Trump says US will take Gaza & turn it into the rivera of the ME, put the Palestinians in beautiful places...etc.
- All that is sensational nonsense. He is not going to take Canada, nor Panama, nor Gaza. Never going to happen; ESPECIALLY Gaza. If Israel was winning, it would've never agreed to a ceasefire. They were pushing the ceasefire deal proposed in April hoping the Gazans would surrender come winter. That didn't happen. The fighting just got more intense. What does he actually mean? Maybe it’s just one of his bluffs & fantasies. Maybe it’s a negotiation tactic to pressure Arab countries & the resistance to concede more. Maybe it’s a result of his entourage, since virtually all his family members & all his colleagues are either Jews or married to Jews. & Israel want Gaza! Maybe it’s the imminent implementation of the Zionist project of taking Jerusalem, destroying the Aqsa mosque & building the Temple as prophesied! Or maybe it’s a real imperial urgency the American ruling dynasty sees as the only way to get rid of a serious threat to Israel & their hegemony.
- The whole discussion rests entirely on power dynamics. There will be no talk about Israel existence itself if this was transposed into China for instance, for respective power dynamics makes it unattainable. The current power dynamics dictate that the colonial pocket of Israel is a political reality, for it was successfully inserted in the region by relevant Colonial powers after the fall of the Ottoman Empire & the subsequent occupation of the region, directly or indirectly, manifesting in the current regimes surrounding Israel (Jordan, Egypt, Gulf states…).
- What are the facts? Israel deployed 529k personnel to invade Gaza, mobilizing thousands of tanks & armored vehicles & aircrafts, dropping +100k tons of explosives on the strip (which is 200x the intensity of the Vietnam War bombing), with constant supply of armament from the US & Europe worth +$20B (the Iran attack defense alone cost $1B), spending +$70B on this war – to fight a 15k-35k resistance force for 15 months to a standstill! The result? More Hamas fighters now than were before Oct 7 – 20% less tunnels -allegedly- & almost 6k Israeli soldiers dead & 15k wounded (it's likely much higher than that in reality, including the mercenaries & unregistered fighters) – & a prisoner exchange Hamas was seeking since Oct 7.
- Taking Gaza necessarily requires military action, i.e. boots on the ground, since Palestinians are clearly not going anywhere. US direct involvement will do very little to tip the scale of the conflict. The only thing it may cause is more civilian deaths, more -or smaller- rubble, & more Hamas recruits. Although we haven't seen attempts by Gazans to cross the borders south towards Egypt despite all the heavy bombing & fatal lifestyle they suffered, some might be willing to leave if offered a better life with housing & amenities elsewhere. But 'some' is not what Trump & Netanyahu want; they want ALL Palestinians to leave. Even if half leaves & half stays, nothing really fundamentally changes. Even if we assume Palestinians in Gaza are eager to leave, no country would be as motivated to welcome them ALL; for the simple fact that no country wants a potential army of hundreds of thousands on their soil.
- This isn't even guerrilla warfare. It's something entirely new. Gazans under siege for decades came to two realizations early: that the supremacy of US/Israel military is air power, & that the political solution (to achieve a Palestinian state) is a lie –Israel intends to keep them under siege until it can expel them. Acquiring advanced air defense systems being unattainable, they opted to dig tunnels as deep as 200ft underground capable of surviving a nuclear strike; 500 miles of them. Some of these are large enough to fit vehicles & large spaces. They also had to make their own weapons under siege. They built factories underground & used remaining explosives & materials from the occasional Israeli bombings to make RPGs, rockets with ranges up to 150 miles, rifles, drones, ammunitions...etc.
- Whatever side of the isle you're on, these people are very serious about resisting the US/Israeli occupation & gaining their freedom. You don't spend decades digging tunnels deep underground just to be told "leave". Now, Hamas & the other resistance factions have access to +10k tons of unexploded bombs, hundreds of captured tanks & drones, & a very large pool of potential recruits. There are 2 million people living in Gaza, 70% are under 18, & almost all of them lost everything they had –house, relatives, comfort, amenities, health...etc. These people have nothing more to lose. It is not farfetched to believe that the resistance factions might 10x their forces after this. Which means 10x the fighting force, 10x the weapons & 10x the tunnels. The resistance is growing stronger not weaker.
