In order to write something that reads user emails in Google APIs you have to go through multiple levels of hell, so I don't think that's a fair comparison
It seems you have to do that here too though. In the end you have to deal with the headline the media can write about it.
If Netflix and Spotify went through the vetting process for the purposes of enabling an in-app email client the media could write pretty much the same headline.
Google has strict licensing for what you can do with such data (almost nothing) and you have to go through an extreme vetting process
However, this won't generate the same headline because any company can go through it, and it isn't some API sold for some special privileged company. Also the user knows it is sharing their mails (not sure if that's the case with facebook)
From the above post the Titan API seems to be an oauth API that's extremely vetted, hence the special name and why only spotify and netflix has access.
That seems reasonable, but I think you can trace those fiefdoms back to acquisitions. From what I understand even the NT kernel team was originally the result of Microsoft scooping up all the engineers from DEC
>"GTA 3 and Vice City were originally written in C++," aap explains. "The compiled executables that are shipped are in machine code. So the general task is to go from machine code back to C++.
>"Machine code can be (more or less) mapped 1:1 to a human readable form called assembly language, but it's still very tedious to read.
>"To go back to C++ is by no means a simple 1:1 mapping, but over the last 10 or so years decompilers have appeared that help with this process.
>"So what we typically do is work with the output of the decompiler and massage it back into readable C++. This is sometimes quite easy and sometimes hard, but in any case it's a lot of code and you're bound to make mistakes."
>Thankfully, the code for GTA 3 on PS2 and Android includes debug symbols. Debug symbols contain all the extra information needed to debug a game during the development process, but are often stripped out for release executables to avoid bloat. For whatever reason, Rockstar left these symbols in, giving the reverse-engineering team a huge leg-up.
>"We were very lucky we had symbols for the games," aap says. "PS2 [GTA] 3 and all the Android releases have names for the global stuff (functions and global variables). This was a huge help and I don't think we'd be anywhere near reversed GTA without them."
Im curious, since it seems to be mostly about walking back the one-way-street of C++ to assembly, what’s stopping us from training a ML model to help with decompilation by figuring out patterns in the compilation process? (there has to be a reason, otherwise someone would have done it already)
The history[1] section in the README file contains a description of how they did it. In summary, it seems they debugged GTA3 and wrote their stub implementations until the game was all reimplemented, presumably with only the assets from Rockstar’s GTA3.
When I was a kid, I heard that the sun is going to eventually explode, destroying planet Earth and us all. This was deeply saddening for me on a deep level, I remember crying and all.
My parents tried explaining this will take 5 billion years, and we will all be long dead anyway but this wasn't really helping. Prior to that I had a major shock when I learned about death, and this was kind of a relapse.
Looking at it now, I think doomerism, preppers, apocalyptic religions and the guy that stands on the street shouting "it's the end of the world" are all a basic part of the human experience. It's not a coincidence every cult eventually reaches the narrative of the impending end of the world.
Death is suppressed and finds other avenues to pop out in
kinda different comparing a state with an organization that was caught lying about death statistics numerous times in the past [1] and including in this war (such as the ali ahli hospital incident).
it should raise some questions how the casualty count went to 500 in a few hours, where everywhere else in the world it takes days to get a body count after any disaster
It is beyond me how someone can believe that an organization capable of kidnapping babies to advance its political goals is beyond lying to do the same
There are lies and errors. From both sides. But the 26000 figure is generally accepted by the UN and aid agencies. Figures from Hamas in previous conflicts have been confirmed.
it is accepted by the UN because there is no other figure. they have no other way of estimating, also the UN is far from a neutral element in this conflict
The UN is a political body composed of the political interests of its members, which are mostly authoritarian states, and it hasn’t shown much support for Israel due to the vast membership of Islamic countries. Parody case in point, Iran being Human Rights commission seat
UNRWA, the UN agency on the ground was shown again and again to be in the very least in the mercy of Hamas therefore cooperative, at most its infrastructure and staff was used by the organizations for attacks against Israel and to hold hostages.
The ICJ in this case heavily quoted UNRWA as a source while it is an extremely problematic one.
The hospital bombing I quoted above is an example case where many experts tried to estimate casualties based on evidence, they arrived to figures that range from tenth to fifth of what Hamas published.
