This is an excellent history of the US folly in Iraq. It also provides a concise history of the area between 1948 and 2006. However, it is silent on the consequences of the ceasefires with Hamas in 2009, 2012, 2014 and 2021, each of which Hamas used to rearm for subsequent horrors, most recently involving beheadings, rapes, and the mutil…
This is an excellent history of the US folly in Iraq. It also provides a concise history of the area between 1948 and 2006. However, it is silent on the consequences of the ceasefires with Hamas in 2009, 2012, 2014 and 2021, each of which Hamas used to rearm for subsequent horrors, most recently involving beheadings, rapes, and the mutilation and burning alive of parents, children and the elderly.
There is also no explanation how a negotiated ceasefire for peace can be accomplished with a terrorist dictatorship that has publicly avowed to never recognize Israel's right to exist.
Explained another way, though: Israel has launched military operations to disable and disarm Hamas in 2009, 2012, 2014, 2021, and many times inbetween: They have utterly failed to reduce Hamas' capabilities to launch attacks into Israel. I think this is why the Iraqi example is so instructive. Increasing conventional intensity can't destroy an insurgency that feeds on popular support for independence. In other words: More occupation only worsens a demand for less occupation.
You can't defeat Hamas by killing the current members of Hamas. You defeat Hamas by marginalizing them and giving their prospective recruits a better option.
This is an excellent history of the US folly in Iraq. It also provides a concise history of the area between 1948 and 2006. However, it is silent on the consequences of the ceasefires with Hamas in 2009, 2012, 2014 and 2021, each of which Hamas used to rearm for subsequent horrors, most recently involving beheadings, rapes, and the mutilation and burning alive of parents, children and the elderly.
There is also no explanation how a negotiated ceasefire for peace can be accomplished with a terrorist dictatorship that has publicly avowed to never recognize Israel's right to exist.
Explained another way, though: Israel has launched military operations to disable and disarm Hamas in 2009, 2012, 2014, 2021, and many times inbetween: They have utterly failed to reduce Hamas' capabilities to launch attacks into Israel. I think this is why the Iraqi example is so instructive. Increasing conventional intensity can't destroy an insurgency that feeds on popular support for independence. In other words: More occupation only worsens a demand for less occupation.
You can't defeat Hamas by killing the current members of Hamas. You defeat Hamas by marginalizing them and giving their prospective recruits a better option.