Hamas attacking Israel

[Sabrefan1]

2 minutes ago, moosehead said:

Ignorant people will make assumptions that match their personal belief system.  More intelligent people will understand all the indocrination / propaganda / social media manipulation both sides use.... and thus hold their judgement until the proper independent truth is found out. 

 

And then there is me.  I mostly gave up on that small part of the world.  They're going to keep fighting and killing one another until one or the other is eliminated.

[Blueorgreen]

40 minutes ago, moosehead said:

 

Whenever i ref sports.... I always whistle  a quick penalty  call first few minutes....  Keeps all the players in line rest of the game . LOL

Steve kazari is that you?

[The Arrogant Worms]

Breaking: A US Navy warship operating in the Middle East intercepted multiple projectiles near the coast of Yemen, two US officials told CNN.
One of the officials said the missiles were fired by Iranian-backed Houthi militants.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/19/politics/us-navy-intercept-missiles-yemen/index.html

 

The U.S. Navy intercepted several missiles fired near the coast of Yemen on Wednesday, two U.S. told Fox News. 

 

It was unclear what the missiles were targeting

.

One official said the missile were fired from Iranian backed Houthi militants.  Iran has provided the Houthi rebels with weapons amid a crippling war in Yemen. 

 

Bring. Gen. Pat Ryder said during a press conference at the Pentagon on Thursday that the missiles were heading "potentially towards targets in Israel."

Edited October 19, 2023 by The Arrogant Worms

[Elias Pettersson]

38 minutes ago, Sabrefan1 said:

 

He's a politician.  He's waiting to see for sure which side of the argument most voters end up on.  That will become his official stance.

 

Truer words have never been spoken...

[The Arrogant Worms]

Drones attack a US military base in southern Syria and there are minor injuries, US officials say

 

https://apnews.com/article/us-military-base-syria-drone-attacks-0909cb5b2717963dfd6c4e93522c5ae8

 

[Canuck Surfer]

12 minutes ago, Sabrefan1 said:

 

Also, voters don't always care about waiting for the truth.  That includes Canadian voters.  Toronto has already had protests according to the Toronto Sun.

 

Palestinian people will & do have a right to protest.  The same is true of Jewish people who want to make themselves known.

 

I saw extensive US commentary that belittled protesters based on the heinous nature of first Hamas attacks.  They have been victimized as well.  I absolutely have time for their voice!

 

It stops short when they call for, or take part in violence. Or justifying violence. Particularly egregious acts. I saw a Canadian Palestinian girl on U Tube, maybe 17 or 19 at a Mississauga rally? Suggesting every action by Hamas, was in every way justified.  That needs to be called out! 

 

But as a simple statement, I disagreed with those who said people had no right to protest. 

 

 

Taking a more cynical, or as @Optimist Prime might resolve, practical view of these protests?  There was a guy in Sydney here in Australia?  He got in front of a microphone & explained he was ''elated'' at the death and killing inflicted the first day by Hamas. He called on his Palestinian & Islamic brothers to ''rise!'' I won't get in to more, but that is inciting violence. This could be easily also be said on many a Jerusalem Day March past the East wall by Jewish settlers, RW extremists, even Hasidic  terrorists. Parades under armed guards calling for death, a few doors and heads busted. Certainly not just, but including Hamas. They all exist as a serious problem, should have been & need to be curtailed as well?  

 

Oh, the cynical view? In the Hockey Sense; take a number!  These are perfect opportunities for police, border & immigration authorities. The justice system to track & hold people accountable. You need to know who enemies of a peaceful world are!

[moosehead]

55 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

 

sure, but I was speaking more to the PA being a more moderate political entity. 

 

Yes , the whole region definately needs more moderate leaders. Compromise will be critical.

[Bob Long]

2 minutes ago, moosehead said:

 

Yes , the whole region definately needs more moderate leaders. Compromise will be critical.

 

With the world pushing to be more extreme.

 

Maybe Xi can take over for a few years and see what he can come up with.

[NewbieCanuckFan]

2 hours ago, RomanPer said:

 

Watched the video. I'm not sure how they can claim that their "investigation" confirms that it was Israeli strike. They show non-stop video without any evidence of any rocket flying to the target, it's completely dark after the rocket intercept. Israeli rocket strike would have visual confirmation, which there's none. Yet, they make conclusions. I think they misunderstood - hiring someone with British accent to deliver the text doesn't make it suddenly more believable.

