~15% of Israelis believe that a terrorist who shot up a mosque (literally all he did) is a national hero.

It shouldnt be that that hard to imagine that most of the rest are willing to look the other way in the event of a genocide against the same untermensch.

Edit: looking at the claims more specifically, this one is particularly easy to debunk:

> even publish comic books with some rather overt antisemitic trope

The supposed "antisemitic trope" is an image of a person holding a cracked globe. The blog post implies that this is supposed to be an image representing the antisemitic "masters of the world" trope. In fact, the image represents the UN rapporteur himself looking at how the lack of international reaction to Israel's crimes has left a crack in the UN-led rules-based world order.

We don't know many of the interceptions Hamas was behind, but that isn't really important.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip#Feb...

This is more of an argument in favor of the other side. It immediately becomes clear why they don't have the money.

https://ghf.org/press-briefing-ghf-addresses-personnel-matte...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas

> In February 2020, former Mossad Director Yossi Cohen and Israeli general Herzi Halevi, under Netanyahu's orders, went to Qatar to plead Qatari officials to continue the payments for Hamas.[8] Later, in September 2023, David Barnea, the Director of Mossad since 2021, went to Qatar to meet Qatari officials to discuss about the payments for Hamas.[10][44]

(...)

> Israeli intelligence officials believe that the money had a role in the success of 2023 Hamas-led attack.[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-fulfilling_prophecy

We sold weapons to Burma, China, Russia, ISIS, Sudan and Somaliland [1]?

We're absolutely complicit in Gaza, the DRC f/k/a Zaire and Bosnia. And we helped defend the Yazidi and Ukrainians. Honestly, looking at the list, that's a better record than Russia or China have had since WWII.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides

And then what? Look at the West Bank to see what happens when you don't resist the occupation and fully cooperate with the colonial state. You get slowly cleansed anyway.

> Also the idea of amnesty to all Hamas members looks pretty generous to me

Israel specializes in assassinations and has a history of relentlessly pursuing those it deems its enemies. If you were a Hamas fighter, your choice would be to either die fighting for a purpose, or be killed in exile without a purpose anymore.

However, there's no such thing as "unsuccessful genocide". Wanting to commit genocide and even terrorist bombings which target the population you'd like to exterminate are not genocide. To be committing the crime of genocide, you have to actually be in a position where you are actively displacing or exterminating a population.

Israel is committing genocide in Gaza since October 7th, because they are actively working towards a goal of eliminating the Palestinian population from the Gaza territory, or at least from the majority of it. They have already achieved a part of the genocide. They're not going all scorched earth and killing by the millions for the same reason they're not launching one of their illegal nukes in Gaza: they fear international reaction if the move is too sudden and overwhelming.

Hamas, by contrast, is not committing genocide in Israel, because it's not actively killing or starving or displacing any part of the population of Israel. I'm sure Hamas would love to do that, but it's a simple obvious fact that they're not succeeding. This is like claiming that Al Qaeda has an ongoing campaign of genocide of the West, because of 9/11 and some other attacks on, say, British troops.

One of these is better than the other.

Weirdly, many people disagree over which one that is.

Also, what value has Netanyahu’s word? I mean, after blowing up a truce unilaterally, after killing negotiators, after all the corruption reckoning that is coming to him if/when out of office...

A quote from the Minutes of the Ninth Session of the League of Nations, 1922:

  Colonel Symes explained that the country was described as "Palestine" by Europeans and as "Falestin" by the Arabs. The Hebrew name for the country was the designation "Land of Israel", and the Government, to meet Jewish wishes, had agreed that the word "Palestine" in Hebrew characters should be followed in all official documents by the initials which stood for that designation.

That's insane and not how you negotiate.

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You're being downvoted, but this is pretty much it. Gaza gets peace out of the deal. That's about all they have left to negotiate for.

Nothing justifies a genocide.

Neither of these former politicians are current leaders, of course.

Source?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Haffner

If you were to make them illegal, you're basically legally disenfranchising 25% of Israel's population.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloc_Qu%C3%A9b%C3%A9cois

Devil's advocate: we grow enough food to feed every human. What we lack is the logistics. War disrupts logistics. Food insecurity rising is thus, unfortunately, an expected (and probably unmitigatable) consequence of war.

That's why we have to define a line, based on history and capability, that sets what's a tolerable amount of starvation. And what is not.

And the definition does matter, because 'famine' has the meaning of a certain level of bad thing happening. If we do not preserve the meaning, then the word will not have a meaning, then we have no more word to talk about that bad thing, so we will pay no attention to averting or fixing the bad thing because we don't have the literal ability to talk about it.

