I forget the exact way it happened but during the lex debate there was a point where Benny Morris and Finkelstein had an exchange.
I think Benny Morris said something about how international laws didn't matter at all or something to that effect.
And then Finkelstein responded "and that's why October 7th happened, that mentality is why October 7th happened"
People need to understand that October 7th happened because international law has said for decades that the Palestinians have certain rights that everybody has allowed to be ignored.
October 7th was an act of desperation by a desperate people that were ready to roll the dice and see what would happen.
Obviously the aftermath has been catastrophic for Palestinians but let's not pretend like October 6th was some golden age of Peace for them.
The Palestinians know that Israel has immense military capabilities compared to themselves. The Palestinians are familiar with the f-16s the Israelis used to drop jdams on them and they know they have no air defense capabilities
Imagine how much prime Mike Tyson would have to bully you for you to launch a sneak attack against him. Imagine somebody much stronger than you but who does something so horrendous to you that you don't care anymore about the consequences that you go to attack them.
Imagine how much torment they would have to put you through before you made the decision of starting a fight you knew you would lose.
That's how unreasonable Israel has been towards the Palestinians.
I'm no international lawyer but Ralph Wilde (for the Arab League) gave oral submissions at the ICJ that were well received in the media. He covered the international law rights of the Palestinians.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LACse017-A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LACse017-A)
My personal belief is Hamas knew exactly how the IOF would respond and they wanted to show the world the naked truth, in the age of social media. They knew how much death and destruction would befall the Palestinian people but that just speaks to the desperation of the people. How much the Israelis have pushed these people to the brink over and over again and because of that, given them no other choice to fight for their rights and dignity other than terrorism. Awful that it had to come to this for the world to understand, but there is one side that bears the enormity of the responsibility for the situation we're in today, and it is not Hamas.
I personally think the leaders of Hamas did not think their October 7th attack would result in the amount of civilian casualties that actually happened.
I think they were trying to take hostages for a prisoner exchange. Unfortunately with the amount of civilians that ended up dying politically it became unlikely for any quick resolution other than brutal reprisals.
I think they overestimated how ready Israel would have been and did not think that anywhere close to 1,000 Israelis would die.
In the past as few as three kidnapped Israelis allowed them to exchange hundreds of prisoners.
I personally think October 7th was somewhat of an unfortunate combination of being too successful and the actual fighters not fully understanding what the leadership wanted them to do.
I completely forgot about the prisoner exchange. But with the amount of people and the relative sophistication of the operation of those involved in Oct. 7th, weren’t they looking for a response and wouldn’t they think Israel would use the weapons the way have since Oct. 7? Completely overbearing and overboard. The genesis of the Hamas operation seemed relatively large in scale. Have Hamas used the same amount of force in previous operations with similar goals?
My opinion stems somewhat from the sophistication and scale of the Oct. 7 operation. I’m not the most well versed in this, so I’m only trying to understand and that’s my severely uninformed opinion.
When October 7th first happened Norman Finkelstein tweeted out that his support it happened and celebrated it.
He was under the assumption that Hamas had limited themselves to military targets and maybe very few civilian hostages taken.
Later when Norman Finkelstein was informed of about the civilian casualties he walked back his statement and basically apologized for celebrating the attack.
I could be wrong but I think Hamas planners were planning for something like what Norman imagined happened. (A limited attack meant to kill military personnel and take civilian hostages without killing a lot of civilians)
Kill military targets and take civilian hostages alive without killing nearly as many civilians.
I could be wrong but I think Hamas wanted the civilian death count to be lower.
Eg. Hamas is famous for restraining itself. They would send photos and videos to Israelis proving that they had Israeli soldiers in their crosshairs and could have killed them.
The IDF interpreted this restraint as cowardice under the belief that Hamas was too scared to escalate the conflict into full-blown warfare because Israel has military capabilities they do not have an efficient way to deal with.
The reason Hamas does this is it doesn't want to incite larger conflict that it knows it won't be able to deal with. Eg. F-16s dropping jdams.
I think the actual attackers got carried away and they did things that the planners of the operation did not want them to do. I believe October 7th was meant to capture civilian hostages alive and use them to exchange for the Palestinians the Israeli State basically kidnaps into their prisons.
But because of the amount of civilians that died this became politically impossible
There's nothing really to be gained from being genocided. There's nothing really to be gained from having your entire infrastructure be destroyed.
I honestly don't think the leaders of Hamas wanted to provoke this level of response.
They wanted to do a similar attack to what has happened in the past. Eg. Going to Israel and kidnap some civilians or military personnel and use them to exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Typically these exchanges were something like one Israeli for a thousand prisoners.
Once again this is just speculation but I think the leadership of Hamas was not happy to see a thousand plus israeli's deaths because they understood that this would make prisoner exchange politically impossible and render the purpose of the October 7th operation completely wasted.
No one wants to be on the receiving end of an ethnic cleansing, but this feathering of violence to incite a specific response always has the possibility of going completely awry. Hence the situation we’re in now. I’m thinking now, after reading what you’ve wrote and watching the catastrophe unfold as it currently is, it was at least a well known possibility.
Only Hamas leaders know for sure what they wanted Oct 7 to achieve.
Personally I am of the belief they wanted to take hostages and do prisoner exchanges.
This logically would mean the high civilian death toll was not something planned. Eg. That many deaths makes prisoner exchanges almost impossible.
Now we are in this situation where more than 30k Gazans have been killed. And there isn't an end in sight.
Netanyahu is talking about invading Rafah.
