts, for everyone to see. They will observe it and their reactions will range from apathy to cruel elation. Then they'll turn off their TVs or put away their phones and go shopping.
Maybe the Palestinians will be able to resist enough to deal a massive blow. I know they will fight. I hope for the best. But for now,
Fuck Israel. Fuck Zionists. Fuck America. Fuck the West.
genocide is not just something that happens in the past
It happened like last week too. The entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh fled the region out of fear of massacres.
wtf how did I miss this. literally Artsakh surrendered and everyone left and not a peep on the news
I'm in the US. Haven't seen any media about it until today, everything is Ukraine (and now Palestine)
Nothing about Kosovo either then? There have been attacks from an allegedly Serbia-sponsored militia on a police outpost beyond the border, and now a substantial number of Serbian troops are being stationed around the border. That was just after Azerbaijan made their move and nobody intervened internationally. People are on edge thinking everybody would now start trying to snatch up some "lost territories".
One of the most chilling things you realize as you grow up and attain even a degree of political and historical awareness, is that genocide is not just something that happens in the past. It doesn't happen because an evil army materializes and does bad things until the good guys save the day. It's something carried out, in the open, with the support or at the very least indifference of people around you. It'll happen on TV, in social media posts, for everyone to see. They will observe it and their reactions will range from apathy to cruel elation. Then they'll turn off their TVs or put away their phones and go shopping.
They may even make treats out of it, like how southerners used to (CW: death, gore) ::: spoiler spoiler collect knucklebones and other grisly relics from lynching victims ::: , or how some edgy movies, shows, and/or video games are likely to be made of recent atrocities at a later time (with the sympathy typically reserved for the atrocity-bringer in a shoot-and-cry format).
Israel invading Gaza with ground troops would provoke a response from Hezbollah and probably some other nearby nations, and they just spent the last year sending a bunch of their shit to Ukraine. Not to mention that Hamas is expecting a response and probably has all kinds of ambushes ready to go.
I don't know if the Israeli government is insane enough to go in, but it will be the beginning of the end for them if they do.
it will be the beginning of the end for them if they do.
Please don't hang too much hope on this. The counter-offensive will likely be absolute barbarism. Israel has an enormous military advantage. I don't know what will happen but it's very likely that Palestine's position will be drastically worse when this is over. I am sure they will fight with valiant creativity and unimaginable bravery, but I need you all to be ready to keep going if this results in a crushing defeat.
Palestine cannot win alone, but I do not think they will be alone. That's part of why the initial offensive was so successful, Israel can't put its army surrounding Gaza when Syria and Iran and Egypt exist.
I need you all to be ready to keep going if this results in a crushing defeat.
Nothing online matters
If we're still here after the commune and the USSR's collapse we're not going anywhere.
People forget the first 300 years of Capitalism was also crushing defeat vs the Fuedalists.
"we" as leftists might still be here but that doesn't mean most of the Palestinians will be
Israel has the unlimited backing of the great shaytan and unlike Ukraine is not utilised to grind down the military of a geopolitical rival. I hoped that the hostages taken by Hamas might deter any extreme excesses from the IDF but the unrelenting air strikes indicate that the Israeli government is more than willing to make a couple hundred martyrs.
I hoped that the hostages taken by Hamas might deter any extreme excesses from the IDF
Israel already said they will bomb houses indiscriminately without checking if they contain hostages beforehand IIRC; they don't care.
the Israeli government is more than willing to make a couple hundred martyrs
Already more than 400 Palestinians have been killed in retaliatory airstrikes, including at least 20 children.
Also, while Israel has the backing of the imperial core, ultimately if the recent events have proved something it's that no matter their advances in terms of means / funds / tech, ultimately sufficiently organized and motivated resistance fighters made that count for very little. Erez crossing for example was supposed to be an ultra-secure high tech border checkpoint and it got wrecked instantly.