This together with the fact they control the casualty figure and have a clear interest at inflating it in order to stop Israel from attacking, is pretty obvious to me what’s going on.
Leaving the fact that this figure also includes Hamas members, and therefore is useless at estimating if there is excessive collateral damage
the fact there isn’t a better source does not make the only source reliable.
This is going to be a major issue when the actual court case will have to rely upon it.
the numbers will always be ‘too high’ as they are the number of civilian deaths in a war.
However, if they are much lower relative to similar conflicts than that changes a lot. Currently we have no way of knowing that, yet still people attribute these numbers some magical properties
you’d might want to google the amount of civilian casualties in the yemen civil war, its proportion to deaths in the Gaza war and houthis involvement in said civilian deaths.
You might be surprised how preoccupied they are with ‘preventing’ civilian death
Following the same logic, we also have plenty of examples of how US is (not) worried about democracy, free trade and attacks against civil targets. And therefore, we can dismiss its statements about these issues. No problem, it's a tie. Therefore, what remains to discuss is just how legitimate is the stated purpose of Houthi's attacks that is claimed to uphold article 1 from Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide from UN. According with that convention, which is signed by Yemen, their members must act to prevent genocide whenever it is happening, either during war or peace. A blockade is indeed a way to act against this crime.
They were for other reasons. Likewise, US were also bombing people and launching missiles before for other reasons and also make economical sieges against other targets in other contexts. I'm confused why this should mean that any future attack and reasoning made by US or Houthis should be dismissed because of this.
THESE particular bombings were because the blockade and sanctions that they did in the region and they justify with the genocide happening in Palestine.
They can justify what they're doing however they'd like, but I don't think anybody serious believes anything they say. There's a backstory with these people.
Well, I do not consider "serious" countries that are not opposing a genocide because they have neocolonialist interests in the region. Fortunately, we have several serious countries that are acting and also supporting the case in the International Court of Justice.
Different means to the same goal. The Houthis have no access to the ICJ, however they have access to disrupt the maritime trade through the Red Sea, so this is how they act. There is also reasons to believe that even if the ICJ rules in favor of South Africa on Friday, and orders Israel to stop any military activity and let in humanitarian aid, that they will simply not follow it, and there is reasons to believe that USA will excuse this behavior. Disrupting maritime traffic in the Red Sea may proof to be an invaluable action in addition to the ICJ case for stopping the horrors in Gaza.
It is categorically false that the Houthis have the same goal as the ICJ case. One way you know that is that if Ansar Allah succeeded in their chartered goal of liberating Jerusalem and Palestine, they would proceed to bomb all the Muslim Brotherhood's mosques; they seek to liberate Palestine not just from the Jewish people, but from the Sunnis as well. And how you know that is: that's exactly what they're doing, right now, in Yemen.
Of course, another way you know they're full of shit is that they were shooting rockets at cargo ships in the Red Sea years before the Gaza war.
I think a pretty mainstream and reasonable way to look at Ansar Allah is:
What they say: meaningless agitprop about Palestinian liberation.
What they intend: A Zaydi Shi'a imamate with racial and bloodline governance.
What they are: A chaos agent managed by Iran in order to keep Saudi Arabia, which operates a military with one of the world's worst ratios of capacity and funding to competence, perpetually on the wrong foot.
Sorry, stated was implied. These are different means to the same stated goals.
The Houthis are not the only one blocking Maritime trade, there are also activist groups in e.g. Oakland and Tacoma which have blocked freight traffic from respective ports with the aim of disrupting shipment to Israel and the stated goal of stopping the genocide.
What the Houthis and these activist groups in America do after they’ve succeeded in stopping the genocide, that is another question which we can tackle at the time. As of now there is an emergency situation in Gaza, and we must treat it as such. Stopping the genocide is at utmost importance.
That's a horrible thing to say about activists in the US. I may think activists in Oakland and Tacoma are ineffective, performative, and largely wrong in the particulars of their case, but I have never claimed they are morally comparable to Ansar Allah, a racial-supremacist monarchist movement that kills civilians in numbers the IDF has never come close to approaching.
You previously gave me a lecture about my rhetoric and I listened. Can you please not make assumptions about my believes beyond what I said. They only thing I said about activists in Oakland and Tacoma is that they employ a (superficially) similar tactics. The rest was your spin.
