Well, the headline is a bit hyperbolic, at least as far as losing the war is concerned, but it may not be far off. This hasn’t seemed to be announced in the MSM I read, but it’s all over the Israeli papers, like the Jersalem Post (click to read):
An excerpt:
The IDF on Sunday announced that it had concluded the active invasion stage of the war for now while leaving open the possibility of a future new invasion of Rafah in deep southern Gaza.
In terms of IDF soldiers, this means that the IDF has withdrawn all of Division 98 from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza while maintaining one plus brigades – the Nahal brigade and portions of Brigade 401 – in northern and central Gaza.
Although a top IDF official said that this change had nothing to do with US pressure, the timing was unmistakable in coming right after the IDF’s disastrous mistaken killing of seven humanitarian aid workers last week.
The decision also came less than two days after Israel opened the Erez Crossing and Ashdod port to transfer humanitarian aid, decisions made under threat by the US of potentially losing weapons support after Jerusalem had refused these requests from Washington for months.
Critically, this means that Palestinians can, on one hand, move freely within southern Gaza and Khan Yunis and that there is a complete vacuum for preventing a return of Hamas governance, but the IDF is keeping northern and central Gaza cut off from the south.
What this means, of course is that will be no invasion of Rafah, regardless of “the possibility of a future new invasion of Rafah in deep southern Gaza”. This decision—which must have been made by Netanyahu, who has consistently and adamantly maintained that the goal of Israel was to destroy Hamas, and that couldn’t be done without taking Rafah—is baffling, and, I hear, has also baffled the Israeli people. It means that Hamas, which has four brigades (and most hostages) sequestered in southern Gaza, has “a complete vacuum” for returning to power, at least in the south. It means that the most powerful leaders of Hamas, either in southern Gaza or Egypt (or some other country) remain alive to revitalize their terrorist organization.
And if Hamas returns to power in southern Gaza (can northern Gaza be far behind?), then Israel has lost the war. As one Israeli leader said (I can’t remember who), “there is no use in putting out three-quarters of a fire.” But that’s exactly what Israel has done.
Why did this happen? I have pondered the possibility that it may be a trick, but I don’t believe it. It almost surely results from pressure coming from the U.S., and if that’s the case, then America has achieved what I always said Biden wanted: for Israel to lose its ability to defend itself, and to remain surrounded by terrorists. He’d prefer to win an election than to lose Israel.
Any pressure from the U.S. surely intensified after the killing of seven humanitarian aid workers (though the U.S. killed far more innocents via “friendly fire”), and after the world, predictably, took the side of Palestine. I suspect Biden threatened Netanyahu with a complete cessation of future aid, and a severance of Israeli/US relations would be an absolute disaster for Israel.
What about the hostages? Who knows? They are undoubtedly with the Hamas leadership, and an attack to rescue them would be disastrous. But if Israel is this timorous, it will likely exchange thousands of jailed Palestinian terrorists, many of whom are in prison for killing Israelis, for a fraction of the remaining hostages, many of whom are now dead. Hamas will keep others (the soldiers, young people, and younger men) to use as future bargaining chips.
In other words, in the War Cabinet’s own assessment of what it means to “win” this war, Israel has lost. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think Israel would lie about what it’s doing.
The other possibility is that Israel is waiting for a(nother) barrage of rocket attacks to retaliate and tell Biden “we told you so”.
And not to be forgotten is that the US relentlessly firebombed German and Japanese cities during WWII. No “aid” was sent. Only bombs. And Germany didn’t kill any Americans on US soil.
So, it seems that our response wasn’t “proportional”.
Agree. This was thought that came to my mind as well, it may also be moving troops to Northern Israel for a face-off with Hezbollah.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have to wait long. Already five rockets launched from Khan Junis landed in Israel.
For those not familiar with the area, Khan Yunis is in southern Gaza, very close to the border with Egypt. Hamas is back firing rockets again, and Israel doesn’t have any troops in the area.
Unfortunately Biden/Blinken have absolutely no moral compass and the result is evident. Had they told the world that Israel is justified in eliminating Hamas and “too bad” about collateral damage, this would be over by now and the US and Israel would have regained some credibility.
Be interested to hear what Biden/Blinken (and likely Obama) would say if Canada or Mexico had been firing rockets at US cities for 15 years, then invaded the US, and killed 40,000 civilians (proportional to Israel’s 1,200).
Although watching Biden, he would send Iran $50 billion and apologize. Any other president would turn Canada/Mexico into dust.