Israel had unlimited backing by the US when they got thoroughly embarrassed by Hezbollah in '06 too. it seems like Hezbollah's willing to get involved in the case of a ground invasion, I don't think it'd turn out well for Israel.
Israel has said they will level Damascus and kill Assad if Hezbollah invaded them, which seems odd but they are willing to drag a 3rd party into the war. If Syria and Lebanon are going in, Iran and Iraq likely will too at some level
The rise of cheap guided munition warfare is going to completely decimate the supposed technological advantage that Israel has over its neighbours.
Fighters are vulnerable to MANPADS, tanks are vulnerable to drones, and the end result of all of this is that whoever has the industrial capacity for more guided munitions wins. Air superiority is useless if you can't get within infrared range (50-80km) for CAS. You can't do SEAD if the missile that can pop you out of the sky can be carried on someone's shoulder. Armoured assaults are similarly useless if the guided munitions are both cheaper, have longer range, and are easier to pilot than your armour. Even piloted drones have substantially greater mobility than even the best armoured vehicles (because, y'know, you can operate them out of any moving thing) and the asymmetric cost of a defense system (the PATRIOT is estimated at 4 million per intercept) makes conventional Western doctrine unsustainable.
The entire principle of modern warfare seems to be centered around asymmetric response: instead of overwhelming the enemy with big arrow combined arms offensives, you want to whittle down your enemy with constant precision strikes that expend more of their resources than your own. As opposed to the dynamic supply lines necessitated by big offensives in prior conflicts, the core element today is efficient logistics assuming static frontlines. It's far more similar to WW1-era doctrine than WW2-era doctrine.
That's what I've gathered from both sides in the Ukraine conflict... but it'll be interesting to see if the same applies to a potential Arab War.
Would be one of the few ways I could see Israel lose hard...mind you I feel the USA might step in to stop that from happening but it would become an absolute clusterfuck
I cannot think of a single thing better for Syrian unity than fighting a war with Israel that was instigated by Israel. It's exactly what Assad needs to consolidate power, because he's currently in the rather inconvenient position of having to rebuild from a civil war he was involved in. If Israel attacks, Assad has a scapegoat for all the societal and economic problems in Syria and allows for more cautious powers (e.g. China) to be more flexible in the aid and investment they provide.
According to the Israeli newspaper “Yedioth Ahronoth”, Israel sent a warning to the Lebanese Hezbollah, via France, that if it entered the war, Israel might “direct strikes against Damascus, such as the strikes it directed against the southern suburbs, and that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his regime would be in danger
is on the other side of the globe (carrier fleets are a joke in 2023); Iran and Egypt are right next door. Palestine, on its own, cannot defeat Israel, but with the help of its neighbors, I believe it can.
Eh, oppressing poor civilians is about what carriers are useful for in 2023, and the IRGCN would have to transit Suez to get to them. Most likely, the strike group is there to provide Anti-Ballistic Missile coverage for 
They basically have to go in. The Palestinians have taken hundreds of Israeli prisoners, high value military ones too, and humiliated Israel on the international stage. It would be the end of Netanyahu’s government to do anything besides crank the war crimes to 11.
Israel invading Gaza with ground troops would provoke a response from Hezbollah and probably some other nearby nations
I'm not holding my breath on it.
Maybe, but there's indications Iran helped with planning this insurrection and Hezbollah has definitely mobilised. We'll see.
This is going to be ugly no matter what, but the Palestinian fighters winning is the only outcome that opens the possibility of a better world. I wish them the best.
