Israeli Military Says Hamas Can’t Be Destroyed, Escalating Feud With Netanyahu
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A rift between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s military leadership is spilling increasingly into the open after the armed forces’ top spokesman said Netanyahu’s aim of destroying Hamas in Gaza is unachievable.
“The idea that we can destroy Hamas or make Hamas disappear is misleading to the public,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari told Israeli television on Wednesday.
The comment was a rare direct rebuke from the military of how Netanyahu has delineated the main aim of the war in Gaza, which he says is “total victory” over Hamas and returning Israeli hostages held by the group . The prime minister has said repeatedly that he won’t accept an end to the war without the group’s eradication as a military and governing power.
The Prime Minister’s Office pushed back on Hagari’s comments. “The security cabinet headed by Prime Minister Netanyahu defined the destruction of Hamas’ military and governmental capabilities as one of the goals of the war. The IDF is of course committed to this,” it said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
The exchange was an illustration of months of tensions between Netanyahu and the country’s military leadership, who argue that Hamas could only be defeated if Israel replaces it with another governing authority in Gaza. During more than eight months of war, the Israeli military has invaded swaths of the Gaza Strip, only to see Hamas reconstitute itself in areas when Israeli forces withdraw.
“What we can do is grow something different, something to replace it,” Hagari said Wednesday. “The politicians will decide” who should replace Hamas, he said.
Netanyahu has rejected a series of proposals for possible alternatives to Hamas, including an American plan to bring in the Palestinian Authority and Arab calls for a Palestinian unity government that would include Hamas. Some military analysts and former Israeli officials have questioned whether installing a new government in Gaza was ever possible, given that Hamas has managed to survive the Israeli military assault.
The rift with the military leadership comes as Netanyahu is also under pressure from the Biden administration to accept a cease-fire proposal that President Biden said would lead to an end to the war. This week, Netanyahu opened a new dispute with the administration, accusing the U.S. of withholding weapons and ammunition from Israel. The White House dismissed the claims , saying it paused only one shipment of bombs over concerns about the potential killing of civilians in Israel’s operation in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza.
More than 37,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, most of them civilians, Palestinian officials say. The figure doesn’t specify how many were combatants. Israeli bombing has also reduced much of the strip to rubble and uprooted more than a million people from their homes.
The Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7 left about 1,200 people dead—most of them civilians—according to Israeli authorities. Hamas also took about 250 hostages , dozens of whom remain in captivity in Gaza.
The war has pushed the Middle East to the brink of wider conflict, with increasing concerns that Israel could enter a full-scale war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, an Islamist group aligned with both Iran and Hamas, after months of cross-border fire that has displaced tens of thousands of civilians in Lebanon and Israel. Hezbollah has refused to stop fighting without a cease-fire in Gaza.
The Israeli military relies on reservist soldiers, some of whom have described growing exhaustion as Israel manages conflicts for months on end on multiple fronts, including the border with Lebanon and in the West Bank. An end to fighting in Gaza would give Israeli forces a respite that analysts say is needed, especially if fighting with Hezbollah escalates further.
In Gaza, after months of fleeing bombing, living without regular electricity and with limited supplies of food and water, ordinary Palestinians are also losing hope that the war will end soon.
“Everyone here lives waiting for the day they’ll be killed,” said Hazar Ghanem, a 22-year-old who is sheltering in Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. “People here are frustrated.”
The tensions between Netanyahu and the military are coming to a boil after the military launched an operation in May in Rafah, where more than a million Palestinian civilians had been sheltering at the time.
Netanyahu argued for months that the Rafah invasion was central to his vision of achieving total victory. The military has been signaling that the Rafah operation will soon come to an end, saying this week that it had dismantled two of Hamas’s four battalions in the region and seized most of the Rafah area.
Israel Ziv, a retired Israeli general and veteran of multiple wars, said tensions between the Israeli military and security establishment and Netanyahu are at a record high.
“The IDF feels and the security echelon feels that we exhausted the purpose of the war. We reached the maximum tactical peak that we can achieve,” he said. “As long as Rafah was there, they could say finish the job. OK it’s finished now.”
