(I disagree) Article Title - The Cost of Victory: Israel Overpowered Its Foes, but Deepened Its Isolation

[JBG]

The Cost of Victory: Israel Overpowered Its Foes, but Deepened Its Isolation (link) Typical NY Times/academic negotiation/surrender monkey BS. Excerpt (link):

It is more secure from threats than at any time since its founding. But the war in Gaza, and attacks on Iran and Lebanon, have undercut Israel’s standing among the world’s democracies.....The exercise of raw power has allowed Israel, for the first time since its creation in 1948, a future mostly free from immediate threats. The risk of a nuclear Iran is diminished, or perhaps gone. Israel has stable, if uneasy, relations with Persian Gulf Arab states. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cemented his partnership with President Trump.
The new reality in Israel, said Yaakov Amidror, a retired Israeli general and former top aide to Mr. Netanyahu, is that places once under constant threat from Lebanon, Syria or Gaza “will be more secure than Manhattan.”
But at what cost?
Mr. Netanyahu’s relentless and unapologetic military response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that killed 1,200 people and took 250 people hostage has cemented the view of Israel as a pariah, its leadership accused of genocide and war crimes, and disdained by some world leaders. In opinion polls globally, most people have a negative view of Israel.....
In 1981, Menachem Begin, then the prime minister of Israel, urged Israelis to “never pause to wonder what the world will think or say.” He told a group of American Jews that “the world may not necessarily like the fighting Jew, but the world will have to take account of him.”
But 20 months of fighting in all directions has had consequences. Another generation of Palestinians living under occupation will see some radicalized to fight against Israel. Israel has created a new wave of global opinion critical of its goals and methods. And many Israelis now feel threatened while abroad, even as they are more secure at home.

In my opinion Menachem Begin was right. The reputed public acclaim for Israel in the past did it no good. Did the world come rushing to Israel's defense on October 8, 2023? On October 7, 1973? On the latter date "world opinion" quailed before the "oil weapon." Even the U.S. did. On October 8, 2023, before Israeli retaliation, antisemitism broke out on university campuses and world capitals. "Public opinion" is a worthless chimera.

Menachem Begin understood well that the Jews did better fighting rather than surrendering. Remember it was him, not his dovish predecessors, that welcomed Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem and the Knesset. Jimmy Carter's involvement, at first, was the joint communique with Brezhnev that panicked Sadat into the trip. Camp David was nice, but largely window dressing.

 

[Tigerace117]

The Cost of Victory: Israel Overpowered Its Foes, but Deepened Its Isolation (link) Typical NY Times/academic negotiation/surrender monkey BS. Excerpt (link):
In my opinion Menachem Begin was right. The reputed public acclaim for Israel in the past did it no good. Did the world come rushing to Israel's defense on October 8, 2023? On October 7, 1973? On the latter date "world opinion" quailed before the "oil weapon." Even the U.S. did. On October 8, 2023, before Israeli retaliation, antisemitism broke out on university campuses and world capitals. "Public opinion" is a worthless chimera.

Menachem Begin understood well that the Jews did better fighting rather than surrendering. Remember it was him, not his dovish predecessors, that welcomed Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem and the Knesset. Jimmy Carter's involvement, at first, was the joint communique with Brezhnev that panicked Sadat into the trip. Camp David was nice, but largely window dressing.

Claiming Israel “won” is simply not based in reality. Contrary to its apologists’ claims, neither Hamas nor Hezbollah had been destroyed; Iran certainly isn’t going to be giving up on nukes after the latest campaign of aggression against them.

Much like Menachem Begin’s efforts to terrorize the Palestinians into submission ended in utter failure with the death of Israel’s favored puppet and the disgrace of the Israeli backed massacre of innocent civilians at Sabra and Shatila being exposed to the globe.

Wails about “October 7th” are worthless; Israel has murdered well over ten times as many innocent civilians at this point.

Likewise, the Yom Kippur War could have been entirely averted had Israel not been so devoted to trying to steal Egyptian land….. and the panic and fear felt by Israel as their overconfident tankers and pilots were slaughtered by Egyptian soldiers and Soviet missiles briefly shattered Tel Aviv’s hubris, and thereby made peace possible.

 

[Fearandloathing]

The Cost of Victory: Israel Overpowered Its Foes, but Deepened Its Isolation (link) Typical NY Times/academic negotiation/surrender monkey BS. Excerpt (link):
In my opinion Menachem Begin was right. The reputed public acclaim for Israel in the past did it no good. Did the world come rushing to Israel's defense on October 8, 2023? On October 7, 1973? On the latter date "world opinion" quailed before the "oil weapon." Even the U.S. did. On October 8, 2023, before Israeli retaliation, antisemitism broke out on university campuses and world capitals. "Public opinion" is a worthless chimera.