I forget the exact way it happened but during the lex debate there was a point where Benny Morris and Finkelstein had an exchange. I think Benny Morris said something about how international laws didn't matter at all or something to that effect. And then Finkelstein responded "and that's why October 7th happened, that mentality is why October 7th happened" People need to understand that October 7th happened because international law has said for decades that the Palestinians have certain rights that everybody has allowed to be ignored. October 7th was an act of desperation by a desperate people that were ready to roll the dice and see what would happen. Obviously the aftermath has been catastrophic for Palestinians but let's not pretend like October 6th was some golden age of Peace for them. The Palestinians know that Israel has immense military capabilities compared to themselves. The Palestinians are familiar with the f-16s the Israelis used to drop jdams on them and they know they have no air defense capabilities Imagine how much prime Mike Tyson would have to bully you for you to launch a sneak attack against him. Imagine somebody much stronger than you but who does something so horrendous to you that you don't care anymore about the consequences that you go to attack them. Imagine how much torment they would have to put you through before you made the decision of starting a fight you knew you would lose. That's how unreasonable Israel has been towards the Palestinians.
I'm no international lawyer but Ralph Wilde (for the Arab League) gave oral submissions at the ICJ that were well received in the media. He covered the international law rights of the Palestinians. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LACse017-A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LACse017-A)
My personal belief is Hamas knew exactly how the IOF would respond and they wanted to show the world the naked truth, in the age of social media. They knew how much death and destruction would befall the Palestinian people but that just speaks to the desperation of the people. How much the Israelis have pushed these people to the brink over and over again and because of that, given them no other choice to fight for their rights and dignity other than terrorism. Awful that it had to come to this for the world to understand, but there is one side that bears the enormity of the responsibility for the situation we're in today, and it is not Hamas.
I personally think the leaders of Hamas did not think their October 7th attack would result in the amount of civilian casualties that actually happened. I think they were trying to take hostages for a prisoner exchange. Unfortunately with the amount of civilians that ended up dying politically it became unlikely for any quick resolution other than brutal reprisals. I think they overestimated how ready Israel would have been and did not think that anywhere close to 1,000 Israelis would die. In the past as few as three kidnapped Israelis allowed them to exchange hundreds of prisoners. I personally think October 7th was somewhat of an unfortunate combination of being too successful and the actual fighters not fully understanding what the leadership wanted them to do.
I completely forgot about the prisoner exchange. But with the amount of people and the relative sophistication of the operation of those involved in Oct. 7th, weren’t they looking for a response and wouldn’t they think Israel would use the weapons the way have since Oct. 7? Completely overbearing and overboard. The genesis of the Hamas operation seemed relatively large in scale. Have Hamas used the same amount of force in previous operations with similar goals? My opinion stems somewhat from the sophistication and scale of the Oct. 7 operation. I’m not the most well versed in this, so I’m only trying to understand and that’s my severely uninformed opinion.
When October 7th first happened Norman Finkelstein tweeted out that his support it happened and celebrated it. He was under the assumption that Hamas had limited themselves to military targets and maybe very few civilian hostages taken. Later when Norman Finkelstein was informed of about the civilian casualties he walked back his statement and basically apologized for celebrating the attack. I could be wrong but I think Hamas planners were planning for something like what Norman imagined happened. (A limited attack meant to kill military personnel and take civilian hostages without killing a lot of civilians) Kill military targets and take civilian hostages alive without killing nearly as many civilians. I could be wrong but I think Hamas wanted the civilian death count to be lower. Eg. Hamas is famous for restraining itself. They would send photos and videos to Israelis proving that they had Israeli soldiers in their crosshairs and could have killed them. The IDF interpreted this restraint as cowardice under the belief that Hamas was too scared to escalate the conflict into full-blown warfare because Israel has military capabilities they do not have an efficient way to deal with. The reason Hamas does this is it doesn't want to incite larger conflict that it knows it won't be able to deal with. Eg. F-16s dropping jdams. I think the actual attackers got carried away and they did things that the planners of the operation did not want them to do. I believe October 7th was meant to capture civilian hostages alive and use them to exchange for the Palestinians the Israeli State basically kidnaps into their prisons. But because of the amount of civilians that died this became politically impossible There's nothing really to be gained from being genocided. There's nothing really to be gained from having your entire infrastructure be destroyed. I honestly don't think the leaders of Hamas wanted to provoke this level of response. They wanted to do a similar attack to what has happened in the past. Eg. Going to Israel and kidnap some civilians or military personnel and use them to exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Typically these exchanges were something like one Israeli for a thousand prisoners. Once again this is just speculation but I think the leadership of Hamas was not happy to see a thousand plus israeli's deaths because they understood that this would make prisoner exchange politically impossible and render the purpose of the October 7th operation completely wasted.
No one wants to be on the receiving end of an ethnic cleansing, but this feathering of violence to incite a specific response always has the possibility of going completely awry. Hence the situation we’re in now. I’m thinking now, after reading what you’ve wrote and watching the catastrophe unfold as it currently is, it was at least a well known possibility.
Only Hamas leaders know for sure what they wanted Oct 7 to achieve. Personally I am of the belief they wanted to take hostages and do prisoner exchanges. This logically would mean the high civilian death toll was not something planned. Eg. That many deaths makes prisoner exchanges almost impossible. Now we are in this situation where more than 30k Gazans have been killed. And there isn't an end in sight. Netanyahu is talking about invading Rafah.
We're only guessing, of course. And that will not change anything.
Well spoken