The friction between Netanyahu and the military establishment had burst into public view earlier in the war. In May, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant delivered a speech calling on the government to decide who should replace Hamas in Gaza. The lack of a decision, he said, left Israel with only two choices: Hamas rule or a complete Israeli military takeover of the strip.
“We need to make a decision,” said Ziv. “Even a bad decision, that’s OK. Let’s say [we] occupy Gaza in the next few years because we need to clear up the last few terrorists. OK, it’s a bad decision, but it’s a decision. The military needs to know.”
The dispute between Netanyahu and the military centers in part on how officials define a defeat of Hamas. An Israeli military official said the army considers a battalion “dismantled” not when all its fighters are killed, but when its command structure and ability to carry out organized attacks are eliminated.
“We are getting close to finishing the job defined by the government and we’ll reach a point when we’re just fighting guerrilla warfare, and that could take years,” the military official said.
Military analysts say that Hamas’s militia forces are likely to survive the Israeli military operation even in Rafah, in part because the Israeli army’s approach leaves many lower-ranking Hamas fighters in place. Hamas’s top leadership in the enclave, including its leader , Yahya Sinwar, have also eluded Israeli forces throughout the war.
“Hamas is preserving its forces in Rafah rather than engaging the Israel Defense Forces, likely because Hamas does not believe Israel’s Rafah operation will be decisive,” said an assessment this week from the Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project.
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They can't finish Hamas.
I've held that position since the beginning, it's an ideology, simple as that.
I know you have.
When the IDF says it, I get concerned.
I have maintained that the destruction of Hamas was impossible as well. This war only ensures the continuation of antipathy to the future.
Perhaps, but the continued leadership of Hamas and the PA ensures the continuation of antipathy to the future. There is no Camp David Summit in the foreseeable future. Even the most liberal Israeli isn't likely to trust Palestinian leadership for a generation or more.
The Palestinians have never been able to govern, they've been occupied for centuries.
That is the only way and what they deserve
I did not agree with you originally because I thought that the IDF would eventually succeed in defeating the Hamas and Islamic Jihad militias. I even thought that with what the general Gazan public has been experiencing it would eventually turn against its Hamas leaders. Now I know I'm wrong on both counts, because EVERY Gazan has been brought up from childhood, with the help of their UNRWA teachers, to HATE THE JEWS. Why? Because it IS their ideology. It is inscribed in the book that guides their religion. It is inscribed in the Koran to Kill the Jews and it is within the soul of every Muslim that has respect for their bible, the Koran. The Koran DEMANDS the followers of Islam to KILL THE JEWS. READ IT - IT'S PLAIN AS DAY.
LINK ->
"THERE IS A JEW BEHIND ME, COME AND KILL HIM" Is that not clear enough?
And the Muslim Imams preach that ideology, to make it sharp and clear in the minds of all religious Muslims. MEMRI is the Muslim channel.
Because of that there will NEVER be an end of Israel being attacked by the Palestinians, the Gazans, Iran and its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the Houthis. And because the Palestinian and Gazan civilians have not and will not turn against their leaders, and because they have been educated from childhood to hate the Jews THEY ARE ALL COMPLICIT WHICH IS WHY I HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR THEIR LOSSES.
Hamas has ALREADY won the war - they have won the war of world wide public opinion. HAS ANYONE OF AUTHORITY TOLD HAMAS TO SURRENDER EVEN THOUGH THEY CANNOT WIN THE WAR? Even though it would IMMEDIATELY end the war, end the bloodshed, open the gates to humanitarian aid, start the rebuilding and reconstruction of Gaza - don't bother to wait. It won't happen which tells me where Israel and Jews the world over stand in the hearts and minds of the rest of the world.
And as Iran approaches their ability to produce a nuclear bomb, which they will give to their proxies and direct them to wipe the "Great Satans" from the face of the Earth, and unless we are all completely ignorant we know who THEY are. So IMO we are all looking forward to THE SUM OF ALL FEARS. If you've seen that movie, you'll know what THAT means. So get ready, folks, IMO there are only a few seconds left on the Doomsday Clock unless maybe AI will rescue humanity, because humanity is going to commit suicide and if it isn't a world war it will be the climate.