"What the Houthis and these activist groups in America do after they’ve succeeded in stopping the genocide" is assertion that these groups are acting in concert. They are not, nor do they share the same goal. If you wanted to say they were tactically superficially similar, I'd shoot that down too (activists in Tacoma aren't blowing things up and trying to kill crew) but I wouldn't find the argument offensive, just deeply wrong.
Sorry, that’s not what I meant. There was an implied respectively there. But they do have a common stated goal of an immediate ceasefire. As is the stated goal of South Africa and supportive nations the very same at the ICJ. So same goal via different means.
As for effectiveness, we do know that protests do work if they are disruptive enough. But we also know that rulings by the ICJ have a tendency to be ignored if a powerful enough nation disagrees with them. Both the cities of San Francisco, Oakland and Seattle are among the nations largest cities who are calling for ceasefire. Barbara Lee and Pramila Jayapal are among very few members of congress calling for ceasefire.
We will see in the days after Friday whether the actions at the ICJ were enough, and that actions against international shipping were indeed unnecessary. However, I’m gonna remain pessimistic about that.
The "actions against international shipping" (objectively: indiscriminate and murderous piracy) have done nothing to deter the IDF, but have harmed people throughout the region that depend on the navigability of the Red Sea and supply chains. I object to the claim that the ICJ effort is somehow connected to what Iran and Ansar Allah are doing.
There's a further irony to appealing jointly to the ICJ, an instrument of international law, and piracy, opposition to which is the literal original basis for all international law.
I wasn’t aware of the irony, but yeah, its there, but it is nothing more than a curiosity. But these are indeed separate groups aiming for the same thing, a ceasefire, via different means. That is the only link I’ve claimed.
You seem to take issue with the methods the Houthis are employing, but I would like to point out that blockading international shipping is also a method which the Israelis use against Gaza. This blockade by Israel has manifested it self in direct assaults on cargo vessels and murders of their crew members (see e.g. Gaza Flotilla Raid[1]).
I think the targets of the Houthis is not the IDF directly, but rather the international community, particularly nations which are aiding and enabling Israel in the genocide, such as the USA. That the tactic here is to be disruptive enough that it won’t be worth it for these nations to support Israel in its crimes any longer. However, I’m not a member of the Houthies, so I can be wrong about that.
A naval blockade is an act of war. A naval blockade in international shipping lanes is an act of war against every country that uses those seas! There is no rhetoric that rescues the Houthis from the irony of your argument.
I recommend that you do some additional reading about the Houthis. Rasha Al Aqueedi and Nadwa Dawsari are good starting points. I think you're unlikely to find a credible reported account of Ansar Allah that is sympathetic to them.
> A naval blockade is an act of war. A naval blockade in international shipping lanes is an act of war against every country that uses those seas!
I don’t dispute this. However by that logic, Israel has been at war with Gaza (and everyone that trades with Gaza, including Turkey) since 2008. And if we follow that logic further—which we shouldn’t—we can explain Oct. 7 as a particularly horrendous war-crime in a war full of war crimes committed by both sides, but again, we shouldn’t do that.
I also don’t dispute the irony. It most definitely is there, I just find it unimportant. On a global issue, you will always find very different groups with vastly different goals, and it just so happens that one of their goals intersect. They don’t need to be united behind that goal (and they seldomly are) but what you will see is every group has most likely very different means towards that goal.
These actions may even be counterproductive. You may believe that this is the case for the Houthi actions, I don’t, and for that we’re just going to have to disagree.
Finally I would like to note, I’m not sympathetic to the Houthies as a group, merely their stated goal of a ceasefire. I’m also of the believe that we are going to have to be way more disruptive if we are to achieve ceasefire. I believe—and I may be proven wrong about this—that the ICJ case is not gonna be enough, as any enforcement may—and I believe it will—simply be blocked by the USA.
Expect to see much more disruptive actions from all groups if (when?) the international community fails to enforce the orders from the ICJ.
Israel occupies Gaza. If you're looking for me to defend Israel with respect to Gaza and the West Bank, you're barking up the wrong tree. But international law doesn't have much to say about the situation, because Israel won both territories about as "fairly and squarely" as you can say exists under international law, way back in 1967 --- they even offered Gaza back to Egypt, which refused, for cynical reasons.