I'm in favor of being able to have a productive discussion about famines and how to avoid them, so I'm in favor of having a word for 'famine' with a clearly defined meaning.

Hell, we in the West have given Gaza (and indirectly, we knew it would go to Hamas) so much money. Did we support terrorism? How did we know that they would use our money to buy weapons to murder people in Israel instead of building good things?

For me this is more showing an utter incompetence both from Nethanyau and our Western leaders who totally didn't see how they outsmarted us for years. Why do you think our leaders can control everything and know everything? They can make mistakes out of incompetence.

I guess this strategy sometimes works in other countries, and sometimes they screw you :)

Taliban didn't bomb America. Al Qaeda did. I believe bin Laden was in the Mujahideen.

Just as an example, if a Hamas soldier dons a PRESS vest, is he automatically immune?

every boy 15 and over killed in drone strikes now is automatically listed as an enemy combatant

This math is why the civilian casualty numbers from US military shows almost zero deaths for drone strikes.

The New York Times reported in the 29 May 2012 article Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will:

    Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.*

Tangentially related: On the other hand, several later surveys conducted during the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq (2003–2011) "all put the U5MR in Iraq during 1995–2000 in the vicinity of 40 per 1000," suggesting that "there was no major rise in child mortality in Iraq after 1990 and during the period of the sanctions." from same link above.

Molecular evidence was notably described in nematodes, so epigenetic inheritance is a very old mechanism. I don't think you could describe molecular transgenerational trauma as beautiful, or useful adaptation regarding human life. Especially considering the artificial nature of every famine in today's world, where we are producing enough food to feed all humans on earth three times over.

But let's not trivialize the issue. Most certainly, no-one here can even begin to understand starvation from experience. For starters, you would be in a total different state of mind, potentially delusional, disassociated, depressed, abulic, manic, have an altered perception of reality. During the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, participants mutilated themselves, one guy cut off three of his fingers with an axe and didn't remember why... in the rehab phase! Starvation is an holistic horror.

One, really important to specify that the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel said this, not the UN as a whole. "The UN" is generally held to be the General Assembly.

Two, I'm not disputing that it probably is a genocide. I'm just saying that people have been calling it a genocide well before we had evidence it was one. As a result, the term has lost moral weight.

Put another way, I don't think support for Palestine increases by calling it a genocide again. I do think it increases by showing, specifically, what the famine means for the kids on the ground can change hearts and minds. (Nobody, at this point, is probably going to be swung on a fundamental opinion. People may, however, re-prioritise this politically.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip_famine

EDIT: only due to starvation

The drop is to be expected, since the fighting was much more intense in earlier phases of the war.

Of course, militaries make mistakes and sometimes issue wrong statements, just as governments everywhere do in the fog of war. The Rafah paramedic case you cite is tragic, and investigations matter. But a single flawed or retracted statement doesn’t prove a systematic policy of “lying” or “massacre” just as one instance of misconduct in any country’s army doesn’t automatically invalidate its overall values or procedures.

if we’re going to judge Israel by its errors, we should also weigh the context in which those errors happen (urban warfare, Hamas embedding itself in civilian areas, use of ambulances to smuggle fighters or weapons, etc.). And we should also judge Hamas by its admitted policies - deliberately targeting civilians, embedding in hospitals, rejecting coexistence.

If we’re honest, both of us need to be open to the possibility that our sources and interpretations can be incomplete or biased. Real reflection means asking hard questions in both directions - not only of Israelis, not only of Palestinians.

Also "These numbers are just false" is not a valid argument.

"Official Palestinian tallies of direct deaths in the Gaza war likely undercounted the number of casualties by around 40% in the first nine months of the war as Gaza's healthcare infrastructure unravelled, according to a peer-reviewed study published in The Lancet journal in January."

Still, from those numbers, it seems difficult to stretch from 60k to 600k.

That said, even if you take the absolute tail number, 60k, how anyone can defend a genocide of 60k people in a land area smaller than Portland, in less than a year, is reprehensible. Especially when many of those are children. Almost one child murdered every 10 minutes, at the low end, for an entire year?

Agreed. But as a close friend -- who spent years living and working in the Middle East, including Gaza, and very well connected there -- pointed out to me, it's very hard to believe that Israel, with one of the most, if not the most, heavily guarded borders in the world, with arguably the best intelligence force in the world that is very embedded in the Palestinian Territories, did not know of the attack in advance, if not the details. Think about how much Israel had to gain from letting it happen and it becomes an easy decision.