Look no farther than Texas for what I mean...
Texas Imam: Judgment Day Won’t Start ‘Until Muslims Fight the Jews in Palestine’
LINK ->
Even the most Liberal Palestinian...
Call me Pollyannaish but I think that most of the population on both sides would like to live in peace. It is the governments of the various countries that field the questions as if they were in an existential crisis all of the time. To be certain, sometimes there are real and present dangers that need to be dealt with. IMO, this war is not one of them.
This war is fought because the Israeli government was goaded into action in response to the October 7th attacks. This war is the doing of Hamas. It was specifically planned and executed in a most horrendous fashion by Hamas, who is the governmental authority, however speciously attained, of the Gaza Strip. And the question that leaps out front and center is: Why the fuck would they do that?!
It was a PR stunt.
The Palestinians would be front and center of the world news. Because Hamas knew the extent of their hiding behind civilians would necessitate a whole shitload of citizens dying and mass chaos. They said, "I'm in!"
I get it. Hamas is bad. But Israel's government is no saint (pardon the mixology). So where does that leave us? A lot of the world is looking-on saying, "I respect the right of Israel to defend itself." and a lot of the world is looking-on saying, " Why the fuck would they do that?!"
The fact is a lot of the world is looking-on. Talk about seeing you with your pants down.
Why would any Palestinian leadership trust Israel. Have you been paying attention to what the IDF and Israeli settlers have been doing in the West Bank well before Oct 7th? Since Oct 7th they have gotten dramatically worse.
And Israel was a failed state during that time. It didn't exist for centuries until the the British got involved. Then the UN.
First there is no Palestinian leadership but common definitions of the word. Those at the top of the Palestinian heap have consistently, for 75 years, threatened to eliminate Israel. They have sponsored terrorism and invasions over those years. Israel evicted Israeli’s in Gaza and had Arafat agreed at Camp David, many in the West Bank would have been evicted. But he didn’t and after 3 intifadas and 7 Oct, even the most liberal Israeli isn’t interested in Hamas or Hamas supporters in Gaza or the West Back, continuing to live.
During what time? During the centuries it didn't exist? Israel didn't become a state until 1948. Since that time it become a successful regional economic powerhouse. Despite its problems, and they do exist, Israel can in no way be thought of as a "failed" state. Not in the past and not now.
The PA has threatened to destroy Israel?
How long ago was that?
The PA is the loyal lap dogs of Israel and the US. So long as the money continues to flow to them they will do nothing to help their own people against the IDF and Israeli settlers.
Israel also has had a blockade of Gaza since 2007- again an act of continuous war.
You are correct, the Palestinians do not have good leadership. Israel and the US have seen to it. Israel wants the Palestinians weak and divided; and the US does what Israel wants.
Right over you head.
Israel didn't exist for how many centuries?
Suddenly in 1948 poof it exists again- with a fraction of the population of the Arabs living in the area. But they are armed with US and Europe bought weapons.
Ignoring the billions upon billions in financial and military aid the US has given Israel since it's inception? Israel didn't exist before 1948; period. They were a failed state; because successful ones don't disappear.
There is no map that clearly defines the borders of Israel from it's pre 1948 existence. Not a damn one. So Zionists have made their own. Tell us if you can see any problems with their map.
When did Palestine exist as a country?
How much aid has the Palestinians received from the Mideast, Europe, UN and the old USSR?
The previous PLA.
Again, the Palestinians remain leaderless. How much has Hamas helped their own people?
Israel and the US have seen to it. Israel wants the Palestinians weak and divided; and the US does what Israel wants.
When in the last two thousand years have Palestinians been led by Palestinians?
Your comment is certainly incoherent and what little can be discerned from it is in large part ahistoric and contrary to reality, besides making absolutely no sense. Unless, of course, you want us to believe that a state that didn't exist is a "failed" state.
You seem surprised that there is no map showing a state that didn't exist.