Further: your logic doesn't cohere. Were Israel to blockade international shipping lanes, countries would declare war against them, as Israel did when Egypt blockaded the Tiran Straits. The discussion wouldn't be "can Israel do this"; it would be "has Israel provoked a war with another seafaring country", the way Ansar Allah has.
What you can't do is supply an analysis like "since Israel blockaded Gaza, Ansar Allah can blockade the Red Sea". Well, they can do that, but then the UK and the US will be applauded by the Security Council when they aerosolize Ansar Allah with cruise missiles.
You have repeatedly defended the actions of Ansar Allah in this discussion, most importantly by accepting their explanations at face value despite a (recent!) historic context that gives the lie to all of them, pretty bluntly and objectively. I understand you'd rather just focus on making a case against Israel, and I get why, but the reason you're conversing with me on this thread and not a supporter of Israel is that I'm not prepared to let sail by the idea that the Houthis are a legitimate actor. They are precisely the opposite of that.
If you support civilian lives then the very last people in the entire world you want to get behind are Ansar Allah. You have to be careful about campism. It's pernicious.
They cannot uphold article 1 on their own account, without international support and they're not a signatory.
You need to show that the intent of Israel is to destroy the Palestinian people in Gaza, even partially. What I see is the attempt of Israel to prevent more October 7 attacks, which Hamas declared it is going to repeat. The actual goal here is to protect Israel's own citizens from genocide, which Hamas has shown willingness to commit and ability (albeit in a smaller scale currently).
I think it is perfectly valid for a country to protect its own citizen from being burned alive among many other atrocities that were committed, which is also one of the reasons the genocide convention was created in the first place.
As this is war, it's also causing immense suffering in the Palestinian side. Which is why a war to remove Hamas from power was constantly deferred in the past, knowing they are highly entrenched in the civilian population. However, I don't think they left Israel any other way this time.
Wrong. First Yemen IS signatory since 1987 (or 1989 if you consider North Yemen). Second, the convention gives responsibilities beyond borders for members, and explicitly puts responsibility to act upon signatory States. And third, there are plenty previous cases that opened precedence that a country can act even before any approval from UN (US bombed Yugoslavia arguing this), and there is also precedence of blockades enforced by a single country despite the lack of approval (and despite disavowal) from UN (US blocking Cuba and Venezuela).
> I think it is perfectly valid for a country to protect its own citizen from being burned alive among many other atrocities that were committed, which is also one of the reasons the genocide convention was created in the first place.
Also wrong. The genocide convention was created to prevent genocide. There is nothing in the convention mentioning that you should not act if the victims are from other countries. On the contrary, the convention says that you must act to prevent and has an extraterritorial scope (as was established in a previous judgement in UN).
How exactly killing children, reporters, women and people holding white flags, attacking UN shelters, as well as destroying hospitals and universities prevent more October 7 attacks!? In fact, it will create more attacks because of the anger from an oppressed people. Which was the cause of October 7 attacks, by the way. Sorry, declaring war is not a free pass to commit war crimes. If the war crimes are frequent, and they are not opposed (or if they are encouraged), this is a serious evidence of genocide.
A rebel organization is not the yemen government, that’s exactly the reason they are successful at being a proxy. all the benefits of being a state without any responsibility for your actions.
About the common western trope of “you should never fight terror because it will only bring more terror”
that’s false. There is no way the palestinian population would be more radicalized, they are at the end of the spectrum. It wasn’t like there was any type of atrocity known to man on October 7 that was stopped short due to being too extreme.
Also, israel had shown that when fighting palestinians organizations in the second intifada 2001-2004, it succeeded in greatly reducing the amount of terror and achieve deradicalization
There's a moral difference and an international law difference between attacking valid military targets and killing civilians in the process and when your stated goal is attacking uninvolved civilian targets (international shipping passing by). Also, GP saying 'bullying' seemed to me detached from the facts of what was going on.
About being white, as far as I know I am not considered white both in the 19th century scientific racism sense and even in its modern extension of dividing the American population by the extension of that original theory.
But if I am considered white, do you think it undermines my arguments?
I was just trying to make a joke about racism because of the thinly veiled racist viewpoints in pretty much every post here but I guess I picked on the wrong guys. Okay I'm done, sorry.