 

 

[Canuck Surfer]

7 hours ago, Optimist Prime said:

I wonder if it would be possible to set up an arrangement where women and children are processed through the Rafah gate into Egypt, by the Egyption authorities, and strictly moved by bus to another crossing into Israel and strait to the relatively more peaceful West Bank? Obviously a massive undertaking but if even 200 thousand people can be moved out to relative safety quickly and more to follow over time, this might save lives?

 

Is the West Bank just another powder keg?

 

Admittedly safer at this exact moment. Egypt themselves does not want the refugee's. 

 

If Hamas had their way, all their Islamic brothers would be marching across Iraq & Syria ATM, heading for the West Bank & Al Aqsa.  

[Optimist Prime]

1 minute ago, Canuck Surfer said:

 

Is the West Bank just another powder keg?

 

Admittedly safer at this exact moment. Egypt themselves does not want the refugee's. 

 

If Hamas had their way, all their Islamic brothers would be marching across Iraq & Syria ATM, heading for the West Bank & Al Aqsa.  

Relative to Gaza, the west Bank and its leadership is pursuing peace and prosperity. Moving Gazans there may worsen the situation, but if an eventual 2 state solution is a future answer, the West Bank may be the appropriate spot. I am just supposing.

[Sabrefan1]

38 minutes ago, Canuck Surfer said:

 

Palestinian people will & do have a right to protest.  The same is true of Jewish people who want to make themselves known.

 

I saw extensive US commentary that belittled protesters based on the heinous nature of first Hamas attacks.  They have been victimized as well.  I absolutely have time for their voice!

 

It stops short when they call for, or take part in violence. Or justifying violence. Particularly egregious acts. I saw a Canadian Palestinian girl on U Tube, maybe 17 or 19 at a Mississauga rally? Suggesting every action by Hamas, was in every way justified.  That needs to be called out! 

 

But as a simple statement, I disagreed with those who said people had no right to protest. 

 

 

Taking a more cynical, or as @Optimist Prime might resolve, practical view of these protests?  There was a guy in Sydney here in Australia?  He got in front of a microphone & explained he was ''elated'' at the death and killing inflicted the first day by Hamas. He called on his Palestinian & Islamic brothers to ''rise!'' I won't get in to more, but that is inciting violence. This could be easily also be said on many a Jerusalem Day March past the East wall by Jewish settlers, RW extremists, even Hasidic  terrorists. Parades under armed guards calling for death, a few doors and heads busted. Certainly not just, but including Hamas. They all exist as a serious problem, should have been & need to be curtailed as well?  

 

Oh, the cynical view? In the Hockey Sense; take a number!  These are perfect opportunities for police, border & immigration authorities. The justice system to track & hold people accountable. You need to know who enemies of a peaceful world are!

 

 

Of course people have a right to protest.  My only issue is, knowing the truth about the subject of your protest.  Protesting just because you want to side with your tribe is ridiculous.  Tribalism doesn't lead to unvarnished truth.  It only leads to what you want to choose to believe.  Ask any MAGA Republican who truly won the 2020 election and I'm sure you know the answer you will get.

 

Personally, I gave up on that region of the Middle East a long time ago.  They both want each other gone.  That won't happen until one side or the other wins a war.  That's how the Jews were pushed out twice.  Same with everyone else who lived there in history.

[Sharpshooter]

2 hours ago, Coconuts said:

 

That's disappointing, I wouldn't consider you an inflammatory poster. 

 

If this thread is being more tightly moderated here than it would be on CDC that's a shame, being out from under a direct Canucks banner should result in things running looser imo. 

Look to the top of every page. 
 

There’s a reason i’ve set the conditions of all discussions here pretty clearly. This also goes to making insulting comments that provoke other Members or degrades what the Moderators are putting forth. 
 

FAFO 

 

Just want to note that this isn’t directed at you. Just a top up of warnings to everyone. 
 

 

 

[bishopshodan]

16 minutes ago, Sharpshooter said:

Look to the top of every page. 
 

There’s a reason i’ve set the conditions of all discussions here pretty clearly. This also goes to making insulting comments that provoke other Members or degrades what the Moderators are putting forth. 
 

FAFO 

 

Just want to note that this isn’t directed at you. Just a top up of warnings to everyone. 
 