Menachem Begin understood well that the Jews did better fighting rather than surrendering. Remember it was him, not his dovish predecessors, that welcomed Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem and the Knesset. Jimmy Carter's involvement, at first, was the joint communique with Brezhnev that panicked Sadat into the trip. Camp David was nice, but largely window dressing.

I was living in Montreal (the world's second largest population of Jews outside of Jerusalem) when the six day war broke out.

The aggressive street campaigning and money raising, people standing on street corners with paper cups collecting coins for the "defense fund" and its aggressiveness was annoying and to me, 'un-Canadian - we don't not raise $ for war!). To be in that panic was unnerving and not something I ever want in my life again. It was as if Saudi Arabia had begun bombing Ottawa! And taking sides in a conflict that Canada had no part of. Most of us dismiss the Arab-Israeli conflict as a matter between local tribes.

At the time in Canada, Israel could do no wrong. But, it was their breach of ethics and racism that turned Canadian public opinion against them.

Today, I question the authority by which Israel was granted territory in the first place. The Israeli people were originally from Northern Africa. They practice racism in the name of faith and have violated hundreds of international laws, from deliberate starvation to bombing civilians.

 

[Apocalypse]

Public opinion is worth nothing when thousands of Islamist genocidal terrorists invade your country and start murdering, torturing, raping and kidnapping everything that comes in their way.
Israel is in a much better position defensively today after the crushing defeat of Hezbollah, Iran and the eventual defeating of Hamas, as well as Assad leaving Syria.
The change in mentality between October 6 2023 and October 7 2023 also ensures that Israel will be aggressive against those who plot against its citizens and not just defensive, looking to get the threat actors at their own home ground and not waiting for them to act against the citizens of the country before starting a short offensive campaign that ends with nothing done.
It is my opinion that those who hate Jews will hate them regardless of what they do, and those who embrace the same evil through sheer ignorance should not be taken into mind when calling security policies.

 

[Tigerace117]

Public opinion is worth nothing when thousands of Islamist genocidal terrorists invade your country and start murdering, torturing, raping and kidnapping everything that comes in their way.
Israel is in a much better position defensively today after the crushing defeat of Hezbollah, Iran and the eventual defeating of Hamas, as well as Assad leaving Syria.
The change in mentality between October 6 2023 and October 7 2023 also ensures that Israel will be aggressive against those who plot against its citizens and not just defensive, looking to get the threat actors at their own home ground and not waiting for them to act against the citizens of the country before starting a short offensive campaign that ends with nothing done.
It is my opinion that those who hate Jews will hate them regardless of what they do, and those who embrace the same evil through sheer ignorance should not be taken into mind when calling security policies.

Gee, apartheid South Africa blathered the same thing. The only difference was they were wailing about “communist terrorists” instead of “Islamist terrorists”.

Guess what? It did, in fact, matter what the rest of the world thought.

Israel has waged aggressive campaigns against innocent Palestinian civilians for many years now, yes. The fact that using human shields and torturing civilians is fully endorsed by the IDF and its masters doesn’t actually change that.

Israel is no different than the apartheid regime it so desperately tried to save in South Africa… and we all know how that ended

 

[Apocalypse]

Gee, apartheid South Africa blathered the same thing. The only difference was they were wailing about “communist terrorists” instead of “Islamist terrorists”.

Guess what? It did, in fact, matter what the rest of the world thought.

Israel has waged aggressive campaigns against innocent Palestinian civilians for many years now, yes. The fact that using human shields and torturing civilians is fully endorsed by the IDF and its masters doesn’t actually change that.

Israel is no different than the apartheid regime it so desperately tried to save in South Africa… and we all know how that ended

Your 'gee here's my anti-Western propaganda' is as appreciated as always but South Africa apartheid regime faced internal and economic struggles and Israel is a flourishing democracy with a very strong economy that got stronger through the last two years and your dream of dictatorships prevailing is always laughable regardless of what you're saying. If any regime is close to ending it is the failed Iranian theocratical regime.

 

[Tigerace117]

Your 'gee here's my anti-Western propaganda' is as appreciated as always but South Africa apartheid regime faced internal and economic struggles and Israel is a flourishing democracy with a very strong economy that got stronger through the last two years and your dream of dictatorships prevailing is always laughable regardless of what you're saying. If any regime is close to ending it is the failed Iranian theocratical regime.

Pointing out Israel and apartheid South Africa were close friends and allies is simple historical fact, no matter how inconvenient you find it

Israel is anything but a “flourishing democracy”. Your leader is a corrupt war criminal.