I think everyone is worried. But we have to trust the resistance fighters that organized this. It's always been a possibility. They have to have planned for this eventuality. Hopefully Israel invading fully is exactly what is needed to move forward towards liberation.
this operation was likely planned years in advance and the speed and precision of Hamas’ actions illustrate this. these people were born at war w their occupiers, their whole lives have led up to this moment of organized resistance. critical support to Palestinians in their efforts against settler-colonialism, genocide, and imperialism. we must not wring our hands over whether this will end badly for Palestine, we may not know the end for years.
a healthy amount of optimism will do us well: urban warfare is costly and dangerous for the aggressor, Hezbollah and Iran will likely intervene if IDF forces invade Gaza, western arms and aid are tied up in Ukraine, IDF soldiers (like US soldiers) are used to bullying civilians and poorly armed rebels so an organized, moderately-equipped Hamas is something they’re unfamiliar with
To take a step further back, given Saudi's cooling relationship with the US and the fragile state of the petro-dollar Israeli aggression in Gaza might have wider reprecussions in the Arab world, weakening America's position by association.
definitely. KSA has been playing both sides of the trade war but now the normalization of Saudi-Israeli relations is at risk. and with KSA joining BRICS, the west doesn’t hold nearly as much sway in the Middle East. Israel will soon be the only state there where the US has significant soft power. real cool zone hours
If Israel is forced to give up the Negev, doesn't that open up a huge opportunity for a KSA oil pipeline through "friendly" territory to the African continent?
The US has irreparably pissed off almost every major oil and gas producing power so if the Arab states turn against it, we could be looking at another OPEC embargo.
Double funny if OPEC also includes the EU for supporting Israel. Give those arrogant Eurocrats something to think about over winter.
I am currently very glad that I largely avoid my family. Likely terminal levels of hitler particles
I feel the same way.
If I had not already disowned the numerous chuds I am biologically related to, the holidays would involve unprecedented levels of goosestepping.
My adoptive parents think this might be the start of the rapture
They always think whatever is going on is the start of "Armageddon" though 
Uncritical support to a rapture if it ever happened to take away all the fundamentalist reactionaries
No only the good Christians get raptured, the fundamentalists would be condemned to suffer the misery at the end of the world. Though it would be funny to see the look on their faces when they realized they didn't make the cut.
Eh, I think we have to hope that there is indeed a possibility of a better future instead of the total destruction of the planet.
Had lunch with my evangelical mom yesterday, she mentioned at one point "You know Israel is at war?" "Yep."
Not getting sucked into that one.
Imagine the IDF going into Gaza and shooting EVERYONE in sight
I don't need to imagine. Israel is literally doing indiscriminate bombing raids aiming to kill as many people as possible, Hamas or not, as we speak.
These two situations are not identical. They are barely even comparable.
urban warfare in one of the most densely populated places on earth. Israelis aren't ready to take casualties on that scale.
I think at this point they're humiliated enough to give it the old college try. However, the current strategy simply appears to be aerial bombardment in an effort to flatten every square inch of Gaza.
This is going to kick off another enormous refugee crisis, primarily into Egypt.
Very worried they're gonna level the entire strip without any regard to Palestinians civilians or even their own people
That's pretty much what they said they're gonna do. Honestly Hamas gave Netanyahu a mandate to do exactly that. Not urban warfare & ambushes - just a remote pounding.
nobody gave anybody a mandate do any fucking war crimes
what the fuck else was Hamas supposed to do? pray? vote? lie down and die?
Conveniently, Israel have given anyone on the planet a mandate to aid in the destruction of Israel.
Yeah that's bad but let's analyze this objectively
For one I highly doubt it's 300k, militaries love to pump out big impressive numbers wthout any regard for reality or on the ground conditions
The majority are conscripts and paramilitary who've been demoralized by the Palestinian victory
Also not all those troops are going to be sent to Gaza, using such large force in a confined space like that would be unwieldy and would tax the logistics and ammo stores of a small state like Isreal past their limit
And troops still have to reinforce the Lebanon border, Golan Heights and the entirety of the West Bank
The minute the Israelis enter the tangled urban sprawl of Gaza city or Khan Yunis is the minute they suffer casualties the likes they've never seen, futher demoralizing an already demoralized concript force
And finally that's all assuming Hezbollah doesn't open up a second front or the West Bank doesn't explode
Also any video that emerges of Israeli soldiers gunning down Gazans will trigger an explosion in other Arab countries, from what I can gather from my relatives in the region (I dont want to specify which country but its a US ally) they've never seen a mood ike this, not even 2011, cops are out in force, people in the streets are shouting and yelling about Palestine seemingly at random and mosques are full of people talking about what's going on, which is strange cause it's no where near Friday, the Arab world is about to fuckin explode
Good hopefully they can force their chickenshit governments into being marginally less evil
According to Wikipedia the IDF has about 169k active troops and 465k reserves. 300k troops would be 50% of all Zionist armed forces, assuming total mobilization. Even then, that only leaves half the IDF to stare down Hezbollah in the north, keep a lid on the West Bank, and so forth.
