Is Israel just taking out its impotency on the civilians of Palestine and Lebanon? Because they damn sure haven’t eliminated Hamas or Hezbollah

I think this is what they are doing in practice, but in theory I think the idea behind hurting civilians during wars is/was to a) reduce morale and willingness to fight in that country because the losses might become too great; b) weaken the resolve of the fighters themselves because you're probably hitting their families at least occasionally; c) enforce a "racial hierarchy" in which you regard the life of a single one of your countrymen to be equal to 100 Gazans/Lebanese/Yemenis/etc; and d) be seen by your own countrymen as doing something to fight the enemy to make them feel better about the losses you're receiving

the issue is that historically, none of these ideas actually function and anti-colonial movements were generally victorious regardless. I suppose the only lasting benefit to the colonizers is that the country they've ravaged with war is now so fucked up and damaged that it necessitates a continuing relationship to either them or some other capitalist nation to trade with and rebuild, though even this is declining as a factor because of anti-hegemonic alternatives like China, Russia, Iran, etc.

so Israel is just falling into the same trap as so many other colonial or imperialist projects in the past, believing that a sufficient amount of violence will be enough to dissuade resistance to their regime, and that, sure, it might make them unpopular and morally reprehensible to use increasingly violent methods but this is simply the price of maintaining the project. this isn't how it actually works; breaking international laws and doing ever more violent acts is not a sign of (albeit evil) strength and power, it actually just makes you lose. there's no edgy "I have sacrificed everything and killed thousands of innocents but attained ultimate power and now nobody can stand before me!" scene at the end of this path; everybody just hates you and your shitty project collapses. there are countless historical examples here, from Nazi Germany to South Africa.

there is a reason why imperialist exploitation has shifted from a violent, bloody past in which cities were looted by soldiers and civilian populations genocided by armies, to a modern system which is less outwardly violent and instead relying on the banality of debt and poverty and unemployment to enforce inequality. it's easier to find a common enemy if they're sending their armies through your land because some feudal lord or early capitalist demanded it. it's considerably harder to battle an enemy which consists of like, IMF-enforced austerity.

It really feels like the vast majority of Israel's kills have just been civilians.

If anything, they have just increased the ranks of the resistance. They still cant even safely occupy Jabalia without

I’ll once again use this an opportunity to plug Jon Elmer’s section of The Electronic Intifada’s weekly livestream. What I’m saying below is largely what I got from him this morning.

Short answer is yes. In a year of fighting, it does not appear that the IOF has been able to degrade the Resistance in Gaza’s ability to fight. They’re still scoring . And Hezbollah has only just gotten into the fight with their ground operations. The IOF hasn’t destroyed the tunnel system in any significant way. It honestly seems very similar to Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh trail.

The entity is not defeating Hamas on the battlefield. They know they are losing and they know Hamas has no reason to give them what they want - functional surrender where Gaza is ruled by the Palestinian Authority or a collection of Israel’s buddies like KSA. So all they can do is slaughter civilians. This is the bank robber who, after the bank manager refuses to open the safe, starts shooting customers and insists he will continue to do so until the bank manager open the vault, to make the manager feel responsible for every death. It’s literally terrorism.

Btw when the IOF moved from Rafah to the north of Gaza over the weekend, the Resistance was there waiting for them and scored a number of victories, so that is a good sign of the ability of the Resistance to fight from everywhere in Gaza.

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

• yewtu.be
• inv.nadeko.net
• yt.artemislena.eu
• piped.video