 

 

 

at me then?

 

tag a bro, if so

[Sharpshooter]

Just now, bishopshodan said:

 

at me then?

 

tag a bro, if so

Not at all. Glad you had a run this morning to shake it off. 
 

PM me if you ever need to chat. 
 

 

[Optimist Prime]

1 hour ago, Bob Long said:

 

With the world pushing to be more extreme.

 

Maybe Xi can take over for a few years and see what he can come up with.

It was really weird for me to see yesterday Putin and Xi calling democratically elected leaders "Temps" while praising dictators like himself as 'full time leaders who know how to do it" kind an attitude. 

 

the balls on that guy, massive! The narrative is bold to say the least. 

[Bob Long]

2 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

It was really weird for me to see yesterday Putin and Xi calling democratically elected leaders "Temps" while praising dictators like himself as 'full time leaders who know how to do it" kind an attitude. 

 

the balls on that guy, massive! The narrative is bold to say the least. 

 

So let's see how they do for a while? Maybe people in the ME might rethink their anti-US stance.

[Ilunga]

5 hours ago, bishopshodan said:

 

Actaully this is a moment for me to thank great posters like yourself.

 

I have never had any other SM than these Canucks sites. So what I have done is, after many years of reading posts,  come to trust some of the posters. Like an intel group. I see it that I have a fantastic resource of smart people that will read, post, and analyse. I learn a lot. There are so many posters from so many walks of life. Some of them have really cool jobs or really cool experiences. We have had thick skin for the most part and debated in good faith, attacking the idea is something that most can handle. 

 

Anyway, you are one of my 'group of trusted posters' that I pay attention to when here. You have great humour but also as bright as they come. Thanks Nuts.

 

Go Canucks. 

 

Everyone on this board is important to me, we all share the bond of wanting to share both a love of the Canucks/ ice hockey and opinions on subjects/ topics such as this one.

 

I haven't checked but I think I know the post you were referring to that was taken down.

Loved the empathy that was shown, gave you a " hug "and went back to thinking about my son. 

 

There are a lot of great people on this board however you truly have a heart of gold my friend.

Your empathy for others is your greatest strength.

It's the only criteria I have for my friends, that one has a good heart. 

 

 

 

[Coconuts]

[CBH1926]

2 hours ago, Optimist Prime said:

It was really weird for me to see yesterday Putin and Xi calling democratically elected leaders "Temps" while praising dictators like himself as 'full time leaders who know how to do it" kind an attitude. 

 

the balls on that guy, massive! The narrative is bold to say the least. 

Putin has benefited from this latest escalation of violence in the ME.

Temporarily eyes of the world are off the conflict in Ukraine.

While most nations very unified in terms of that war, ME is totally different.

 

[Calamity K]

Truer words...

 

 

 

[Blueorgreen]

3 hours ago, Coconuts said:

[Playoff Beered]

 

The full interview...

 

 

[Playoff Beered]

What It Takes to Choose Life Over Revenge

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/opinion/israel-netanyahu-palestinians.html

 

 

Quote

 

By Ayman Odeh

 

Mr. Odeh is an Arab Palestinian citizen of Israel and a member of the Knesset who wrote from Haifa.

 

This week, I called Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, a physician from Gaza who now lives in Canada, to check in on him. During Israel’s 2008-9 war on Gaza, three of his daughters were killed when an Israeli tank struck their home. This time, I had to offer my condolences again, when he told me about the recent deaths of more than 25 members of his extended family in Gaza. Among them, he said, were five babies.

 

In his declaration of war on Gaza on Oct. 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel quoted a line from a poem by the Jewish writer Chaim Nachman Bialik. “Revenge for the blood of a little child has yet been devised by Satan,” Mr. Netanyahu posted on social media.

Perhaps the prime minister forgot what Bialik wrote just one line before that: “And cursed be he who cries out: Revenge.” Or the next lines: “Let the blood fill the abyss!/let it pierce the blackest depths.”

 

These days I find myself asking what the poet meant by this. Bialik wrote it after learning of the horrors of the 1903 Kishinev pogrom.

 

But in his words I see the many little ones from the various communities in Israel and Gaza whose names appear in news reports as having been killed in the past 11 days — 10 months old; 1 week old; 2, 4, 5 years old. On and on. The blood of our very young has pierced the blackest depths and we have been brought down along with it.