I am not sure that's the definition of genocide.
The only clear instance of genocide in this war is the October 7 attacks. I'll remind you it included attacking all population centers in a specific geographic area, going house to house and killing whoever was inside, as well as burning the houses in order to prevent the population from returning.
You could argue Israel evacuating the northern of Gaza strip is ethnic cleansing, but that would only be valid if they are not allowed later on to return.
The difference between Palestinians civilian deaths in Gaza is that these were not systematic, not concentrated in a single space (for example all houses in a location) and were done mostly for a military purpose (attacking a defacto non-uniformed military). Choosing to evacuate the population before attacking was done to minimize casualties, although they are still massive even when removing the Hamas members from the statistics and their inflated nature.
You are laughably hilarious or deliberate. Israel is doing an actual genocide - a terrorist attack on 10/7 is not a genocide.
But killing tens of thousands, marketing it as “mowing the lawn” and cutting off power, food, safety, hospitals, religious facilities… is a f-ing genocide.
Stop pretending israel is just “responding” to 10/7 attacks. No response, even if the real “responses” began in 1916/7 and later in the 40’s… no “response” ever deserves a genocide.
1916/17 - Sykes-Picot agreement and Balfour Declaration was pushed by England/the west to split the middle east up. Even though there were already nations there. Thus creating a “home for Zionists”.
The 40’s was the standard “zionists get israel for real this time” after England got its butt kicked by the very same folks it helped in the teens.
But that’s irrelevant to the point that nothing, ever, makes a genocide ok. Stop pretending it’s not just because the fascist and gaslighting zionists claim it’s “not a genocide we promise.”
England did a genocide on the Irish. Zionists are doing on in the Palestinians. There have been plenty of US backed ones over the years too.
Any nation state who says “they’re not doing a genocide” .. totally is.
Sykes-Picot didn't have much to do with Zionism at all, but it does undermine many of the arguments about the artificiality of Israel as a state, because it establishes that (maybe excepting Egypt) all of Israel's neighbors, none of which have been subjected to decades of campaigning and state-level military incursion, have identically European provenance.
Depending on what you mean by the word "nation", there were not in fact "already nations there". Sykes-Picot partitioned the Ottoman Empire in the Levant. What there was, historically, prior to Sykes-Picot, was the administration of provinces under the Ottoman Sultan.
I am sure the people who had lived there were just fine with europeans dividing up land, huh? Doesn’t help oil was discovered recently …
I mean, look at what happened to France in Vietnam. They were “happily” appreciated while pretending they knew what was best for the people that lived there already.
Y’all will do anything to pretend it’s “ok” for white people to tell folks what to do with their land. Ottoman empire or not.
Bottom line is: Zion != Israel. Zionism is making the call in today’s era and that call is to genocide.
I don't know what any of this is trying to say. You brought up Sykes-Picot as if it was a part of Zionism; it is not, and, moreover, it is the reason there is a Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon today. You implied that Sykes-Picot displaced nation states that previously existed; I don't believe that's true, that's not how the Ottoman Empire functioned.
If you're asking me for a long thread about why British, French, and Russian colonialism in MENA was good, sorry, I don't have that for you. But somehow, it only ever seems to be Israel we're talking about when we discuss this stuff. Israel is no less legitimate than its neighbors, some of which have in the last 5-10 years laid a much stronger claim to the word "genocide" as well.
I would suggest maybe you not lead with Sykes-Picot next time you try to formulate this argument.
You conveniently ignored the “Balfour” part of my comments, too. They were contemporary actions by the British who had no business, at all, to do what they did. “Ends and means” and all of that.
You'll note that I responded to your point about Sykes-Picot, and suggested maybe you stop trying to name-drop Sykes-Picot to make the point you're trying to make, and left it at that.
Right. But you’ll notice they happened contemporary to each other by the same actor.
That’s kind of important.
Still doesn’t justify Zionists doing a fucking genocide against people who have been overrun by the same zionists given “power” by … that nation doing the sykes-picot and balfour thing.
> only clear instance of genocide in this war is the October 7 attacks.
That's clearly a military operation with some war crimes thrown in, which is about expected. Then went in and out, there's no systematic intent in the mission to destroy israel for the simple reason that Hamas can't. Hamas is physically incapable of committing genocide despite what the preach.