But also, that's forty-eight dead. The fiasco started after "a 'United Ukraine' rally was attacked by pro-Russian separatists." And this was criminality by a protest group (in predominantly pro-Russian territory, no less) not any party claiming to govern Ukraine.

>A 'United Ukraine' rally was attacked by pro-Russian separatists where Stones, petrol bombs and gunfire were exchanged. The pro-Ukraine protesters then moved to dismantle a pro-Russian protest camp in Kulykove Pole, causing some pro-Russian activists to barricade themselves in the nearby Trade Unions House. Shots were fired by both sides, and the pro-Ukraine protesters attempted to storm the building, which caught fire as the two groups threw petrol bombs at each other.

It's funny because until they started winning, it was basically, "they're done in 3 days", now it's, oh they have billions in equipment etc.

Here's a question for you, why didn't Hamas have that? Why didn't the rest of the world send them more aid and weapons aid? Hmm strange.

If you were in an "open air prison" (silly term, but ok), would your next move be to raid a peace and love festival and slaughter kids ? Just wondering?

Crimea contains multiple resorts! (And they've been selectively targeted when political and military elites are present [1].)

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-my/news/other/ukrainian-drones-strike...

Think of how many Arab states exist.

Now think of how many Jewish states exist.

Israel is literally the only claim to land Jews have. Have you seen the size of Israel? It's not exactly gigantic

Source?

> The total death rate from all causes is substantially below that number (by a factor of 4)

You're still making the mistake of taking statistics from across Gaza and pretending that's relevant. Based on your method, there has never been a crime wave anywhere in the world because the global crime rate tends to be somewhat stable across time and countries.

My point is this isn't a realistic threat for Israel. Its exports are highly desirable to too many parties. Technology. Weapons. Energy. There is too much money to be made, too much advantage to be had.

Yes, if the war in Gaza continues for another decade, Israel will run out of goodwill. But if it wraps up within a year or two? I don't see anything happening quickly enough that they can't adapt. Apartheid was a permanent state. The war need not be.

> America's voting demographic for the next 40 years has begun to see Israel as a genocidal terrorist state. They will be voting for the next 50 years

I'd say a strategic prerogative for Israel at this point is to diversify away from America. It's unfortunate. But they screwed a golden goose.

For the aforementioned reasons, however, that isn't existential. Particularly given India and China have what they consider to be problematic Muslim populations within and around themselves, too.

While it’s bad what’s happening, it’s still nowhere near Syrian or Yemeni levels, although that may change.

The best analogy I can think of is the Allied conduct in Germany at the end of WWII. WWII was a just and defensive war. But the bombing of Dresden and atrocities by the Soviet Army were unnecessary and dishonorable.

Israel is now engaged in unnecessary and dishonorable conduct. They’ve been demoted from impressive to embarrassing.

But they’re still a legitimate country, just like, say, Saudi Arabia.

The pro-palestine progressives are rapidly loosing political power, if not being targeted right now by the Trumpian administration. The National Conservatives may be isolationist regarding free funding, but they certainly aren't going to sanctioning Israel or ending arms sales, while Pro-Palestine is pretty much a useful proxy as is for them to signify "un-americans".

Furthermore, the sanctions on South Africa occurred within the context of the Liberal International Era where one could afford to alienate a state in a region with little importance. But it's posters like you that have been calling for the so-called multipolar world, which is where NGOs and Human Rights will be sidelined in favour of a Westphalian-Type Sovereignity whereby hard interests decide foreign policy, not human rights concerns. In that Realist context, it is virtually within complete interests for the Gulf States and other actors to align with Israel over Iran, the former which has proven itself militairly and acts accordingly to economic interest, whereas the latter is bordering on a failed state still motivated by irrational hegemonic concerns. In the same context, a Palestinian states that takes over Israel basically will likely be detrimental to the other actors.

Not independently. At this point, Israel is independently a de facto regional power. The strike in Doha drove that home. (As did the attacks on Iran, which delivered a geostrategic win to Riyadh that Washington was never able to.)

https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/irans-air-force-is-start...

Israel gained air superiority over Iran and successfully conducted military decapitation strikes. Iran sort of launched some half-assed rockets in Israel's direction.

The only damage Israel has suffered is to its intelligence faculties in Iran.

> the previous operation was a disaster, it allowed to regime to entrench itself even further in IRAN and regime change that they were hoping for didn't happen

It was a tactical failure and strategic success. Iran's proxies have been shown they're completely fucking on their own--Tehran can't defend itself.

