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Diana Murray's avatar

I'll read your entire post later - I'm short for time now, but I want to get this out. Every day brings new, horrible revelations. It's impossible to keep up with them as they occur. It takes a day or two for the truth to be assimilated.

But here's the essence: from the very beginning a fix was baked into the cake. The US used the terror haven Qatar as a good faith interlocutor with Hamas and negotiated with Hamas, as if Hamas was a legitimate negotiating partner.

That was a crime. It was such an obvious thing we all missed it. Overlooked it. It was like a big pile of dung on a $50 million dollar carpet.

The goal should have been to obliterate Hamas.

Later!

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The Angry Demagogue's avatar

That is because the current administration viewed October 7 as an opportunity to force a genocidal Palestinian state on it. What they didn't understand was that Israel's young are not spoiled brat Ivy Leaguers.

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Viktor Khandourine's avatar

A very correct analysis of the situation and a very clear overview of opinions within Israel.

Israeli society is very slowly beginning to understand that the only way out of the situation is victory.

It is impossible to achieve peace by any agreement and any ceasefire. Any agreement will not give peace.

Neither European politicians nor Biden-Blinken understand this yet.

The options Victory Later and Victory Never will only make a large local war even more inevitable and even closer.

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Stephen Schecter's avatar

I agree this is a pretty fair summation of what goes on, even if I have doubts about the Victory Later proposition. In my recent piece My late grandmother and the war in Gaza (https://open.substack.com/pub/schecter/p/my-late-grandmother-and-the-war-in?r=1wpgf7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web) I added some points about the Israeli public which require keeping in mind. The nature of the Israeli electoral system and the millennial Jewish penchant for personalized leadership (even and especially in Ben-Gurion days) seems to lead the always Victory Later people to garner public support in terms of the government Israel winds up with. Hopefully things will now change. Netanyahu, once the war in Gaza is over, should resign and hand over power to the younger generation. The Victory Now people should form ONE party and push through the program. In terms of Biden's usually sneaky and disgusting leak of a potential deal and ascribing it to the Israeli government while blaming credit for it - only Smotrich answered him clearly and properly, saying what Netanyahu should have said. For all his talents, Netanyahu has been a disappointment of late and should redeem himself before exiting stage left. Here we are defending Israel, encouraging Jews, and trying to read the tea leaves because back-stabbing Biden and Obama and the Democrats announce deals that should not have been announced. Victory Now is and should be our only goal. Kudos once again to Finance Minister Smotrich aided by gutsy Ben-Gvir. Time for like-minded Likudniks to think outside the box and speak to these two clear-headed politicians.

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