- Arabia, Egypt & Jordan –the object of intended displacement– are not heedless to the fact that US/Israel seek to expand their territory –as always intended– while pushing the conflict occupation vs resistance further away from their borders. Moving the Palestinians, even those willing, to "nicer" places does not magically abrogate their fight to take back their land after 100 years of resistance. In fact, albeit unrealistic, this turn of events might pose an even greater danger to the Israeli colonial project. 2 million Palestinians who just lost their land on top of suffering & losing everything else, who successfully fought Israel with the full backing of the West, might just be as successful in taking over the country they were moved into, say Egypt or Jordan. Unlike in Israel, a resistance force launching a coup against the Egyptian regime, for instance, will not face much resistance from the people, if not the opposite.
- The deep distress among Israelis regarding this situation is understandable, their state may actually be in danger. This might lead to the infamous Samson option. But if the Israelis use nuclear, it is certain that all regional powers will rush to acquire their own as fast as possible. Namely, Turkey, Saudi, & Iran, potentially Egypt, Iraq & Syria as well. The former already have nuclear capabilities for energy use (Saudi in the near future). That outcome alone might actually be more distressing not just to Israel but to the entire West than just having Palestinians in Gaza. Not the least, Israelis themselves, especially those with dual citizenship, will pack their bags & go back to their countries once they learn their neighbors have nuclear weapons. Israel is already experiencing persistent negative migration since Oct 7.
- All that been said, here are some possible outcomes:
• Trump/Israel wishful secret plan: use all available means short of genocide to expel the vast majority of Palestinians from Gaza & nuke the remaining ones who refuse to yield. Means like: incentives such as community housing, work, school… elsewhere, contracting siege to force them out, encroaching settlements replacing Palestinians homes, military confiscation, monetary brides or green cards, kidnapping, bombing, constant harrasment…etc. The value here is that it’s easier to deal with a couple hundred thousands than with 2 million, & that it’s possible to deal with the backlash of one but not the other. All in all, this is a delusional plan. All this has already been long implemented in the West Bank & it yielded abysmal results with Palestinians unwilling to leave. It will surely yield null results among Gazans.
• Long term annihilation by subversion. It is shocking to me how UNRWA is portrayed in the US (& the West) as some great humanitarian organization, when its reputation induces repulsion in the Arab world. That until it came out recently that USAID was funding it to promote Feminism & Wokeness & inoculate (sterilize) Palestinians in Gaza. To eventually drive Gazans to depravity & eventually extinction, or at least surrender. The probability of this outcome is virtually null. Not for other than the fact that both the Palestinian resistance & Israel itself are against it, since they figure out that Wokness would just make Palestinians even greater victims than they already are.
• Two state solution: recognize the Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital & the Palestinians right of return. This might actually be the most realistic positive outcome for Israel. Having a stable home, hope, prospects, freedom will make the Palestinians less prone to more conflict, & might even weaken their resolve to take back their land. Then, they would have much to lose than just keep peace, even just temporary, even with the Israelis who took their homes killed their families or expelled their ancestors. The undesirable consequence of this outcome might be the fact that Israel as a state will seek to integrate itself in the region like the Crusader pockets done in the past, & thus ceases to exist as a colonial project serving Western hegemony as a destabilizing agent in the region.
• One state solution: merging occupation territories & Palestenian territories into one nation under the state. The only conceivable form of this solution is something like Bosnia, a confederation, or a one-country two-state solution. This is only possible with a fully integrated Israel in the region completely abandoning its Zionist project. Otherwise only achieved by Israel being conquered. In effect, leaning from past developments & following the current trajectory Palestinian resistance is poised to possess in the not-far future hundreds of thousands of fighters with respectively equivalent arsenal of antitank RPGs & rifles & so forth. Plus, much more advanced drone & rocket capabilities, possibly even air-defense systems..Also, likely thousands of miles of underground tunnels spanning all occupied territories, including Eilat (nuclear depot) & Tel Aviv. An Oct 7 scenario, where instead of capturing the Gaza belt region for a few days, capturing the entirety of Israel forever.