Remember after 9/11 when Americans on the street said “your country is going to be a parking lot”. It was okay to say that when America went to war but it’s a different story when Israel goes to war.
Losing the war? That’s a bit much.
Israel may be leaving enough troops to wall-off Rafah (which is smart move in this climate) and it may also be moving troops to Northern Israel for a face-off with Hezbollah.
Israel may also be waiting for a “move” by Hamas to justify going in to Rafah and that won’t be long coming.
“They say Hamas fighters can be contained by sealing border”
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-05/israel-s-plan-to-attack-rafah-faces-growing-opposition-after-us-pressure
I said it was hyperbole, but by Israel’s own accounting, it has to eliminate Hamas to win the war. Leaving four brigades does not constitute “eliminating Hamas”.
As far as containing Hamas fighters by sealing the border, I don’t buy it for a minute. They will have the run of southern Gaza, and are already firing rockets at Israel. Does that count as being “contained”?
At the beginning of this war I made the “outlandish” suggestion that Israel just sell itself off and disburse and emigrate throughout the world. There are 7.2 million Jews in Israel, surrounded by hundreds of millions of Arabs. What’s ever going to change? I have no animus toward anyone; this just seems like the most practical solution. Two religious people fighting until the end of time over a tiny strip of land is the alternative.
Jews have a LONG and documented history of being driven away from places all around the globe.
They have in fact been purged from almost every Arab country around them and literally ‘ethnically cleansed’ from these regions. I can see them fighting for their ancestral lands and for once saying “we will be driven away no more”.
And yet yah, they are being faced by people who are religiously ordained to eliminate Jews from the entire region even if it takes centuries to try. Hamas’ literal goal is just this, and they do it by aiming at the American media. They want an isolated Israel. They came pretty close to getting it this time.
Israel is the one country in the world where Jews don’t have to fear a pogrom (or it was until Hamas breached the border on Oct. 7 – why their actions there hasn’t been labelled a pogrom more widely escapes me). It’s the one country in the world where Jews don’t have to fear that the majority will turn against them in any way.
Why would they want to give that up?
I don’t want to criticise Israel and I don’t have any better ideas, but we need to realise that Israel cannot eliminate Hamas.
Even if they killed every Hamas fighter over the age of 16 then Hamas would then re-emerge out of the 14-yr-olds, and if they killed or imprisoned all of those then Hamas would re-emerge out of the 12-yr-olds.
The US expended 20 years, 100,000 troops and a trillion dollars in trying to eliminate the Taliban and replace them with a moderate government. And yet the Taliban (mostly the sons of previous Taliban generations) now rule Afghanistan.
Again, I don’t have any better ideas as to what Israel should do …
Coel, re: Afghanistan, that’s primarily because of Biden’s chaotic withdrawal; for the two years (or more?) prior to that withdrawal there were (perhaps) 1-2 attacks on US troops in Afghanistan; it was largely under control and Afghan women had seats in parliament.
Also, we’ve been in South Korea for decades (yes, it’s expensive) without incident.
Of course your implication that a radical ideology is difficult to eliminate is correct – particularly one as persistent as the “caliphate”. Having said that, Israel’s immediate intent is NOT to eliminate the ideology (which yes, may not be possible, although the fascist/Nazi ideology of the early 1900s is all but eliminated today), but to eliminate the military wing/prowess of Hamas. This must be pursued even if the ideology persists and Hamas “rebuilds”.
The fact that Hamas will rebuild is not a good reason not to eliminate its battalions in Rafah.
De-radicalizing Gaza is long-term goal which may or may not be possible.
I was going to write the same: that, contrary to Prof. Coyne and most commenters, I think that the war has achieved much for Israel and now is a suitable time to withdraw. Israel cannot eliminate Hamas becaue this would require eliminating the Palestinians.
Well aIsrael could just level Gaza completely and kill every single inhabitant but even that would not solve the hatred against the Jews. If Iran gains nuclear weapons then the future is indeed very bleak because Israel will and should not suffer another “Holocaust “ ever! Whatever Israel has done or may do is minuscule compared to what the US and its “ allies have perpetrated over the many years. Everyone remembers Dresden and Hiroshima and Nagasaki but never a mention that the US destroyed completely almost every single Japanese city by napalm fire bombing and incendiaries and high explosives.
I do not think personally that Israel is done with Gaza or Hamas just yet. The US should just Stfu.
