Natch
Just like they assassinated the head negotiator for Hamas, Israel wants no obstacles to its war footing.
Yeah there’s a strong theme developing. I can say that if Israel called me up, said “hey we’d like to sit down, hash out the issue we’re having with your trash bins blocking our parking pad behind the houses” I would definitely not agree to meet, and would probably travel out of state immediately.
The key in those real situations is agreeing to meet but never showing up, that way you take advantage of not setting off alarms too quickly.
Yeah that’s a good point. Maybe if I knew I could leave to visit my parents immediately, I would agree to meet the next day in the alley to discuss the trash bins, then zoom on out. On the other hand, I would then possibly have the deaths of my neighbors on my hands, when they inevitably airstruck the townhomes all around me to ensure that no trash bins could be left out, ever again. They’d also probably freak my entire neighborhood out by getting on our stupid messenger group chat to recommend that everyone should consider not being home tomorrow.
Israel-US were using the peace negotiations as an attempt to read the resistances’s war fatigue. But because Israel has disproportionately attacked civilians, they took willingness for peace as a sign that Hamas and Hezbollah were under more attrition than reality.
Fast forward to now, and not only has Israel vastly underestimated the fighting strength and coordination of Hezbollah’s front line forces, but Hamas are recovering from combat losses and taking on ambitious raids on the enemy in open daylight.
The iron dome has all but collapsed, with drones from Yemen and Iraq easily penetrating airspace over Tel Aviv. Haifa’s industrial complexes are taking daily rocket barrages, and the US is exhausting interceptor reserves at quadruple the rate necessary to replace them.
Israel can continue fighting for years at this rate, but they have made a historic and fatal error in not taking peace when it was beneficial to them, on the chauvinist assumption that “final victory” was just one last operation away.
