I see sometimes comparisons between the war in Gaza and the battle of Mosul, comparing the number of terrorists estimated killed and number of civilians. I think these comparisons require an additional layer of analysis. It’s not just about numbers and estimates, it really should be about the end result too.

I was in Mosul and Gaza so I know something about both. Let’s just say that Hamas had 30,000 fighters and ISIS had 5-10,000 in Mosul maybe. If you go in with a measure of trying to get civilian casualties at 1:1 or something, is that really a good goal, or is the BETTER goal to defeat the enemy and control the area and end the war as fast as possible with minimum civilian deaths?

One of the greatest misconceptions of the war, in my view, is that Hamas has taken heavy losses and is somehow on the ropes.

It is not. Hamas has returned to 90 percent of Gaza, mostly because Israel left every place it "cleared." The evidence for this is that Israel has gone repeatedly back into areas like Zaytun to fight Hamas again...it literally returns immediately after Israel leaves. There is zero evidence that Hamas is under pressure. Hamas feels it is winning. Hamas may have lost thousands of its fighters, including senior commanders. But Hamas has ALWAYS been willing to take losses. It's entire history is full of it losing men, and having them detained and eliminated.

yes the goal is to keep Hamas in power, a goal of the west, and of Russia, Ankara and other countries, since at least 2012 and likely before. I don't know why, but Hamas is a group that a lot of countries want to run Gaza, even though it does tremendous harm and even though it massacred 1,000 people on Oct. 7...it's the most favored group in the entire region. Hamas gets more support than the PA, it gets more high level meetings, and it is a kind of consensus that Hamas should not just run Gaza, but I think quietly a lot of countries want to position it to run the West Bank also. After 2007 when Hamas illegally took over Gaza and set in motion numerous wars...a decision was made to have western allies, who backed Hamas, to also host their leaders...the goal here (as with the Taliban) was to bring them to power. It took more than a decade...but they are on the verge of the goal.

Here's a question. According to the optimistic data on the Gaza war, the IDF has defeated up to 19 of the Hamas "battalions" and eliminated up to 14,000 terrorists and wounded the same number (i.e 28,000) and detained others. So if you add it up...you'd get the picture that Hamas barely has any men left, just a few thousand or so.

But let me ask this...how many men has Hamas recruited in seven months of war. One of the things that the stories about Hamas "battalions" never seems to take into account is the fact that Hamas has access to more men. It has plenty of weapons stockpiled over a decade and a half. It doesn't require men to do much more than use rifles and RPGs nowadays.

The story of the US delaying munitions for Israel is getting a lot of coverage, the BBC call it the "biggest warning yet for Israel."

So here's my question. While countries are growing frustrated with the long war in Gaza, have there been any real repercussions for Hamas since Oct. 7 on the global stage? What I mean is this. Hamas is hosted by two western allies, in Doha and Ankara. There were no repercussions for Hamas leaders in Doha after Oct. 7. While the US and western leaders expressed support for Israel, they didn't move to sanction those leaders more or put them on trial for crimes against humanity.

This story encapsulates what I've always felt about these talks since the beginning. Basically Israel is on one side of the table and Hamas is working via Doha, and Doha is a western ally, so in essence there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes and Israel is always on the losing end of these talks because Hamas is hosted by a "major non-NATO ally" which gives Hamas huge leverage (more than Israel).

THIS is what makes Hamas different than Hezbollah. If Hezbollah had done an Oct. 7 it would be more. isolated because it isn't hosted by western allies. Hamas is indirectly allied with the West and this means it has a huge upper hand in the hostage talks. It's also important to understand how disastrous these talks have been. After the first hostage deal in November, Israel's defense establishment put out a narrative that military pressure would lead to more deals. Hamas violated the first deal and the released hostages told stories about the abuse of the remaining hostages.

I was reading this article about humanitarian aid work and suffering in Gaza and this paragraph struck me.

It notes that before the war many children in Gaza were suffering. And then it admits, correctly, that Hamas started this war. And the war Hamas started has made everything much worse. The article makes me outraged that this war wasn't prevented. How come the TWO WESTERN ALLIES that back and host and support Hamas didn't prevent this? How come the West, via its allies, didn't make sure a war like this didn't happen?

edition.cnn.com/2024/05/05/opi… I think we need to be serious and clear about this fact. Hamas was hosted in Doha, a "major non-NATO ally" of the US and the West. Hamas was hosted there since 2012. Hamas received financial support for Gaza. The West knew this. The West agreed with this and wanted Gaza to function this way.

The narrative is now going to go all-out to stop an operation in Rafah…because Hamas needs to control the border so it can control humanitarian aid and work with its partners around the region and around the world who quietly backed it for years. When you see the voices exaggerating about Rafah, you’ll know who is behind the goal of keeping Hamas in power in Gaza Hamas didn’t come to power by accident, this is one of the most well funded, powerful terrorist groups in the world…even as an “armed group” or “militant”…it far exceeds anything else and it gets clout like hosted and backed by two western allies. No other group gets this backing and absolute power.