This is what happens when your routine for engagement is "ready, fire, aim".
I don't think that's a legitimate question in that I don't think Palestinians in the majority, let alone Hamas and their ilk, give a damned about trusting Israel. The question implies that they are interested in coexisting with Israel in some fashion when they are not.
In my opinion, this is at least a partial result of decades of being surrounded by enemies that want to see you destroyed completely. This is an objective fact and is demonstrated by the lack of Jews in Muslim countries. They used to be there but were either killed or chased out long ago. There are a few here and there, but very few and they are in an actual apartheid environment, not the false apartheid claimed by idiots in the West.
If any of what I just said is true, then it isn't surprising that those on the extreme right, of which any society has, says to themselves that it is obvious that peace isn't an option so we may as well just take it all. It's hard to blame them. Israel is being attacked along all of its borders, just like always. Oh, wait. Not Egypt, I guess. To many Israelis, it must appear that peace is never going to be an option so the choices are either to be eliminated or take what we think is ours and simply live in a perpetual state of war. Pound the surrounding enemies into dust until their ability to attack doesn't exist or they get an ally that Israel can't defeat.
While I don't agree with the nationalist right in Israel, nor am I a fan of Netanyahu, it needs to be said that Israel is facing an impossible choice. Either keep on fighting or work for a peace that only they want. In my opinion, the one option that I think has the most chance of creating change is to get the UN to stop recognizing and helping the Palestinians. It has been nothing short of disastrous. So much so and so obvious that one almost has to believe that the UN is actually the one driving this conflict. They knew where nearly all of the funding was going and what it was being used for. Hell, they knew Hamas was in the UNRWA organization.
If the world wants to help Palestinians after this, give the money to Israel, with oversight, so that they could effect something like the Marshall plan in Gaza. Israel uses the money to pay for reconstruction, paying good wages to the Palestinians to do the work while their military retains security responsibility within the region. Build infrastructure, schools, hospitals, small business loans and the rest. Israel is responsible for educating the children. Help them build a government based on the rule of law rather than hatred. Then, one day, when the place is a going concern, leave the Palestinians to it.
But first, Israel should stay the course until every foot of the tunnel system is destroyed and every Hamas leader is dead or captured and all of its ability to operate is gone. It won't kill Hamas, the idea, but Hamas would have to start completely from scratch.
Neither do many, if not most, Israelis, and Netanyahu is intensely disliked. The next Israeli election will likely see the end of Netanyahu's leadership.
Not Jordan, either. I had a Jordanian client many years ago and she told me "We have nothing against Israel." There is a very large Palestinian population in Jordan who may not all have the same attitude.
I have met, and represented, many people from different Middle Eastern countries. None of them ever expressed any hostility toward Israel.
Do some research. There was a Palestine; but it to was a failed state. They can't even find it on ancient maps either.
Again, do some research. Israel is the sole record holder when it comes to financial and military aid. To claim that Israel is self sufficient is an absolute lie.
How long ago was that? When was the last terrorist attack the PA conducted against Israel?
You will receive no argument from me on that; but whose fault is that. Who props up the PA; and who helped create Hamas as a counter to the PA to make sure they failed?
Bush Jr was a willing patsy by forcing Hamas to be on the ballot in 2006. Ensuring that there would be a divided government between the West Bank and Gaza.
Helped their own people? They don't give a shit about their own people. Their leaders only care about keeping Iranian money flowing to them. You have never heard me state anything different.
When have they been allowed to?
The US does what israel wants?
So who do you think is/was Israel's puppet? Trump-- or Biden? (or both????)
What about Bush? Obama? were they also being controlled by Israel?
Look at the West Bank. Look at how Palestinians and non Jews are treated in Israel. Then tell us all again what Israel has done to earn Palestinian trust?
The rest of your post is nothing more than a long winded justification for genocide.
It is still a war crime.
If Israel follows through on it they need to suffer the same fate as other genocidal entities in the Hague.
Bush insisted Hamas be allowed on the 2006 ballot. He played his role to make sure Palestinians were divided.