C/C whatever the short-term outcome of this situation is, it is impossible for Israel to survive in the long term. If this was in Albania, the outcome might be dubious. Palestine happens to be the abode of the Holy Land for Muslims & a province of the Arab nation. You would have to get rid of all Arabs & then all Muslims to eliminate any claim or cause to that land. An impossible feat in itself. Whatever the case, Israel is surrounded by half a billion people forever hostile to its colonial presence in the region, who are historically, religiously & politically attached to the land. The Crusaders occupied –back & forth– Jerusalem for 170 years! But were eventually expelled. The moment the power scale equalizes or shifts in favor of Muslims/Arabs, the existence of the polity that is Israel will become transient. My take, Jews who wish to stay in the Holy Land should learn from History, abandon their Zionist project & actually integrate with the locals & become one with them. But I know this is too much to ask. They might be right, maybe God will allow them to build the temple…
- All that is sensational nonsense. He is not going to take Canada, nor Panama, nor Gaza. Never going to happen; ESPECIALLY Gaza. If Israel was winning, it would've never agreed to a ceasefire. They were pushing the ceasefire deal proposed in April hoping the Gazans would surrender come winter. That didn't happen. The fighting just got more intense. What does he actually mean? Maybe it’s just one of his bluffs & fantasies. Maybe it’s a negotiation tactic to pressure Arab countries & the resistance to concede more. Maybe it’s a result of his entourage, since virtually all his family members & all his colleagues are either Jews or married to Jews. & Israel want Gaza! Maybe it’s the imminent implementation of the Zionist project of taking Jerusalem, destroying the Aqsa mosque & building the Temple as prophesied! Or maybe it’s a real imperial urgency the American ruling dynasty sees as the only way to get rid of a serious threat to Israel & their hegemony.
- The whole discussion rests entirely on power dynamics. There will be no talk about Israel existence itself if this was transposed into China for instance, for respective power dynamics makes it unattainable. The current power dynamics dictate that the colonial pocket of Israel is a political reality, for it was successfully inserted in the region by relevant Colonial powers after the fall of the Ottoman Empire & the subsequent occupation of the region, directly or indirectly, manifesting in the current regimes surrounding Israel (Jordan, Egypt, Gulf states…).
- What are the facts? Israel deployed 529k personnel to invade Gaza, mobilizing thousands of tanks & armored vehicles & aircrafts, dropping +100k tons of explosives on the strip (which is 200x the intensity of the Vietnam War bombing), with constant supply of armament from the US & Europe worth +$20B (the Iran attack defense alone cost $1B), spending +$70B on this war – to fight a 15k-35k resistance force for 15 months to a standstill! The result? More Hamas fighters now than were before Oct 7 – 20% less tunnels -allegedly- & almost 6k Israeli soldiers dead & 15k wounded (it's likely much higher than that in reality, including the mercenaries & unregistered fighters) – & a prisoner exchange Hamas was seeking since Oct 7.
- Taking Gaza necessarily requires military action, i.e. boots on the ground, since Palestinians are clearly not going anywhere. US direct involvement will do very little to tip the scale of the conflict. The only thing it may cause is more civilian deaths, more -or smaller- rubble, & more Hamas recruits. Although we haven't seen attempts by Gazans to cross the borders south towards Egypt despite all the heavy bombing & fatal lifestyle they suffered, some might be willing to leave if offered a better life with housing & amenities elsewhere. But 'some' is not what Trump & Netanyahu want; they want ALL Palestinians to leave. Even if half leaves & half stays, nothing really fundamentally changes. Even if we assume Palestinians in Gaza are eager to leave, no country would be as motivated to welcome them ALL; for the simple fact that no country wants a potential army of hundreds of thousands on their soil.
- This isn't even guerrilla warfare. It's something entirely new. Gazans under siege for decades came to two realizations early: that the supremacy of US/Israel military is air power, & that the political solution (to achieve a Palestinian state) is a lie –Israel intends to keep them under siege until it can expel them. Acquiring advanced air defense systems being unattainable, they opted to dig tunnels as deep as 200ft underground capable of surviving a nuclear strike; 500 miles of them. Some of these are large enough to fit vehicles & large spaces. They also had to make their own weapons under siege. They built factories underground & used remaining explosives & materials from the occasional Israeli bombings to make RPGs, rockets with ranges up to 150 miles, rifles, drones, ammunitions...etc.
- Whatever side of the isle you're on, these people are very serious about resisting the US/Israeli occupation & gaining their freedom. You don't spend decades digging tunnels deep underground just to be told "leave". Now, Hamas & the other resistance factions have access to +10k tons of unexploded bombs, hundreds of captured tanks & drones, & a very large pool of potential recruits. There are 2 million people living in Gaza, 70% are under 18, & almost all of them lost everything they had –house, relatives, comfort, amenities, health...etc. These people have nothing more to lose. It is not farfetched to believe that the resistance factions might 10x their forces after this. Which means 10x the fighting force, 10x the weapons & 10x the tunnels. The resistance is growing stronger not weaker.