As for regime change, Israel didn't prosecute its war in a way that suggests that was the aim. Separatism? Yes. Destabilisation? Sure. Incapacitation? Surely. But regime change? I really don't think so. Knocking out the regime would likely mean elements of the IRGC consolidating power. That isn't a win for Israel.

> I'm sure both Iran and Israel are gearing up for another round of heavy conflict later this year or early next year

Iran doesn't have the ranged capability.

> IRAN is still very much a threat to Israel

I haven't seen any credible, impartial analysis that suggests this is remotely the case.

Iran hasn't been neutralised. It was just reduced to a non-threat during the war. Of course it maintains future capabilities that could be threatening.

> That's not something you do when you've managed to neuter your opponent

Why not? It's an information war.

That is debated. The IDF censors thousands of articles, both domestic and abroad, every year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Military_Censor

as example, there was a story on Israeli news a couple of months ago, about some NGO that setup a new aid distribution network. One day they got some of their people killed in Gaza and received a phone call demanding payment "or else"

How do you get food to all of Gaza while there is raging fighting? The biggest problem is in Gaza city where there is intense fighting. The southern areas have a lot more food. How do we flood Gaza city with food? Ceasefire? We had one. Then what?

Let's plan this in more detail. Who is going to distribute the food in Gaza? Who in Gaza has weapons and control? How is the hostage problem resolved? How do we get Hamas to not rule over Gaza any more?

This specific article is not "criticism". The headline claims Israeli actions caused famine in Gaza. The title, and the article, completely ignores other actors like the government of Gaza (aka Hamas).

"How Israeli actions caused famine in Gaza, visualized" -> is basically a lie. The truth is that Israeli actions contributed to the food situation in the Gaza strip. The cause is obviously the war. The cause of the war is obviously Hamas. The entire article rests solely on a report by a UN organization. The UN is not unbiased. It is openly anti-Israel.

The reporting is completely one sided. It is not news. It is agenda. CNN's agenda is anti-Israel. There is no mention of the UN leaving food on the border to rot and not deliver it. There is little to no mention of the UN's refusal to cooperate with Israeli initiatives to distribute food (and generally refuse to cooperate with Israel on anything).

At best the authors don't understand the idea that correlation doesn't equal causation. I would say the authors and CNN's goal is simply to attack Israel for political reasons.

I think Israel's decision to block aid around the end of February was stupid and a mistake. It is far from clear that decision is a war crime. Israel claims there was plenty of food in Gaza that was delivered during the ceasefire and ofcourse also claims that Hamas has plenty of food in its tunnels. Egypt also at times contributed to the condition in the Gaza strip by blocking aid and preventing refugees from leaving. The actual responsibility for the well being of Palestinian citizens in Palestinian controlled areas (which Gaza city still is) is on their government. That government has a choice to stop the war, it has a choice to distribute the food it controls to its citizens. Ignoring that in any article basically tells us what we need to know. Israel does have responsibilities under international law but is being held to impossible standards that are not applied to any other country. The media intentionally creates an artificial separation between "Hamas" and "Palestinians" where in fact we are talking about combatants and non-combatants of the same non-state or state-like actor (Gaza). Israel is responsible, to the same degree any other country would be, to take steps to allow non-combatants to leave battle areas and to not target them. Israel has asked all non-combatant population to evict the Northern Gaza strip a long time ago. The food situation is worse in that area. So Israel arguably has done what international law requires it to do with respect to non-combatants. Is Israel perfect? no. Is it worse than most western countries? I don't think so, and there's plenty of comparisons we can make. Can we criticize Israel? Definitely!

In terms of contribution to antisemitism, there is a large number of people who will read the title as "How Jew actions caused famine in Gaza". That is literally the conversation on some social media. Just because you haven't seen that doesn't change it. This means there should be more sensitivity and better accuracy and context.

Being Jewish is also not a religion by the way. It's an ethnicity as well. I'm sure you know this but just to remind others. The Jewish people are also known as Israelites and the word Israel is sometimes used as a synonym for Jewish.

but that takes a level of humanism, and effort, abusive leaders don’t have and unfortunately people are too brainwashed to see (and lack the knowledge to understand?).

Antisemitism is alive and kicking. Hate to Jews has not been "displaced into Zionist hate". It's just s/Jews/Zionists/ the hate is the same hate. The blood libels are the same blood libels. The stereotypes the same stereotypes.

If you are talking about how Jews have been treated in Muslim countries it ranged between second rate citizens (dhimmi) to outright massacre. Yes, there have been a handful of examples, in a handful of countries, where Jews managed to thrive despite the discrimination but it was the exception that proved the rule.