Given how difficult it would be to call up every single reservist in 3 days, I think it's more likely that 300k is the total number of mobilized IDF troops, not just those preparing to beseige Gaza.
For one I highly doubt it’s 300k
According to wiki IDF have 170000 active personnel, and that include non-combat ones, plus 465000 reservist and 3 million available for draft, but no chance they would do mobilisation in two days.
True, but the Hamas fighters have outstanding mobility and if they know their guerrilla tactics they'll "grab them by the belt buckle" negating or limiting Israeli air power, while using tunnels and superior knowledge of the urban layout to out maneuver and wreak havoc on those demoralized blocking units
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If they think they can get away with it they wont fight room to room. They'll bomb back apartment block by apartment block.
This won't work. The tunnel networks prevented it in 2014 and they are vastly bigger and more complex now. There is no shifting Hamas without a painful ground operation.
all that the bombing will do is create Eternal Stalingrad. Rubble will be deadlier for IDF than structures.
Hamas absolutely wanted an invasion by taking so many hostages. Theres no way they couldn't see that coming. The question is Hamas actually plans on defeating that invasion force or if they want to go out in a blaze of glory.
I'm calling it now, we're gonna see Palestinian resistance use some very well placed tunnel bombs, it was an effective strategy in Syria and delayed the government takeover of cities by months and sometimes years
Since OP didn’t, here’s some sauce I found:
Let them try, little settler 
s won't last. Supposedly something like 100k are reserve troops, they are not built for what's coming.
My guy, Israel’s population is thoroughly militarised and has completely dehumanised Palestinians to a degree of the dehumanisation of Jews in Nazi Germany (the irony is not lost on me). Even in the event of an IDF “loss”, the civilian cost on the Palestinian side will be grievous from the indiscriminate killing from constant air strikes.
It is true that the Palestinian side will face countless losses. I shouldn't make light of that. But is Israel really ready for urban warfare in one of the densest regions of the world, against a population that hates them with a burning passion, and with reserve troops? Am I really crazy for believing that Palestine could possibly stand up strong against Israel's ground forces, at the very least?
Remember what happened during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The fighters were as motivated and prepared as they could possibly be, but they were still militarily outmatched by an enormous margin.
It is important to be cold and unsentimental in warfare. That is necessary to assess your enemies strengths and weaknesses accurately. I believe the Palestinian troops are fully aware of the monstrous disparity in forces and have set out war objectives they feel they are able to achieve in spite of that disparity.
Fair, but with the possibility of Hezbollah's support this is not a Warsaw Ghetto situation, Israel is fighting on many fronts. But I don't know enough to make any kind of accurate assessment.
Thankfully our Palestinian comrades are 1000x smarter and braver than me. 
This is just the price of liberation. No one said this would be easy. Just look at the casualty count of the Algerians and Vietnamese vs their colonizers. But the price of liberation means nothing without comparing it to the price of occupation. Gaza is nothing more than a giant concentration camp. Their complete extermination would have been inevitable had they not fight back.
Palestinian militants have seized the opportunity in the wake of Western weakness (the Ukraine counteroffensive completely floundering, the French getting kicked out of the Sahel) to launch their assault. "But Hamas gave the Zionists the mandate to exterminate them!" As if the Zionists ever needed a mandate to ethnically cleanse Palestinians with the open support of the international community^TM^. If the Zionists could get away with the Nakba, they could get away with anything. It turns out you don't actually need an excuse to ethnically cleanse people if you have the means to do so. Just look at Azerbaijan ethnically cleansing Nagorno-Karabakh.