As for Obama, what has he or any US president done to rein in Israel in the West Bank and Gaza? The most Obama did was waste US taxpayer money to try and interfere in an Israeli election to oust Bibi. He failed. He didn't slow down Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank in the slightest; and did nothing to improve the Gazan's plight either.
Oh and please- Trump was all in for Israel. He proved it by moving the US embassy to Jerusalem; and then hatching this stupid plan.
About as anti Palestinian plan as you can get.
As for Biden. He has done nothing to rein in Israel. He is walking the fine line of trying not to piss off his far left radicals that support Hamas (how stupid can you get) and Palestinians; and not pissing off the Democrat Jewish contingency and more importantly the AIPAC. He can drop all the aid packages on Palestinians heads he wants, he can build all of the useless temporary piers he wants. He can brow beat Bibi all he wants. At the end of the day he is a toothless lion roaring his last breath.
I wonder where you found that map.
I've been very familiar with the area-- as well as these issue-- for decades. And never have I seen any map resembling that.
Do you really think people here are stupid enough to believe that?
(Actually its probably better for all concerned if you don't answer that question...)
Let's start at the top-- the implication is that Israelis (and worse yet-- actual "Zionists"--have ever claimed part of Turkey-- that's absurd!
And Saudi Arabia...???
WTF?
One of the problems with your argument: Israel has not been committing genocide.
(When a group has been genocided, their numbers decrease. Fact; the population of "Palestinians" has been increasing for years (If anything it could be called a "reverse genocide")
So according to you,then-- all recent presidents, both Republican and Democrat-- have been totally biased and one sided?
"Palestine" was never a country. In fact, it was used to describe an ill-defined area.
it analogous to Americans saying they are 'New Englanders" or "Midwesterners".
Neither of those is a distinct country-- nor is there a "Midwestern religion"-- or a "Midwestern ruler" nor a "Midwestern religion" or a "Miswestern currency"/
In fact, until the re-creation of Israel (1948) Jews in the area often referred to themselves as "Palestinians"-- or "Palestinian Jews" (as opposed to, for example) "South American Jews"'
"Palestine was an area (and, interestingly, in the past and to this day people don't even agree on what areas constitute"The Middle East"....
They can't finish Hamas if they play patty cake.
Let IDF loose like Lincon let Sherman loose. If they say they are following Lincon's example most of the complainers will have to keep quiet. Show Palestinians what a march to the sea looks like!
I am sure Bibi and the Hamas leaders would the love the company in the Hague.
What, exactly, would you love about that????
I said "Bibi and the Hamas leaders would love the company".
Anyone that commits genocide belongs in the Hague. Whether it is Hamas, Bibi, or the IDF simply "following orders". You can throw in the Israeli settlers in the West Bank who are conducting attacks on Palestinians trying to drive them out.
There is nothing I love about any of this.
But it seems some genocidal bloodlust among my fellow Americans has been let out.
Perhaps it would be helpful if you described the definition of genocide that you are using because, as I understand the term, there'd be a lot more dead Palestinians at this point if genocide as I understand the term was Israel's goal.
Exactly.
And in addition to that, as a true genocide proceeds, the targeted population decreases in numbers-- but the fact is the population of the so-called "Palestinians" has been increasing over time (in fact its increasing faster then the Jewish population in the area-- which is the reverse of what we be occurring if the "Palestinians" were actually being "genocided"!
Most of those who act like they care about Palestinas don't have to put up with them
Do you even know any Palestinians?
NO! and I don't want to
Don't expand your horizons at all.
You might found out the vast majority of Palestinians aren't terrorists. Don't support Hezbollah, Hamas, or the PA; and many are living in the US right now trying to keep a very low profile given all that is going on.
You also might find out that have been attacks against Palestinians (and Arabs) that the media are not reporting; because it has all of it's concentration centered on some far left radicals that aren't even smart enough to know anything about Hamas; but claim to support it. The majority aren't even Arabs, much the less Palestinians, but they do know how to get the media to focus on them by harassing Jews. They are making like much harder for real Arabs, especially Palestinians in the US.
....like Rashida Tlaib.