 

A nation is defined as a group of people with a common language, a common past and common dreams. By this definition, any parent will tell you that all the world’s babies are children of a single nation. They have a common language, a common past, common dreams.

They speak the same, get angry and cry at the same things, laugh the same way. When my three children were young, I marveled at how they communicated effortlessly with other babies, no matter the language of the lullabies their parents sang them at night.

 

The whole of this nation of infants — Jewish, Arab, Palestinian, Israeli — wants just one thing: to grow up to a good life. It’s a simple dream. Our role as leaders is simple too: to make that possible.

 

As adults, we all become expatriates of that nation, and we take the dream of a good life with us: To put food on the table for our families. To know we are free to go where we want. To speak, pray and celebrate as we like. To come home safely at the end of the day. To know our loved ones will too.

 

There is nothing in this world — not even the cruel occupation — that can justify harming innocent people. Nothing. I have always categorically opposed harming civilians, and I will continue opposing it with every fiber of my being. It is a violation of our collective humanity.

 

I have friends who were killed and who lost children in Hamas’s murderous attack on Oct. 7. I have friends who were injured and killed in Gaza in the days that followed. My heart has broken, along with the people of this country and people around the world, for each and every family searching for loved ones, grieving them or trying to bring them home.

 

Yet despite all this, I have also witnessed glimmers of the future we could have, made real by ordinary people — Jewish and Arab, Palestinian and Israeli — who have stepped up in the face of unspeakable tragedy. In Israel, much of the military had been apparently stationed in the West Bank to protect settlers. As terrified families in the south hid from armed Hamas attackers and prayed for rescue, Arab Palestinian and Jewish doctors, nurses, paramedics, ambulance drivers and emergency medical workers stood side by side and worked together to treat everyone in need of care, no matter who they were. In Gaza, doctors and health care workers have been trying to treat patients under near-constant bombardment with nowhere safe to go — not even to the hospitals themselves — and with no water, electricity or food, not to mention medical supplies.

 

These are ordinary people acting from the core of their humanity, despite inhumane circumstances. In this life-or-death moment, they choose life. By contrast, Mr. Netanyahu has used every day in the prime minister’s office and every ounce of his power to try to convince the world that safety for Israelis must come at the expense of safety for Palestinians and to block all pathways to peace. He has sold a fairy tale about the unbeatable might of the Israeli military and his own ability to manage a violent system in which Palestinians have gone to sleep under occupation and siege and Israelis have woken up with an uncertain future. Now he is adding to the civilian death toll.

 

Those of us who are Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel are uniquely positioned to see through his bluster and warmongering to the failure he really is — truths that the past several days have laid bare. We see the extent to which he is willing to burn our shared homeland to the ground rather than bring about long-term solutions that will deliver safety and a good life to all of us, Palestinians and Israelis alike.

 

And we are also the ones who know, deep in our bones, which are made of the soil of this land, that the answer is peace. The only way we can fulfill our responsibility to the nation of our youngest ones — and to ourselves — is to recognize the nation of Palestine and the nation of Israel and to establish a State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel.

 

It is time for the international community to take its lead from us, step up in the face of unspeakable tragedy and choose life. This means taking immediate steps, including calling for a cease-fire to stop all civilian deaths and preventing Mr. Netanyahu’s government from any attempt at pursuing the long-term forced displacement of Palestinians; a humanitarian exchange of prisoners to bring home all civilians held hostage, especially infants, children and older adults; and restoring the flow of basic human necessities to all the people of Gaza.

 

Next, it means carrying out long-term solutions for people of the whole region, Palestinian and Israeli, including ending international support and approval for the Israeli military occupation and siege of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

 

I asked Dr. Abuelaish, after all the deaths and horrors he has endured, whether he is still a man of peace.

 

“The only real revenge for murder,” he said, “is achieving peace.”

 

Cursed be they who cry out: Revenge. We choose life.

 

Ayman Odeh is a member of the Knesset in Israel and the head of the Hadash-Taal political faction.