So why have the Zionists waited until now to finally implement the Final Solution to the Gazan question? Why not 2021? Was Hamas and other militants shooting thousands of rockets throughout Israel including Tel Aviv in 2021 somehow not mandate^TM^ worthy? They're speeding up the "put the people of Gaza to the sword and salt the soil so that nothing grows there for a thousand years" timetable because they are desperate, and they are desperate because behind the bluster, they are weak.
Those conscripts won't know what hit them when they set foot in Gaza.
the last two decades has proven that a well equipped army can take land very quickly but cannot hold it or stabilize it without enduring a lot of pain
if isreal decides full occupation it will be further misery for all except this time a lot more israelis will be feeling it
i dont mean this in a prescriptive way. this is descriptive.
Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but this strikes me as a really, really bad idea. A bunch of conscripts led by guys who are desperate for a win and think Intelligence is "woke?"
It one thing to lob bombs from afar, it's another thing entirely to actually stick your dick into the bear trap.
I don't know if I saw it here, but someone asked the question "would you be an acceptable target for a violent Native American organization?" It gave me pause
Edit: I guess, the same way I don't enjoy that random people are killed, the same way I don't think the janitors in the twin towers had it coming for what the US did in the middle east, I wouldn't enjoy being targeted by a native American faction. I could comprehend why it was happening if I were in the crosshairs of some fuckin person's rifle while I'm just some fuckin person. I would just plea and bargain for my life and not some "you don't have to do this! be better than this!"
If there were a violent Native American organization in my area threatening random whiteys my first instinct would be to see if they're open to random whiteys joining them. So if I didn't do that? Yeah I guess I'd consider myself an acceptable target
Yeah exactly. For me it would be like "hey, y'all need another set of hands?" And they're like "no, go away or we might shoot you." So I would go away. Sounds like a skill issue to me lmao
Is it really irrelevant? It seems like a valid question. If all settlers, civilians and militants alike, are valid targets, then the majority of us cheering on the Palestinian liberation would definitely be valid targets for Native American liberation. Does it make us hypocrites? Ought we (white Americans specifically) to be eradicated? And if we are not to be eradicated, what are the implications for Israelis? These are just questions that make me think and am now asking here, not trying to sway anyone or make some point.
I imagine people born into a settler colonial state deserve much more consideration than the people who literally stole the land themselves. That's especially the case as more and more generations pass and descendants of settlers become further and further removed from the initial spoils of colonialism.
For the most part, you can send Israeli settlers back to their country of origin just fine. But you can't just take a white person from America and send them back to some European country they've never been to and almost certainly don't speak the language of.
Making things right for indigenous Americans is going to look much different than making things right for Palestinians.
I acrually think it'd be pretry cool of white people like me were expelled from the US, i dont goce a damn i cant speak german, it'd be poetic jusrice if i ger drowned in the ocean
So there’s a movement called “land back” which is about restoring ownership of native lands to the indigenous populations, especially ownership of valuable resources such as mining rights.
There is no violent resistance so that is a meaningless hypothetical but there is a movement to restore economic autonomy in the form of land ownership and reparations and I think yes you should support something like that - which is the actually existing equivalent for Americans/Canadians/Australians etc.
That's interesting! I hadn't heard of land back. I'll definitely look into supporting them as I can when I can.
There is no violent resistance
Wounded Knee 2 was 50 years ago. Second Zapatista uprising 30 years ago. Land defense actions over the last decade+ have generally been nonviolent but diversity of tactics is important especially when the settlers are so entrenched and the colonized so fractured and ledgoverned by multiple generations of compradors.
land back is part of that diversity of tactics but it's entirely insufficient on its own and absolutely ripe for grifting and abuse