Gee, seeing as decades of effort by Israel have utterly failed to wipe the Palestinians out claims of “Iranian failure” are rather comical.

 

[Apocalypse]

Pointing out Israel and apartheid South Africa were close friends and allies is simple historical fact, no matter how inconvenient you find it

Israel is anything but a “flourishing democracy”. Your leader is a corrupt war criminal.

Gee, seeing as decades of effort by Israel have utterly failed to wipe the Palestinians out claims of “Iranian failure” are rather comical.

Good thing Israel hasn't tried to "wipe Palestinians out".
Your automatic support for every dictatorship on this planet makes your empty claims completely irrelevant.

 

[Tigerace117]

Good thing Israel hasn't tried to "wipe Palestinians out".
Your automatic support for every dictatorship on this planet makes your empty claims completely irrelevant.

Oh really? Have you told Israel that? Because they don’t appear to have gotten your memo.

No amount of whining about me can change what Israel is doing.

 

[JBG]

Pointing out Israel and apartheid South Africa were close friends and allies is simple historical fact, no matter how inconvenient you find it

Israel is anything but a “flourishing democracy”. Your leader is a corrupt war criminal.

Gee, seeing as decades of effort by Israel have utterly failed to wipe the Palestinians out claims of “Iranian failure” are rather comical.

Do you have a special love for failed states?

 

[Tigerace117]

Do you have a special love for failed states?

Apartheid South Africa indeed was a failed state, but it still took a lot of heroism on the part of the ANC and their dissident allies, neighboring states like Angola and Mozambique, and the Cubans and Soviets to stop their rampages.

Israel being a close ally of that failed state is telling.

 

[pedex]

Claiming Israel “won” is simply not based in reality. Contrary to its apologists’ claims, neither Hamas nor Hezbollah had been destroyed; Iran certainly isn’t going to be giving up on nukes after the latest campaign of aggression against them.

Much like Menachem Begin’s efforts to terrorize the Palestinians into submission ended in utter failure with the death of Israel’s favored puppet and the disgrace of the Israeli backed massacre of innocent civilians at Sabra and Shatila being exposed to the globe.

Wails about “October 7th” are worthless; Israel has murdered well over ten times as many innocent civilians at this point.

Likewise, the Yom Kippur War could have been entirely averted had Israel not been so devoted to trying to steal Egyptian land….. and the panic and fear felt by Israel as their overconfident tankers and pilots were slaughtered by Egyptian soldiers and Soviet missiles briefly shattered Tel Aviv’s hubris, and thereby made peace possible.

One of the interesting changes of late is missile offense vs defense. Israel nor the US can afford to or aren't able to produce anti-missile missiles at a rate sufficient to outlast everyone shooting back at them. Israel got its nose bloodied pretty bad. They tried to hide the damage but it can't be ignored. Iran and the Houthi's have shown they can be touched.

 

[JBG]

Apartheid South Africa indeed was a failed state, but it still took a lot of heroism on the part of the ANC and their dissident allies, neighboring states like Angola and Mozambique, and the Cubans and Soviets to stop their rampages.

Israel being a close ally of that failed state is telling.

The ANC has set up a failed state. No doubt about that. Crime is rampant and it is definitely a one-party state. Nothing truly "majority" about it, besides the tyrant being of the same color as most of the people.

 

[Tigerace117]

The ANC has set up a failed state. No doubt about that. Crime is rampant and it is definitely a one-party state. Nothing truly "majority" about it, besides the tyrant being of the same color as most of the people.

And yet they have still done far better than the apartheid regime, which waged war against just about all their neighbors and sought to forcibly sterilize their non white population.

 

[JBG]

Apartheid South Africa indeed was a failed state, but it still took a lot of heroism on the part of the ANC and their dissident allies, neighboring states like Angola and Mozambique, and the Cubans and Soviets to stop their rampages.

Israel being a close ally of that failed state is telling.

See

An Apartheid-Era Torture Method Endures Among South African Police​

(link, not paywalled). This is what a democratic, fair country looks like? Israel is not suffocating people with plastic bags. Excerpt:

During the worst days of apartheid, South Africa’s white-led police force terrorized Black people with a brutal interrogation tactic that involved suffocating them, often with plastic bags.

After apartheid, South Africa adopted a constitution that explicitly outlawed such torture methods and signed international treaties committed to prevent it.

But a New York Times analysis of government data has found that, three decades after apartheid, the police in South Africa continue to use the same suffocation method — known as tubing — when interrogating suspects.

From 2012 to 2023, an average of three people per week filed complaints that the police had tubed them during interrogations, according to the analysis done by The Times in collaboration with Viewfinder, a South African journalism nonprofit that reports on police misconduct.