VS Israel's systematic destruction of Gaza with enough dogwhistles from senior leadership that can credibly push Israeli campaign into genocide territory. Whether that matters under international law is another Q, but the difference when it comes to international opinion (well, global south), is Hamas can't genocide Israel because they don't have the capabilities vs IDF can actually genocide Palestine/Gaza and optic wise, is looking well on their way as mass starvation as systemic blockade settles in. Like if west can delude themselves into thinking Uyghurs are being genocided despite very few systemic killings and leaks from leadership that intent is counterterrorism/deradicalization, then case for Israel doing a genocide is much stronger considering the actual destruction, body count and mask off rhetoric from Israeli politicians.
About your regard of the oct 7 as a military operation with some war crimes thrown in, it was a military operation concentrated almost completely on civilian centers, so the war crimes aspect was pretty central. I do not doubt they would continue if not stopped, but maybe you think otherwise.
Is that a universal thing that what politicians say is being taken in such a high regard? Especially the many Israeli ministers of nothing that have no actual ability to affect the situation. Judging by how the war is going on, I don't see any scenario where the Palestinian population disappears from Gaza, and I don't see any Israeli action that is advancing that.
However, you are right that due to the sheer cruelty of Oct 7 there is a major process of radicalization in Israeli society, and if Hamas dreams of recreating this attack 'again and again' materialize, I do think the Israeli side will begin to level its moral base to that of its enemy, which might end in actual genocide. Which is why I believe removing this organization is in the best interest of both people, even though it is causing much suffering currently, it is not impossible it can turn very much worse yet.
For me, power mismatch = hamas will naturally adopt more terror since they're limited to asymmetric warfare. War crime labelling is lawfare instrument to try to rhetorically constrain actions of less capable adversaries but really doesn't change the fact that Hamas at strategic / geopolitical goals for Oct7, no different than strategic bombing, i.e war is politics by other means. They weren't just doing a random terror operation. And Israel isn't just randomly levelling Gaza looking for Hamas.
IMO they're trying to make situation so dire that other parties capituate to resettling Gaza. The intention is expulsion not nessicarily genocide, but that doesn't mean current actions and rhetoric, even if flippant, can't be used against Israel in international court / opinion. I'm not saying what Israel is doing IS genocide, but there's probably enough bits and pieces for interested parties to weave genocide narrative, especially the longer war drags out and more dire Gaza situation becomes.
> removing this organization is in the best interest of both people
I don't disagree, for short term. But without Israel expressing interest or some effort at making 2 state solution work, it's kicking can down the road. The fundmental problem, as seen with Hamas, and Houthis is technology proliferation of not garbage tier weapons is making Israel's lack of strategic depth less and less defendable by the day. General arab acrimony is not going to go away after this, and US+Israel can only maintain their military advantage for so long before rest of region catches up or surpasses due to sheer scale. Each generation is more capable than the last and ultimately there's 400 muslims in MENA vs 10m jews in Israel on sacred lands. And this war is just setting up for blowback down the road, especially as US FP will likely change as new gens are much more sympathetic to palestine.
As for Palestinians, they will not forget this. Hamas/resistance will come back in one way or another. The other reality, which makes this problem intractable is poor Gaza with 90% literacy rate and limited access to modern tech / resources was enough to overwhelm Israel on Oct 7th. Israel can barely live with a semi capable Gaza, and definitely can't live with a capable (free) one. Given how weapons are proliferating, Hamas rockets likely a few iterations from taking out existential Israeli strategic targets like desalination plants. There isn't isn't enough geographic buffer for both people to exist on the same land, not without one permenantly keeping other down. Hence IMO Israel will try to make Palestinians disappear from Gaza, one way or another.
I think it is completely within Israel's ability to dismantle most of Hamas fighting force, and then manage the Gaza Strip similarly to the West Bank. Failing to do so might bring about the scenarios you are talking about, which is the tragedy of those that scream genocide too prematurely. As done in all previous wars with Hamas, the international crowd has called what was happening genocide although it clearly wasn't, thereby pressuring Israel to stop, enabling worse and worse wars in the future and more civilian deaths.
I completely agree though that a lack of a two state solution will lead to catastrophe for either people or both eventually.