I don’t think that’s accurate. I don’t recall her condemning Oct 7 or taking a strong action against what happened. Did Amman do anything on Oct 7 or the days after for the victims? Ankara didn’t condemn Oct 7. Doha didn’t. Moscow didn’t. Beijing didn’t. In fact most of the world DID NOT condemn the Hamas massacre. Most of the world DID NOT take strong actions or strong positions. A lot of countries backed Hamas.

She says this but it deserves push back.

I don’t remember her visiting the victims of Oct 7…or basically doing anything.

The fact is that if Ankara-Doha-Moscow and other countries had wanted to prevent Oct 7 they could have. Instead they backed Hamas and enabled it to happen and Amman’s track record in this is not great. Amman warned Israel before the 1973 war. Why didn’t it pick up chatter before Oct 7 and pass on warnings? We hear this a lot, “everyone condemned Oct 7…Israel had the world’s sympathy”….but this must always be confronted with “what did you say on Oct 7?” Usually the person making this claim didn’t condemn it or excused it. And then you need to ask them for examples of condemnation or action by US allies that back Hamas such as Doha and Ankara and also other powerful countries such as Russia and China. Just start going through the list because most countries did not condemn Hamas.

Not only is Hamas "fighting capacity" not destroyed, every day that goes by the group is growing again. It now controls most of Gaza again and there is almost no military pressure on it as Israel's campaign has stalled and most IDF units withdrawn from Gaza. Hamas has obtained a de facto ceasefire in Gaza without a hostage deal and a de facto withdrawal by the IDF without a deal, so it got most of what it wanted already. Hamas may be exaggerating its capabilities, but it is openly bragging about coordinating attacks on the Netzarim corridor with other terrorist groups in Gaza such as PIJ, which shows what it is thinking. It is already thinking about entrenching itself around the corridor and waging a war of attrition

It’s fascinating how Hamas holds court across the region and holds the whole region hostage and major powers and every country has to go to beg them for months. They sit and are not condemned but rather empowered since Oct 7 and rewarded and treated like a country. It’s obvious the message here is that groups should be like Hamas rather than that countries should distance themselves from this massacre. Hamas is openly rewarded not just by its backers and hosts such as Turkey and Qatar and Iran but also by the U.S. and Russia and moderate states. It’s truly extraordinary. Before Oct 7 none of these countries were waiting on Hamas every word. Now they do. They don’t condemn it for holding hostages and destroying Gaza. They REWARD it. This is WHY Oct 7 happened. Hamas knew it would be rewarded because it was likely told this before it carried out the attack. We have to understand Oct 7 was likely planned abroad or at least its general framework was agreed to. The agreement was that on Oct 8 Turkey will demand a ceasefire and Doha will go to work to get Hamas a good deal for hostages and use its influence in the U.S. and Israel to achieve this, likely meaning hostages are left in Gaza for months or years for slow deals that extend a ceasefire forever

There's something about that cartoon of the scorpion and the frog...like somehow Hamas massacred 1,000 people and his olding 133 hostage...to get rid of Hamas you need to bring the PA to run Gaza, but Israel's ruling coalition doesn't want the PA to run Gaza because it views the PA as a larger long-term threat...so it can't come up with a day after plan...and meanwhile the PA keeps trying to isolate Israel, thus resulting in Israel bashing the PA...leaving Hamas to return to Gaza...

Why is it like the scorpion and the frog. Because it's in the "character" of the conflict to be this way. I'm not making a value judgement here on the PA or Israel's actions (Hamas in my view is a genocidal organization that should be destroyed completely)...I'm just saying that it's in the "nature" of the PA and Israel to do this and it prevents positive outcomes...much as the scorpion and frog couldn't work together and instead end up drowning eachother... Am I saying that the infighting between Israel and the PA will result in them doing a proverbial drowning to eachother...yes I think in the long run unless they can escape this problem...then Hamas will end up running the West Bank and will bring more war to Israel.

One of the greatest disasters for the Middle East has been the international community's decision to cement in power extremist militia groups and turn them into "states" basically in the region. This happened with Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and other groups. It's important to note that this is not how the international community dalt with similar groups in other countries such as Boko Haram or Al Shabab or the FARC, it's basically only in the Middle East where the UN and international groups and also major powers, swoop in to make sure that Hamas controls Gaza, and keep Hezbollah strengthened in Lebanon and create deals for the Houthis to keep them in power.

The coded methods used to downplay Hezbollah attacks on Israel. An example.

The BBC did a report on southern Lebanon which has suffered due to Hezbollah's almost seven months of attacks on Israel. Note, the first part of the article doesn't even mention Hezbollah. This: let's not mention the illegal terrorist group that controls this area and fires rockets from civilian areas...is a common theme when reporting in Gaza as well. Over the years many NGOs would often not even mention Hamas in reports. This is done to in order to make it seem that Israel is "attacking" and to hide the authoritarian extremist groups that control Gaza and southern Lebanon.