 

 

[Playoff Beered]

To Win the War, Defeat Hamas and Stop Settlements

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/opinion/biden-speech-israel-gaza.html

 

 

Quote

 

I have great admiration for how President Biden has used his empathy and physical presence in Israel to convince Israelis that they are not alone in their war against the barbaric Hamas, while also trying to reach out to moderate Palestinians. Biden, I know, tried really hard to get the Israeli leadership to pause in their rage and think three steps ahead — not only about how to get into Gaza to take down Hamas but also about how to get out — and how to do it with the least civilian casualties possible.

 

While the president expressed deep understanding of Israel’s moral and strategic dilemma, he pleaded with Israeli military and political leaders to learn from America’s rush to war after Sept. 11, which took our soldiers deep into the dead ends and dark alleys of unfamiliar cities and towns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

Nevertheless, U.S. officials left Jerusalem feeling that while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel understands that an overreach in Gaza could set the whole neighborhood ablaze — and is probably the most cautious of Israel’s leaders today — his right-wing coalition partners are eager to fan the flames in the West Bank. Settlers there have killed at least seven Palestinian civilians in acts of revenge in the last week, and the Israeli military is even more hawkish than the prime minister now and is determined to deliver a blow to Hamas that the whole neighborhood will never forget. Meanwhile, Israel’s right-wing minister of finance is refusing to transfer tax money owed to the Palestinian Authority, sapping its ability to keep the West Bank under control, which it has done up to now.

 

Color me very worried. No, color me extremely worried.

 

Because in the first week of this war the Supreme Leader of Iran and the leader of the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah, appeared to be keeping very tight control on their militiamen both on the border with Israel and in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. But as the second week has gone on, U.S. officials have picked up increasing signs that both leaders may be considering letting their forces more aggressively attack Israeli targets, and maybe American targets if the United States intervenes.

 

Have no doubt: the possibility of a regionwide war that could draw the United States in is much greater today than it was five days ago, senior U.S. officials told me. As I write on Thursday night, The Times is reporting that a U.S. Navy warship in the northern Red Sea on Thursday shot down three cruise missiles and several drones launched from Yemen that the Pentagon said might have been headed toward Israel. More missiles likely from pro-Iranian militias were fired at U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria and at Israel from Lebanon.

 

Israel is not likely to let Iran use its proxies to hit Israel without eventually firing a missile directly back at Tehran. If that happens, anything can happen. Israel is believed to have submarines in the Persian Gulf.

 

What makes the situation triply dangerous is even if Israel acts with herculean restraint to prevent civilian deaths in Gaza, it won’t matter. Think of what happened at Gaza City’s Ahli Arab Hospital on Tuesday.

 

As the Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea pointed out to me, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (P.I.J.) achieved more this week with an apparently misfired rocket “than it achieved in all of its successful missile launches.”

 

How so? After that rocket failed and fell on the Palestinian hospital in Gaza, killing scores of people, Hamas and the P.I.J. rushed out and claimed — with no evidence — that Israel had deliberately bombed the hospital, setting streets ablaze across the Arab world. When Israel and the United States offered compelling evidence a few hours later that the P.I.J. accidentally hit the Gaza hospital with its own rocket, it was already too late. The Arab street was on fire and a meeting of Arab leaders with Biden was canceled.

 

Imagine what will happen when the first major Israeli invasion of Gaza begins in our wired world, linked by social networks and polluted with misinformation amplified by artificial intelligence. No wonder pro-American Arab leaders are beseeching Biden to beseech the Israelis to act in ways that leave them some space to continue to work with Israel.

 

That is why I believe that Israel would be much better off framing any Gaza operation as “Operation Save Our Hostages” — rather than “Operation End-Hamas-once-and-for-all” — and carry it out with surgical strikes and special forces that can still get the Hamas leadership, but also draw the brightest possible line between Gazan civilians and the Hamas dictatorship.

 

Hamas has not only taken Israelis hostage; it’s taken Gaza’s civilians hostage as well. They did not have a vote in Hamas’s savage kidnapping of Israeli grandmothers and babies. Take a moment and listen to this Center for Peace Communications and Times of Israel series “Whispered in Gaza” from January — interviews with Gazans about what they really think of Hamas’s corrupt and despotic leadership. Israel has to respect and build on their views if it hopes to build anything sustainably positive in Gaza from this war.

 

But Israel today is in raw survival mode. We Americans can advise, but Israel is going to do what it is going to do.