- Arabia, Egypt & Jordan –the object of intended displacement– are not heedless to the fact that US/Israel seek to expand their territory –as always intended– while pushing the conflict occupation vs resistance further away from their borders. Moving the Palestinians, even those willing, to "nicer" places does not magically abrogate their fight to take back their land after 100 years of resistance. In fact, albeit unrealistic, this turn of events might pose an even greater danger to the Israeli colonial project. 2 million Palestinians who just lost their land on top of suffering & losing everything else, who successfully fought Israel with the full backing of the West, might just be as successful in taking over the country they were moved into, say Egypt or Jordan. Unlike in Israel, a resistance force launching a coup against the Egyptian regime, for instance, will not face much resistance from the people, if not the opposite.
- The deep distress among Israelis regarding this situation is understandable, their state may actually be in danger. This might lead to the infamous Samson option. But if the Israelis use nuclear, it is certain that all regional powers will rush to acquire their own as fast as possible. Namely, Turkey, Saudi, & Iran, potentially Egypt, Iraq & Syria as well. The former already have nuclear capabilities for energy use (Saudi in the near future). That outcome alone might actually be more distressing not just to Israel but to the entire West than just having Palestinians in Gaza. Not the least, Israelis themselves, especially those with dual citizenship, will pack their bags & go back to their countries once they learn their neighbors have nuclear weapons. Israel is already experiencing persistent negative migration since Oct 7.
- All that been said, here are some possible outcomes:
• Trump/Israel wishful secret plan: use all available means short of genocide to expel the vast majority of Palestinians from Gaza & nuke the remaining ones who refuse to yield. Means like: incentives such as community housing, work, school… elsewhere, contracting siege to force them out, encroaching settlements replacing Palestinians homes, military confiscation, monetary brides or green cards, kidnapping, bombing, constant harrasment…etc. The value here is that it’s easier to deal with a couple hundred thousands than with 2 million, & that it’s possible to deal with the backlash of one but not the other. All in all, this is a delusional plan. All this has already been long implemented in the West Bank & it yielded abysmal results with Palestinians unwilling to leave. It will surely yield null results among Gazans.
• Long term annihilation by subversion. It is shocking to me how UNRWA is portrayed in the US (& the West) as some great humanitarian organization, when its reputation induces repulsion in the Arab world. That until it came out recently that USAID was funding it to promote Feminism & Wokeness & inoculate (sterilize) Palestinians in Gaza. To eventually drive Gazans to depravity & eventually extinction, or at least surrender. The probability of this outcome is virtually null. Not for other than the fact that both the Palestinian resistance & Israel itself are against it, since they figure out that Wokness would just make Palestinians even greater victims than they already are.
• Two state solution: recognize the Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital & the Palestinians right of return. This might actually be the most realistic positive outcome for Israel. Having a stable home, hope, prospects, freedom will make the Palestinians less prone to more conflict, & might even weaken their resolve to take back their land. Then, they would have much to lose than just keep peace, even just temporary, even with the Israelis who took their homes killed their families or expelled their ancestors. The undesirable consequence of this outcome might be the fact that Israel as a state will seek to integrate itself in the region like the Crusader pockets done in the past, & thus ceases to exist as a colonial project serving Western hegemony as a destabilizing agent in the region.
• One state solution: merging occupation territories & Palestenian territories into one nation under the state. The only conceivable form of this solution is something like Bosnia, a confederation, or a one-country two-state solution. This is only possible with a fully integrated Israel in the region completely abandoning its Zionist project. Otherwise only achieved by Israel being conquered. In effect, leaning from past developments & following the current trajectory Palestinian resistance is poised to possess in the not-far future hundreds of thousands of fighters with respectively equivalent arsenal of antitank RPGs & rifles & so forth. Plus, much more advanced drone & rocket capabilities, possibly even air-defense systems..Also, likely thousands of miles of underground tunnels spanning all occupied territories, including Eilat (nuclear depot) & Tel Aviv. An Oct 7 scenario, where instead of capturing the Gaza belt region for a few days, capturing the entirety of Israel forever.
C/C whatever the short-term outcome of this situation is, it is impossible for Israel to survive in the long term. If this was in Albania, the outcome might be dubious. Palestine happens to be the abode of the Holy Land for Muslims & a province of the Arab nation. You would have to get rid of all Arabs & then all Muslims to eliminate any claim or cause to that land. An impossible feat in itself. Whatever the case, Israel is surrounded by half a billion people forever hostile to its colonial presence in the region, who are historically, religiously & politically attached to the land. The Crusaders occupied –back & forth– Jerusalem for 170 years! But were eventually expelled. The moment the power scale equalizes or shifts in favor of Muslims/Arabs, the existence of the polity that is Israel will become transient. My take, Jews who wish to stay in the Holy Land should learn from History, abandon their Zionist project & actually integrate with the locals & become one with them. But I know this is too much to ask. They might be right, maybe God will allow them to build the temple…