However, I do not share your pessimism about US/Israel regional prospects. Remember that this is mainly due to self-inflicted restraints, which is how asymmetric warfare really works. As seen in September 11 in the US and October 7 in Israel this can change rapidly when faced with an external threat
They can manage Gaza like Westbank, but that's settling for two powderkegs. Same with comparison to US post 911 actions. It's buying time, which currently is best of bad options, but IMO blowback will come. Pessimism personally warranted in medium/long term time frames. US been trying to draw down from CENTOM for years, and newer gen who will take over politics are expessing less alignment with Israel. I don't think it's self-inflicted restraints as much as geopolitically inflicted - there's upper limit to what Israel can do before it fucks up things irrevocably for US geopolitical interests with others in the region. Long term, Israel is still a small country without sufficient human capita to maintain high end asymmetric war fighting across domains alone (i.e. aviation). Long term I think US constitutents and politicians will attach more and more strings to Israeli behaviour.
It's tragic, but there was and is wide support of October 7 attacks in Gaza, as well there was wide participation of the civilian (non-organization aligned) population in the massacres, including looting, killing, kidnapping and probably rape.
Furthermore, Hamas was elected by the population under popular vote, and it is a palestinian organization entrenched in every facet of civilian organizations and life, and strongly stems from palestinian cultural norms (e.g. islamism, martyrdom, etc)
You cannot completely act as if Hamas is not the defacto government in Gaza, and in any war in history, especially urban warfare in civilian setting with non-uniformed combatants, you cannot truly hurt only the military apparatus without also hurting civilians. This is simply a fact of life.
It is a Western trope going as far back as the Nazis to act as if governments have no representation of their citzenship, especially authocratic ones. Even to this day for example, the German government of 1933-1945 are called 'the nazis' rather than germans, as if they came from outer space, and returned to their planet on 1945, leaving none of their members in the Western/Eastern Germany governments.
> It's tragic, but there was and is wide support of October 7 attacks in Gaza, as well there was wide participation of the civilian (non-organization aligned) population in the massacres, including looting, killing, kidnapping and probably rape.
I know. But that doesn't change the fact that ~25% (number is probably wrong) don't support what Hamas did. You can't group up those 25% with the 75% as if they're all morally culpable and "Palestine" is one thing and "Palestine" deserves moral guilt. If you support Israel you probably see the other side do it where "Israel" is evil as if Israel is a single entity and there aren't different views inside Israel. Every single person is a "settler" who deserves it because they are all equally culpable by virtue of their existence inside a particular geographic region. This is a dehumanizing approach of looking at the conflict.
It doesn't mean each one is morally culpable, but it does really hurt the narrative of 'hamas kidnapped the population'.
I think Gaza is going through an enormous tragedy, but Israel did undertake efforts to reduce civilian casualties (such as evacuation), although much less so than previous conflicts. Having said that, war is still terrible and having to fight in such a population dense area with an enemy who is embedded into the population has a huge toll.
About the dehumanizing approach, I agree. I think one of the results of the October 7 attacks is that it heightened that sentiment in the Israeli population, especially among most of the population who did not feel that way previously about the Palestinians. This is due to some of their actions which are frankly inhumane: decapitation, genital mutilation, baby kidnapping, child rape, live burning, and focus on civilian areas
They keep proxy organizations in every failed or quasi state in the region such as Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
As these are non-state actors using civilian infrastructure, the international legal order cannot handle these, as they are not party to any law.
Therefore when a western aligned country needs to fight these they are in an extreme disadvantage. Any real attack will kill the civilians whose infrastructure said organizations are providing and misusing, eventually pressured to stop retaliating. This was used by Iran in Saudis/UAE vs Houthis, Israel vs Lebanon/Hamas or US vs Iraq.
The approach of having a full fledged state yet declaring it is not a state gave them invisibility, allowing these organizations to grow in strength. Due to their extreme ideology and brinkmanship, ironically this still means someone will need to fight these eventually (see Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis), but in a much greater civilian loss than when was possible previously.
Later on, Iran improved this strategy by creating an alliance of these organizations. They train each other and have planned to fight together in the case of war (partially successful in the last conflict). Currently, they are on the verge of losing two such proxies (Hamas, PIJ) and are in the risk of another one (Hezbollah), and that's why Iran is trying to exert pressure on western countries through attacking civilian shipping.
