Look, the ground invasion is going to happen. Whether it should or not is immaterial. It is going to happen and we all just have to pray because prayer is our only option that this conflict won't careen out of control well beyond the borders of Israel/Palestine.
At least it is until Bibi goes.
Israel is not simply a flawed democracy or a democracy for some, it is a compromised democracy. Even for Jews. There is literally almost no one who wants this government except the people in power, and yet they don't go. It's been two weeks since the biggest disaster in the history of the State of Israel, a failure of exponentially monumental incompetence, and still, there is no high official who called for the removal of Benyamin Netanyahu.
Maybe some removal is planned, a parliamentary ambush perhaps, maybe people are just waiting for an appropriate amount of time after the attack, but even if that is possible, what does it say about the State of Israel that such quiet planning would be necessary?
I could be very wrong, but if Netanyahu keeps power, my guess is there will be all sorts of talk that Netanyahu deliberately provoked the whole thing and looked the other way at Hamas's preparations even as he knew what would happen. It's exactly the kind of conspiracy theory antisemites love. Some 1% version of it might be true: maybe Netanyahu thought he could look the other way while Hamas caused a skirmish, provoking a momentary distraction while he maneuvers to stay in power. But even if there's no way that conspiracy theory is true, Netanyahu can benefit from it just as though it were true. A malevolent leader can draw the war out indefinitely in a hundred different ways and silence dissent at any point out of war necessity. For the last few years Bibi governed by a coalition majority of 61-63 in a chamber of 120, he is now at the head of a national unity government. And yet a man who called for Yitzhak Rabin's assassination on national television is still the Minister of National Security; and we're supposed to believe Israel is fighting for democracy? Israel, above all the world's democracies, has the intelligence and military apparatus to make itself into a dictatorship overnight, and emergency powers are a next easy step for a leader who manages to defang the judiciary.
...on the other hand, he might be gone in another two weeks.
Again, this invasion is going to happen. What's taking so long? Well, 300,000 reservists are training for very fraught circumstances, Netanyahu is shoring up his allies (such as Bibi is capable of having any...), Israel is gathering intelligence about what they will encounter in Gaza (probably chemical weapons, human shields everywhere, weapons depots in the most sensitive spots, snipers everywhere, killers blending into civilian crowds, I'm sure I'll think of other things later...).
Or, just maybe, god forbid, there's a strategy being formed beyond simply decimating Hamas. War is not about going into a place and smashing something out of rage. No one has known better than Israel that war is about very concrete objectives and contingency plans for every possibility. And yet Israel's already endured two quagmires (Gaza 1967-2005 and Lebanon 1982-2000: what goes on in the West Bank is arguable), it has no need for a third, and if there is no negotiated peace at the end of all this, there will be still worse carnage when Gazans under the age of 18 grow up - in Gaza, minors are literally 1 out of every 2 people.
When there is a ground invasion, it will be horrible on a level so far past any Israeli operation there has ever been. There are already more casualties in this Gaza operation than there ever were from any other. There will soon be multiples more. There can (and likely will) be accidents which make the hospital look like an Independence Day firework, and by the time what happened is cleared up, propaganda can ignite the world. And that's only the accidents. There will be rogue soldiers, there will be horrific moments on camera, there will judgement calls interpreted by the world in the worst possible light. Israel is about to be hated as never before, and next to what's coming the current genocide accusations will be a mere pebble skimming a lake.
Actual liberals will always look out for us, but much of the left wing will not protect a Jew they suspect of supporting Israel. They talk a good game, but Jews will always be the one minority for which an attack on us 'might have a reason.' Those numbers on the left who will equivocate about people who attack us will increase exponentially. It is a bad time for Jews again, and we all will reap our share of the coming whirlwind. We thought we could not be more consequential to modern history than Hitler made us, but here we are, eighty years later, potential kindling for a global conflict.
This is not just the decisive moment when Israel/Palestine finally explodes into the full scale war that's threatened it for fifty-five years, this is the decisive moment when we see whether compromised democracies can eliminate their threat - Israel, like us, is on the edge of systemically ossifying into authoritarian leadership for god knows how long. This is the decisive moment when we see whether the US can sustain a two-front foreign aid commitment to both Israel and Ukraine before China tries to take Taiwan, with half of southeast Asia and part of Africa within its sight next. Russia and China can always bring war to other shores (like ours), but it seemed as though there were only two basic fronts in a potential global conflict, against Russia in Eastern Europe, against China in East Asia. There is now a potential third.
It all depends on whether this ground invasion is conducted by a leader with principles and an end goal, or a leader with no scruples at all, ready to personally benefit from each and every step of chaos he inflicts to further ensconce his power.
I met a Rabbi this week who once was a soldier and saw combat. He said that the worst of all wars are when combat is fought in cities. Even at its best, war is organized murder. The only good thing to come out of it is that sometimes there is a good leader to make sure the dead have not died in vain. The end of this conflict is either a two state solution with a restored democracy in Israel, or a continued status quo with war that eventually spreads well beyond Gaza's 37 mile border. David Ben-Gurion was a leader who could do this, Yitzhak Rabin could do this, Lincoln and Roosevelt were leaders like that here in the US, even Joe Biden may be a leader like that.
But this guy, would you buy a used car from him?
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