It just seems crazy to me given the power imbalance. A cynical part of me suspects that things are playing out exactly as some evil strategists hoped they would, which, given all the children dying, is super-depressing.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world 1 year ago
This video by a political science professor explains it best: youtu.be/zMxHU34IgyY?si=N5oHElN4Xlbiqznh
In short, the only people who truly know are Hamas, and the best the rest of us can do is speculate.
Some possibilities are that Hamas wanted to sabotage normalizing relations between Israel and the rest of the Muslim world, that Hamas wanted to bait Israel into a wildly disproportionate response that would garner themselves sympathy and recruits, that Hamas was bluffing and feigning strength and counting on Israel to think the attack was bait, that Hamas was just acting on bloodlust and wanted to attack regardless of the consequences, or many other possibilities.
Further, we focus a lot on the substative issues, i.e., the grievances and disagreements at hand, but we don’t talk about the bargaining frictions nearly enough. There are countless border disputes around the world, and yet they rarely result in war. Why? Because war is costly and most wish to avoid it. War typically happens when there are both substantive issues and bargaining frictions, i.e., things preventing the two sides from negotiating a solution. But us onlookers can’t even know for sure what these frictions are, only speculate.
All this is simply the nature of the fog of war, that the true strategies/goals won’t be known for a while, if ever. Anyone who tries to tell you with certainty why they did what they did at this stage doesn’t actually know with any degree of certainty. Nobody but Hamas actually knows.
kent_eh@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
That’s one of the most reasonable responses to this madness I’ve seen recently.
Far too many people are out there demanding instant information with 100% accuracy and crying conspiracy when they can’t get their impossible wish.
krellor@kbin.social 1 year ago
I think even worse than the expectation of instant knowledge is the expectation that everyone must pick a side and must do it now. There are dozens of conflicts around the world with atrocities being committed, but this is the only one you consistently get called out for not picking a side.
I think it's healthy for people outside of the conflict to ultimately feel one side has more or less justification, while still acknowledging their faults and mistakes.
jarfil@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’ve looked at an interview with an Israeli political sciences professor yesterday, that went something like this:
As an onlooker, I’d say that’s is a FREAKING HUGE “friction” when one side denies the existence of the other.
jimbo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You’re making statements about sides based off what some unnamed “Israeli professor” allegedly said. Okay.
zzzz@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Thank you for the video and the thoughtful response!
volvoxvsmarla@lemm.ee 1 year ago
This is what we’ve all been thinking about Russia/Putin’s government too. With tons of friends and family in Russia and Ukraine we are still at a loss what exactly the idea/projected outcome/strategy/expectation was to start that war. I hear a lot of armchair experts and amateur war psychologists trying to explain it away like it is obvious but it just isn’t. It feels like there are a bunch of clues and pieces of a puzzle mixed in with random puzzle pieces that don’t belong to what you are trying to assemble, and it is unclear whether we will ever truly understand it sometime in the future.
PutangInaMo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Interesting watch, got a new subscriber from that one. Much appreciated.
JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Great video! Love that channel.