You could argue they already have, but I think they're still in the transitory stage, as there are still (as far as I have heard) living Israeli hostages/POWs in the Gaza Strip. I think the clue for when that transition tips qualitatively is going to be when the hostage families, as an action group, become a pro-war force domestically rather than a relatively anti-war force.
Once there are no more verifiably-living Israeli captives in the Strip, there is going to be a campaign originating from either a) the Israeli government itself or b) a citizen group mixed with grieving families of unaccounted-for IDF captives/civilian hostages and unhinged settlers/zealots, which will subsequently be co-opted into official policy, that lump-sums the captive count and the unknown count into a rhetorical 'unknown, possibly captive' count that is used as justification to continue the war.
There’s pretty much a seamless setup for this idea to take root—so much so that I believe it is almost inevitable:
- The promulgation of "Hamas' labyrinthine and sprawling underground tunnels" as rhetorical justification for indiscriminate targeting is very neatly slotted into a mythos of mass captivity of an unverifiable amount of people in said tunnels
- Mass bombing and indiscriminate targeting inevitably and demonstrably leads to mass casualty and wasting of infrastructure. Ruling out the laughable idea that the IDF is an entity with iron-tight discipline among its ranks, you are going to have rank-breaking, overextension, and hooliganism (a la Looney Tunes' Greatest To Ever Do It World Cup Flag Kicker), often unaccounted for, that will have combatants buried under the rubble or generally out-of-sight in the aftermath, pumping the MIA count
- On-the-ground journalism in Gaza has been decimated, both by the carnage and by Israel’s active hostility and repression towards outlets that don’t toe the line
- Hostages are already being killed in Israeli airstrikes, and the indiscriminate nature of these strikes as well as there being no count (as far as I’m aware) of the current number of verifiably-alive and verifiably-dead captives lends itself to a blurring between the POW and MIA counts
I am willing to put money on this being a major facet in the domestic movement to continue the current state of the war within the decade if Israel continues to exist as the entity as it is now. The only thing that holds me back is that I think it would be irresponsible for me to take others up on that wager because I feel like I would be scamming people with an unwinnable bet.
Lol it's so cringey to be in DC and see that dumbass flag flying at all these "very serious institutions" knowing what it actually represents.
It's sick. They fly it in front of my county's jail. The prisoners are HERE dipshits!
We are all dogs in God's hot car
We are all prisoners in God's for-profit outdoor penitentiary in removedpa County, Arizona
I think all federal government buildings have to fly it by law. It's on all the post offices
It was signed into law in 2019.
The National POW/MIA Flag Act ensures that the POW/MIA Flag is displayed whenever the U.S. flag is displayed at certain locations. Those locations include the U.S. Capitol, the White House, the World War II Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, every national cemetery, the buildings containing the official offices of the Secretaries of State, Defense, and Veterans Affairs, the office of the Director of the Selective Service System, each major military installation (as designated by the Secretary of Defense), each Department of Veterans Affairs medical center, clinics and Veterans Benefits Administration offices and each United States Postal Service post office
What if we had the National PPB Flag Act instead?
I feel like the USPS has had the cringe flags for longer, but I'm probably just misremembering things.
There was a good line in the Ken Burns Vietnam War documentary about the POW/MIA phenomenon that was something like "many of these statements ultimately gave the impression that the reason the US was invading Vietnam was to rescue its own people who had been mysteriously kidnapped by the North Vietnamese government"
And the worst part is the they will win Eurovision with a song that mimickes Fortunate Son but instead it's going to be how they weren't allowed to bomb tent encampments.
I’ve had the same thought and I think you are dead on and I would agree that we are very much already seeing movement towards this.