International organizations that worked to empower Hamas for almost two decades in Gaza are worried that its control of Rafah will end, meaning their partnership with Hamas gunmen who steal the aid will end. They partnered with Hamas and profited immensely. Hamas could not have become what it is, a terror empire, without the collaboration of all the international organizations who work with it and who want its gunmen controlling aid. Hamas is a vast criminal enterprise like Escobar’s cartel was. It’s hard to dismantle a group like this. But it must be done. Millions, probably hundreds of millions are at risk by these groups who partner with the Hamas gunmen. They preyed on the people of Gaza via Hamas. Hamas was a partner and they outsourced control to Hamas. They hit the jackpot in Gaza when it expelled Fatah in 2007. It’s rare these organizations get control via an authoritarian partner like Hamas. They don’t like working with democracies because it means transparency and critique by those on the ground. In Gaza if someone critiqued how Hamas controls aid…the aid orgs would turn over a name to Hamas and it would remove them. In return Hamas members got jobs at the organizations. Rarely in history have so many NGOs got this windfall of partnership on suffering which they use to get more profit

One of the largest lessons from October 7 for policymakers, strategists, military brass and politicians is to consider the wider ramifications of unlikely scenarios.

What I mean is it's essential to always consider "what if we are all wrong" and to look at unlikely threats and weigh them against their potential to do large, but often discounted, harm. Think of the chances of the Hamas attack being quiet small, much like the chances of a pandemic breaking out in early 2020, or of 9/11...the chances are small, but the implications are world changing. And each one is not like the chances of aliens landing...these are real world threats that exist but whose probability is low.

One thing that I’ve never been able to get out of my thoughts since Oct. 7 is that Hamas, which massacred 1,000 people and took 250 hostages, killing some of them over the last six months, is hosted by the closest U.S. ally in the Middle East…and it took American hostages on October 7…and yet it faces no repercussions for doing so. No war crimes charges, no expulsion from the U.S. allies that back and host it.

Do you think if a U.S. ally hosted another terror grouping that targeted a different country and kidnapped Americans that this would be the case? What gets me is that Hamas isn’t like Hezbollah, it’s not just a terror grouping backed by U.S. adversaries, it’s literally ensconced within a close western ally and openly backed by another western ally. It not only has impunity and cover through this, but the western backing here hasn’t led it to become less dangerous as a terror grouping, rather it became MORE dangerous

The most telling discussions about the protests on US campuses are the ones where the older crowd of obsessive anti-Israel grifters who profited for decades off bashing Israel and slouching toward one state extremism…are trying to police the language of the protesters who they have a condescending view of…trying to urge them to use more inclusive language rather than “alienate” people by openly supporting Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis and genocide.

The one I saw yesterday was urging them not to say “Palestine will be free from the River…” but “Palestinians will be free…” It’s fascinating to see the mask come off, these folk always knew they were flirting with genociders and they always excused Hamas “resistance” and “right to resist” and then tried to qualify it with “but all civilians shouldn’t be harmed”…when they quietly backed a movement that systematically massacres civilians

Three of the five US ships that left the US coast a month and a half ago are now off the coast of Israel and Gaza, to build the temporary floating dock/pier. These include the USAV Matamoros and Monterrey, both of which are Runnymede-class large landing craft and the General Frank S. Besson which is a larger logistics support vessel (LSV).

The James Loux appears to still be in Crete and Wilson's Wharf is off the coast of Africa.

The UK's RFA Cardigan Bay, a landing ship dock of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) is also on the way, at 176 meters it is the largest of the ships.

The USNS Benavidez has also arrived. “US military vessels to include the USNS Benavidez have begun to construct the initial stages of the temporary pier and causeway at sea,” said Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder at a briefing Thursday.

This makes no sense, and let me spell out why. What this is saying is Israel has a choice between allowing an extremist group that massacred 1,000 people and took 250 hostage to continue to thrive and carry out more massacres and endless wars OR have peace with an important state in the region It makes no sense because why should the two be mutually exclusive…and if they are then it’s a big problem because peace with states should never be contingent on forcing one of the states to have endless war with a genocidal terror group that destabilizes the region

These three paragraphs incapsulate the whole Gaza war and Hamas genocidal dictatorship there. Numerous hostages said they were held at a hospital, as part of the Hamas illegal massacre. “Medical officials” deny this…clearly because there is an omertà among them to never mention Hamas or its criminal use and exploitation of medical facilitators. The genocidal group, which is backed Iran and western allies, systematically used hospitals to move hostages…and no one “saw” anything. The Hamas regime is empowered and supported by international organizations and their omertà Notice none of the medical people say “we saw Hamas moving hostages into the hospital but it’s our duty to provide care”…which would have been a normal excuse. Imagine if a cartel moved hostages to a hospital in Sinaloa…you could imagine that medical professionals might explain it that way. But Hamas has such control that the medical people will never mention their presence due to non-disclosure agreements that clearly have been agreed with these medical folk. They treated hostages but have an omertà with the authoritarian regime that the west empowered and cemented in control.