I cannot believe I am saying this, but I am considering voting for the heinous, lying, criminal, piece of shit in the upcoming election. Schumer can also go bleep himself. This is a sad day for me, as I have been a life-long registered Democrat. I feel betrayed.
if you vote for Biden in 2024, you can vote for someone else in 2028. If you vote for the loon in 2024, there will be no possibility for democratic voting in 2028 — and probably for a long time afterward.
I think it’s time to stop the Trump hysteria. There is no evidence other than Trump feeble claims that he will end democracy.but there is a lot of evidence that current immigration policies will keep the Democrats in power permanently (as in California) and make woke Politics cannot be easily overturned because Democrats cannot be challenged.
Now the anti-conservative Jewish left in the United States is becoming more and more like a racial political cult. They are doing everything they can to prevent the more pro-Jewish conservative parties from coming to power, because once the conservative parties come to power, they will literally crack down on anti-Semitism. and caused Jewish support for the left to collapse (just like their European counterparts), but as long as the Conservatives never came to power Jews could continue to imagine that their vote to the left prevented Hitler from coming to America (a myth, of course)
The high support rate that Jews still have for the left in the United States will be a topic for future historians to study. In an era when almost all white American groups have turned to the right (including Irish and Eastern Europeans who once supported the left), American Jews as a Ethnic groups without a culture of original sin still irrationally support a political left with white original sin ideas, and send their children to academia where the above ideas are instilled. If this trend continues, the situation of American Jews will only continue to worsen.
From my observation, the American Jewish left has taken the following actions to prevent Jews from turning to the political right:
A. Encourage Jews to adopt anti-white and pro-immigration stances, forcing conservatives to fight back, creating right-wing anti-Semitism through this self-fulfilling prophecy
B. Indoctrinate Jewish children with the idea of white original sin, allowing them to rationalize the persecution of Jews by left-wing anti-Semitism, and then believe that it is reasonable to vote for candidates with anti-Semitic ideas.
C. Media brainwashing to drastically reduce coverage of support for Jews from the political right and to minimize coverage of support for anti-Semitism from the political left
I think you might feel more comfortable on X-Twitter. This site is for reasoned discourse.
Israel is leaving only one IDF brigade behind, according to the Jewish News Syndicate: https://www.jns.org/idf-withdraws-all-troops-from-southern-gaza/.
At some point, a withdrawal of some sort was bound to happen, but if the reports are true—and I have no reason to doubt them—they are apparently leaving the four Hamas battalions in place in Rafah. How can this withdrawal be anything other than temporary? It can’t. Israel will either have to go back in sooner to eliminate the remaining battalions or they will have to go back in later—either to eliminate those battalions specifically or to eliminate Hamas operatives as they attempt to regain control.
Coel said above that “Israel cannot eliminate Hamas.” That’s quite true, but Israel can eliminate Hamas’s capacity to wage war and its hold on power. Perhaps this withdrawal means that the IDF thinks that it has succeeded in doing so—for now—but pressure from the U.S. may have forced Israel’s hand.
If Israel’s retreat is decisive, has Israel lost the war? It depends on what happens next. If Hamas and its war infrastructure has been so degraded that it cannot and does not regain power, then Israel has not lost the war. But if Hamas comes back and the status quo ante is restored—with the IDF returning to the strategy of “mowing the lawn” when necessary—then Israel has lost.
I am deeply concerned about the hostages, particularly now that the military pressure for their release has been diminished.
It may unfortunately be the case that the outcome of the war remains ambiguous, and that the winners and losers will be decided by historians, rather than on the battlefield.
I am not sure what to make of this. Perhaps Israeli intelligence has determined that Iran is about to launch a major attack in coordination with its proxies in Lebanon and Syria, and the troops need to be deployed elsewhere.
That has definitely crossed my mind as well. Iran has sure been rattling swords the past few days.
Here is the front page of Haaretz at the moment:
https://www.haaretz.com/
There is also this via “The Israel Files”. Anyone familiar with that site? It’s Instagram and at the moment article I refer to is first row, right hand:
https://www.instagram.com/the.israel.files/
Thoughts?
I think Israel knows now that they need to manufacture their own weapons because they can’t rely on western allies and the whims of leaders pressured by domestic politics when it comes to their own decisions.
Especially with the Muslim population of the West ever-growing and becoming ever more extremist, and the unanimous support for Palestine by intellectuals and students.