Never underestimate the mendacity of neoliberals. The IDF has two missions. First repatriate the hostages. Second find the Palestinian leadership who keep the terror train running and kill them.
The trope that 'Hamas is an idea' is nothing more than propaganda to advocate for nation building. Israel already occupied Gaza and tried nation building. That approach completely and utterly failed. Neoliberal nation building WILL NOT WORK. If military and governing power of Hamas cannot be eradicated then Palestinian genocide becomes the only means of securing the right of Israel to exist as a state. With their nation building nonsense, neoliberals are actually simplifying the choices. Kill the Hamas leadership responsible for continuing the idea of terror - or - kill all the Palestinians in Gaza to completely eliminate the problem.
The Holocaust was an idea turned into reality. And it is true the ideas that justified the Holocaust are still with us. But those ideas no longer have the power to use government and the military to create the reality of a Holocaust. The military and governing power of those ideas have been eradicated. We paint our political opponents with a broad brush portraying them as embracing the ideas of the Holocaust so those political opponents cannot obtain military and governing power.
Hamas cannot be allowed to rule Gaza any more than Nazis can be allowed to rule Germany. And we sure as hell tried to kill all the fuckin' Nazis. We're still hunting Nazis 80 years after wars end to bring them to justice. The eradication of the Nazis from power demonstrated that nation building can only succeed by killing 'em all.
Netanyahu is following and applying the costly lessons of history. Netanyahu is on the right path. Don't allow neoliberals to screw it all up again. Yeah, it may be impossible to eradicate ideas. But that's not the point, is it?
Only question after that diatribe is how many IDF officers and soldiers want to join Bibi and the Hamas leaders in the Hague.
Genocide is still a war crime.
Even using the inflated Hamas numbers, less than 2 pct of the Palestinians in Gaza have been killed. Hardly a genocide.
How many hostages have the IDF raped? How many dead hostages have the IDF dragged into Israel as war trophies?
Well. then tell Hamas not to do that.
The Hague is useless, events have shown that
And betond even that-- in the last few years the population of the so-called "Palestinians"has been increasing. (In a real genocide, the population decreases-- rapidly!).
So the fact is-- there is no genocide of "Palestinians"!
First anyone that claims to know the number of dead is a fucking idiot. That number won't be known until after the war is over and heavy machinery is brought in to clear the rubble and uncover the dead; and then some bean counters get to figure out those killed by their wounds, starvation, exposure, and disease. Even then the exact total will never be known.
You were saying.
Israel doesn't need to parade those they kill. They simply kill them. That is what an occupying power does. That and make them disappear and hold them w/o charges. Throw in some torture as well.
.
I love the way some pretend there is a "good guy" between Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the PA.
What, do you love about it?
(Asking for a friend
)
And yet you, dear Ronin2, while obviously not a "fucking idiot" actually claim to know the number (if any) of "Palestinians" allegedly raped!
Your comments are getting curiouser and curiouser . . .
(Just IMHO, as it were...)
And BTW, that was not any sort of Horatio-- nor was it a small Ham (Aka a "Hamlet").
It was actually Alice!*.
____________________________________
* There are different interpretations of Caterpillar's character in the story: he's a phallic symbol representative of Alice's sexual maturation, or the drug culture of the time-both the hookah and the mushshroom he's sitting on.
Yeah? Why are you doing that?
The argument being made is that Israel is as bad as the Palestinians. Lumping them all together as bad guys means there are no innocents in this war. That's not an argument that Palestinians should receive any sympathy or pity. That argument tells us that all of those involved in the war deserve each other.
So, why the fuck should we tolerate these Palestinian assholes protesting on our college campuses? They haven't earned any sympathy and they don't deserve any pity. They're just as bad as the Israelis, after all.
I haven't seen mass protests on college campuses by Israelis.
So, why the fuck should we tolerate these Palestinian assholes protesting on our college campuses? They haven't earned any sympathy and they don't deserve any pity. They're just as bad as the Israelis, after all.
"Just as bad as the Israelis" ??? I haven't seen mass protests on college campuses by Israelis.