Before you yell "what-about-ism" this relentless focus on Israel is a sickening double-standard.

 

[Tigerace117]

See

An Apartheid-Era Torture Method Endures Among South African Police​

(link, not paywalled). This is what a democratic, fair country looks like? Israel is not suffocating people with plastic bags. Excerpt:

Before you yell "what-about-ism" this relentless focus on Israel is a sickening double-standard.

Israel is absolutely torturing prisoners, which is something that has been extensively reported on.

The fact Israel fought so hard to defend apartheid can’t be handwaved away.

 

[JBG]

Israel is absolutely torturing prisoners, which is something that has been extensively reported on.

The fact Israel fought so hard to defend apartheid can’t be handwaved away.

The fact is you support anything done by a failed state as long as it's brown or black.

 

[Tigerace117]

The fact is you support anything done by a failed state as long as it's brown or black.

South Africa is not a “failed state”; it is exponentially better off than it was under the Israeli backed apartheid regime, in fact.

 

[Evilroddy]

The State of Israel is committing against Gaza's civilians war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide as defined by the Genocide Convention. Its Prime Minister and former Defence Minister are now indicted war criminals and pending prosecution. I prayed that on his way back to Israel, Netanyahu's plane would suffer just enough mechanical trouble that it would be forced to land on Canadian territory so that we could arrest the alleged criminal and hand him over to The Hague for prosecution. So many more Israeli leaders need to be indicted including Itmar Ben Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, Israel Katz, and many others should be likewise be indicted for their publicly stated policies which amount to endorsing genocide.

Yes, Israel will win this war through genocide but it will not win the peace and it will win greater international scorn and isolation. Furthermore Israeli Americans are becoming more and more disillusioned with the criminal policies of the State of Israel and if there is a change in Congress after the mid-term elections, then Israel's shield against international legal action and political censoring will be gone. A reckoning will happen where these alleged criminals will be prosecuted or the State of israel will face a far more global and effective BDS movement by individuals and government that will leave it weaker and more isolated. Surrounding countries should not attack Israel but should refuse to trade with it and to supply it with energy and other resources which its economy depends on. However no food sanctions. Let the State of Israel become its own greater Gaza until it begins to act within International Laws and prosecutes its indicted criminal itself or surrenders them for foreign prosecution. Furthermore the world should now demand that the State of Israel fully disclose all of its nuclear capability, accurately report its full nuclear weapon stockpile and submit to regular IAEA inspections without advanced warning.

Be well and be safe.
Evilroddy.

 

[coyote505]

One of the interesting changes of late is missile offense vs defense. Israel nor the US can afford to or aren't able to produce anti-missile missiles at a rate sufficient to outlast everyone shooting back at them. Israel got its nose bloodied pretty bad. They tried to hide the damage but it can't be ignored. Iran and the Houthi's have shown they can be touched.

All the better reason for Israel to carpet bomb the Houthis.

 

[pedex]

All the better reason for Israel to carpet bomb the Houthis.

Lots of attempts have been made for going on like 10 years now. Isn't working. Yemen says stop killing people in Gaza and they'll stop.

 

[coyote505]

I was living in Montreal (the world's second largest population of Jews outside of Jerusalem) when the six day war broke out.

The aggressive street campaigning and money raising, people standing on street corners with paper cups collecting coins for the "defense fund" and its aggressiveness was annoying and to me, 'un-Canadian - we don't not raise $ for war!). To be in that panic was unnerving and not something I ever want in my life again. It was as if Saudi Arabia had begun bombing Ottawa! And taking sides in a conflict that Canada had no part of. Most of us dismiss the Arab-Israeli conflict as a matter between local tribes.

At the time in Canada, Israel could do no wrong. But, it was their breach of ethics and racism that turned Canadian public opinion against them.

Today, I question the authority by which Israel was granted territory in the first place. The Israeli people were originally from Northern Africa. They practice racism in the name of faith and have violated hundreds of international laws, from deliberate starvation to bombing civilians.

Your impression of Israel support in the six day war, pretty accurately parallels most Americans opinion of Pali sympathy rallies now.

 

[Tigerace117]

All the better reason for Israel to carpet bomb the Houthis.

Gee, America and its pals have been trying that for a decade and has failed pathetically at every turn.

 

[pedex]

Gee, America and its pals have been trying that for a decade and has failed pathetically at every turn.

The days of overwhelming air power and bombing aren't what they used to be.

 

[JBG]

The days of overwhelming air power and bombing aren't what they used to be.

Especially when they warn and thus empty the buildings (besides a few left behind for sympathy) before bombing.