 

Where I have a vote — just one — is in America. The president, in his prime-time speech Thursday night, vowed to ask Congress for an additional $14 billion in assistance for Israel to get through this war, along with an immediate injection of $100 million in new funding for humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

 

I’m all for helping Israelis and Palestinian civilians at this time — but not without some very visible strings attached.

 

If Israel needs weapons to protect itself from Hamas and Hezbollah, by all means ship them. But in terms of broader economic aid for Israel, it should be provided only if Israel agrees not to build even one more settlement in the West Bank — zero, none, no more, not one more brick, not one more nail — outside the settlement blocs and the territory immediately around them, where most Jewish settlers are now clustered and which Israel is expected to retain in any two-state solution with the Palestinians. (Netanyahu’s coalition agreement actually vows to annex the whole of the West Bank.)

 

I am well aware that Hamas has been committed to eliminating the Jewish state since its inception — not because Israel has expanded settlements in the West Bank. But if Israel has any hope of nurturing a Palestinian leadership that could replace Hamas in Gaza in the long term and be an effective partner for a two-state solution, then the settlement project has to stop and it has to stop now.

 

As for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, it needs, as soon as possible, to elect or appoint a new leadership — one with the competence to build decent Palestinian institutions in a noncorrupt fashion that earns its people’s respect and legitimacy. The Palestinian Authority, which is ready to coexist with the Jewish state, needs to be able to actually win a free and fair election against Hamas in the West Bank or Gaza.

 

Without those two sets of conditions being met, there’s no future for moderation in this corner of the world, no chance of a sustainable peace and no chance of normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia — no matter if Israel eliminates every single Hamas leader, foot soldier and rocketmaker or no matter how sympathetic one might be to the Palestinian cause.

 

The keystone of Bibi Netanyahu’s 15 years as prime minister has been strategically expanding settlements to prevent any prospect for a contiguous Palestinian state ever coming into being.

 

In doing so, the Israeli leader knowingly and blatantly acted against U.S. interests. He was willing to destabilize America’s allies, Jordan and Egypt, to pursue more settlements. He was willing to risk America’s biggest diplomatic achievement, the Abraham Accords, if the pact meant halting settlements. He has shown no willingness yet to halt settlements to secure a historic breakthrough with Saudi Arabia.

 

Folks, Israel is a wealthy country today and money is fungible. For way too long U.S. economic and military aid has allowed Netanyahu to have his cake and eat it too — to fund the insane settlement project, and maintain an advanced military, while not having to raise taxes on the whole Israeli public to pay for it all. While Israel got U.S. aid in one hand, the budget of its Ministry of Defense paid to build roads for settlers with the other hand. Uncle Sam’s wallet, indirectly, was the slush fund for Netanyahu’s politics.

 

So no, we’re not telling Netanyahu what to do in Gaza — Israel is a sovereign country. We’re just going to tell him what we’re not going to do anymore — because we happen to be a sovereign country too.

 

America has been indirectly funding Israel’s slow-motion suicide — and I am not just talking settlements. Look at what Netanyahu did last June. To buy off the ultra-Orthodox parties he needs in his coalition to keep himself out of jail on corruption charges, Netanyahu’s government gave the ultra-Orthodox and the settlers “an unprecedented increment in allocations … including full funding of schools to not teach English, science and math," explained Dan Ben-David, a macroeconomist who has focused on the interaction between Israel’s demography and education at Tel Aviv University, where he heads the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research. “This budgetary increment alone is more than Israel invests each year in higher education altogether — or 14 years of complete funding for the Technion, Israel’s M.I.T.,” Mr. Ben-David said. “It is completely nuts.”

 

Bottom line: Netanyahu has a completely incoherent strategy right now — eliminate Hamas in Gaza while building more settlements in the West Bank that undermine the only decent long-term Palestinian alternative to Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, which Israel needs to safely leave Gaza.

 

If this is the season of war, it also has to be a season for answers about what happens the morning after. I am hardly the only one who wants to know. As the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari wrote in an essay this week in Haaretz about Netanyahu’s government: If it “does dream of exploiting victory to annex territories, forcefully redraw borderlines, expel populations, ignore rights, censor speech, realize messianic fantasies or turn Israel into a theocratic dictatorship — we need to know it now.”

 

Thomas L. Friedman is the foreign affairs Opinion columnist. He joined the paper in 1981, and has won three Pulitzer Prizes. He is the author of seven books, including “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” which won the National Book Award.