The school says there was extensive damage to the interior and exterior of the building . . .
Claims of Israeli sexual assault of Palestinian women are credible, UN panel says
You lost us at the mention of the phrase "UN Panel".
What do they call hiding among civilians, using them as human shields, placing their facilities and weapons in and hiding in schools, hospitals, refugee camps and UN facilities and launching their rockets and missiles from civilian areas, all of which FORCES Israel to cause casualties of war in order to eradicate the source of the constant attacks against them?
I'll say he did!!! The United Nations has PROVEN itself to be the biggest antisemitic organization in the world. It's complicity against Israel proven by UNRWA has already been established. And not just the UN, what about all the women's rights organizations that have been tight-lipped about what Hamas did on Oct 7.
What, exactly,is the difference between "Neoliberals" and the more traditional.old-fashioned liberals?
Old fashioned liberalism arose during the 17th and 18th centuries during what we call the Age of Enlightenment. A necessary presumption (to avoid book length discussion) is an understanding of the egalitarian philosophies and ideologies embodied in enlightened liberalism. In one sense, enlightenment liberalized divinity of the human condition. All men are created equal, possessing the same endowed rights, and the same freedoms to exercise free will. Note that everyone possessing the same divine rights is not the same thing as being secular. The liberalism of Enlightenment tended to measure human progress in terms of opportunities rather than outcomes. As long as opportunities were available, an individual could achieve a desired outcome through their own labor and exercise of free will (that is the American dream BTW).
Neoliberalism began as an economic theory that really came into vogue during the depression of the 1930s to overcome government sponsored trade monopolies and establish more egalitarian trade; free trade. The Great Depression had crashed the global economy and the mercantile imperialistic monopolies that had controlled global economics (and geopolitics) for several centuries had become an obstacle to restarting the global economy. Neoliberalism attempted to apply the principles of Enlightenment to economics; an individual could achieve a desired outcome through their own capital and exercise of free will. What everyone deliberately ignored is that economics is entirely focused on outcome. So, neoliberalism actually advocated that individuals use their own capital and free will to create their own opportunities. By the end of the 20th century the theory of neoliberalism was transformed into a governing principle that any desired outcome could be achieved by applying sufficient capital to create opportunities (that's not the American dream BTW). Labor and free will became irrelevant in human progress; people no longer had to work or think to achieve a desired outcome.
Today neoliberalism has supplanted Enlightened liberalism in political government. Human progress is measured by outcomes measured in dollars. The role of government is to achieve desired outcomes by spending money to arbitrarily create opportunities that have little to do with reality. But the result has really been the establishment of a new, unequal divinity. Obviously we're not equally endowed with capital. And those who do have capital also have more rights. Neoliberalism has ushered in an age of unenlightenment; a new dark age.
(And the IMO tag should be understood. But on this board it really is necessary to state the obvious.)
"Today"?
So it was never like that in the past?
Well, the American Revolution and French Revolution did overthrow divine rule and established governments that incorporated many of the egalitarian principles of enlightened liberalism. The French succumbed to Napoleon at the turn of the 19th century. And the Americans succumbed to the Democratic Party in the 1820s. Liberalism in all its various forms has been a real crap shoot ever since.
Whoa-- wait a minute! People are saying that you can't stop Hamas because its an idea!
An ideology!
(And after all, people are saying that just as were weren't able to end Naziism (supposedly that's true because its an idea) therefore .Hamas can't be eliminated because its an "idea")!
And think about the implications of that: if any people are around who want to genocide you (and your ilk)--- all you have to do is declare yourself to be "an idea"-- and therefore you can't be genocided!
Perhaps the power of the hyperbolic meme can be defused by a mundane question. What is the distinction between an idea and an institution?
My point is this: several people have been saying that Hamas can't be defeated because its "an idea".
Others are saying it can't be defeated because its "an institution".
(Those are words I would have chosen...)
And after all, if people are going to make that claim, I suppose one could also say the same thing about Nazism-- after all, it still exists in the world.
(Did American-- and soldiers from other Allied nations-- die in vain? Because Naziism still exists in the world?)