Plus the cowardly western governments who suppress any criticism of Islam and pander to their needs including allowing total domination of the public thoroughfare by rabid supporters of Palestine. If an example is required one doesn’t have to look far, just across the US Northern border where Trudeau fawns over the moslems and damns everything about Israel even threatening an”arms embargo” as if Canada has anything which Israel might consider useful. Canadian armed forces, one man and a dog and the dog is there to bite the man if he touches any weapons!
The UK is as bad if not worse with the idiot foreign Secretary “Lord Cameron” responsible for the major F up in Libya where more “friends” were killed by western armed assault than enemies to the point where it became necessary to paint the tops of vehicles pink to avoid being struck by friendly fire. His criticism of Israel knows no bounds and he is another one who should simply Stfu because no one is interested in anything he utters, except the antisemitic BBC of course.
Israel has manufactured its own nuclear weapons and Iran could easily be the first recipient.
+1
I do not understand Jerry’s headline: Israel pulls out of southern Gaza for no apparent reason, loses war.
Has Jerry not told us repeatedly that this war is an existential one for Israel? If he now thinks that Israel has lost it, should the headline not be “Israel commits suicide by pulling out of southern Gaza”?
Surely, the US pressure has contributed to this decision. But there is also this, reported by The Economist:
I strongly recommend two recent pieces from The Economist, an editorial and a 3.5 pages-long briefing on the Gaza war, both from the March 23 2024 issue:
Editorial: At a moment of military might, Israel looks deeply vulnerable.
America should help it find a better strategy
https://web.archive.org/web/20240321111702/https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/03/21/at-a-moment-of-military-might-israel-looks-deeply-vulnerable
Briefing: The war in Gaza may topple Hamas without making Israel safer. (3600 words)
It will end up even more deeply mired in the conflict that is the main threat to its security
https://web.archive.org/web/20240321120536/https://www.economist.com/briefing/2024/03/21/the-war-in-gaza-may-topple-hamas-without-making-israel-safer
Excuse me, but it’s a bit rude to tell me what my headline should be. What is your point?
Here’s why I’d do it, make them sift back in. watch their movement and when the time is right, strike again!
I don’t think the death of the disaster tourist restraunter do-gooders (sad, mistaken, and random as it was) is in the equation at all. Nor American bleating for the benefit of the hard, retarded left whose votes Biden still needs. Or the BBC!
I think — and I’m no expert for sure — that logistics and strains within Israeli society (and moreso Bibi’s coalition) are the reason for this unfortunate turn of events.
Maybe they’re just playing the long game until later, until the heat dies down.
For Hamas must be destroyed. There’s no negotiation, no middle ground: Hamas and all its members, no matter how huge, young, old, feminine or masculine – must be unalived. You can’t fight against a jihad with Marquess of Queensbury rules or DC/EU talking points for local votes – of non-Israelis!
Un-alived.
Israel understands this, even libs there in their quieter moments. We don’t.
D.A.
NYC
https://democracychronicles.org/author/david-anderson/
I read each piece that Andrew Sullivan writes about Israel with memory of his emotionally-driven, girlish cheerleading for the unwarranted war and destruction in Iraq. I suspect that he also recalls this as he writes. He is correct that emotions can cloud sense and lead one astray on the battlefield; they can also cloud sense and lead one away from a necessary battlefield. He is also correct that it is important not to play into an adversary’s hand. Yet it is not Israel alone that can fall prey to this. Andrew seems blind to the fact that the Hamas strategy “to prompt an over-the-top response that could then be leveraged into further international pressure on Israel” depends on international observers like Andrew, observers who quickly hold Israel to standards which they hold few, if any, other countries, observers who enjoy freedoms won and secured by earlier generations who did not shrink from the sometimes necessary ugliness of war and whose actions, if taken today, would be deemed “over the top.” Without observers like Andrew, Hamas would have no viable strategy. Indeed, he and others like him are essential for Hamas to succeed.
“Why did this happen? I have pondered the possibility that it may be a trick, but I don’t believe it.”
A “trick” or a bluff, maybe lip service? Netenyahu is in an impossible situation. He basically has to say something to calm the US. As others have said over the past weeks, what Netenyahu and Biden say publicly and what they say privately are not the same. I see this as cover for Biden and the upcoming election. They’re giving the appearance that the US can dictate Israel’s plan but I’m not buying it. I think they are letting the aid in, as promised, but will be back in in no time. I just can’t buy that Israel is suddenly going to pull out “for real”. I have nothing but my gut to base this on, but it’s just too radical of a reversal. Just one little opinion. Take it for what it’s worth.