I would love to see Israel's government gone and the Palestinian government of Hamas gone. I'm not seeing any analogy to Japan.

  > Jews and Muslims have been allies since the start of Islamic history.

EDIT: I'd also challenge you to tell me why these two states weren't created when Egypt ruled over Gaza and Jordan over the West Bank and Jerusalem up till 1967 (the six day war) when Israel took those areas. Where were all those supporters of the two state solution then? Why didn't they recognize the state of Palestine then over those territories that Israel didn't control?

This sounds kind of like the proposed peace plan, no? They’re supposedly going to put an Arab force in charge of Gaza.

So after 90 days we have the bulk of hostages still in Gaza. Hamas in total control of all of Gaza. Hamas doesn't want to exchange all the hostages, we've been there after the first ceasefire (24 November 2023 to 30 November 2023).

Look at Hamas' calculus. Surviving in any shape and form while holding hostages is a clear win. Increasing Israel's isolation is a win. Anything else is mostly a don't care. They have no intention of giving up control in Gaza or in ceasing future hostilities against Israel. They would love nothing more than to go back to the tit for tat where they make and fire rockets and mortars at Israel all day and Israel has some limited retaliation.

Ask Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers about whether force works or not. Or the Turkish and the Kurds. Or anyone who thought they could go against China. That's not to say that should be the default or the preferred solution, but more force works in situations where you have the power and the other side won't yield.

There is a somewhat stupid/joke saying in Hebrew. What doesn't work with force will work with more force. That's sort of where Israel is right now. Many Israelis don't think this can solve the problem but the government does. I think pretty much everyone would prefer a better/easier way out of this that includes security guarantees and the release of the hostages. There just doesn't seem to be one. It's a problem when fighting an enemy where their loss is their win. There's no leverage. Though in theory Hezbollah was also like that, until it surrendered. The difference in Lebanon/Hezbollah is no hostages and less mix of combatants and civilians.

Killing one enemy leader is insufficient to re-establish deterrence, with how severe the October 7 attacks were I don't think Israel can possibly accept any outcome that doesn't effectively remove Hamas from power in Gaza.

> Not relevant to America.

It still has some effect in America, but less so than other parts of the world.

It's not just Palestinians they needed to deter, by the way most Israelis were also born within the borders as well. Israel has in the past made efforts to give more sovereignty to Palestinians but those efforts have largely backfired. I think initial efforts really need to focus on de-radicalization of Palestinians first before there's any reasonable chance another attempt at giving them more sovereignty will be more successful.

> If Israel would like to give Gaza full sovereignty, or Palestinians born inside the occupied territories the right to vote in the federal systems that determine their law enforcement environment, we can talk about deterrence and law enforcement respectively.

They already tried that[0], it didn't work out and arguably made the situation worse as they voted for Hamas[1] which quite openly advocates for the destruction of Israel.

> Israel has unilateral control of who it recognizes as its citizens, and what sovereign states it recognizes. No complaint about current or past bad behavior by the Palestinians excuses its failure to grant sovereignty or voting rights to people under its territorial control.

Are you seriously suggesting Israel can just give citizenship/voting rights to all Palestinians and make a group that largely wants their destruction a voting majority? There's a reason this will basically never happen, and that reason is that it would effectively be suicidal for Israelis. This sort of one-state solution is completely unrealistic. Some variation of a two-state solution is probably the most realistic, but I think we're a long way off from that being viable due to a lack of Palestinian desire for peaceful coexistence.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_the...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...

I guess by doing what Hamas does[0]?

> I’m not sure this has anything to do with Muslim vs Jewish population sizes.

Mostly it's just an issue of Muslims being largely supportive of the Palestinian cause for religious reasons and having much larger populations.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crr2dwn7q40o

Yeah, this is a common pattern, in general most Muslim counties have leadership which is far more moderate than their populations overall, with Iran being a notable exception.

The US was not established in Iraq long enough for generations of adults born in Iraq to have grown up under US control.

The border between US and Iraq is not like the border between two suburbs, and there were never Iraqis crossing that border daily to drive a taxi or clean someone's house or see a doctor.

They had enough control over Gaza before October 7th to deny Gaza a port, an airport, and even the right to do peaceful commercial fishing without getting their boats lit up.

And for whatever limited access their law enforcement institutions had to Gaza for kicking in doors, they just did missile attacks on cars or apartments instead of kicking in doors, because they had no reason to care how many bystanders they killed.

No guarantee is worth anything if it’s not eventually backed up by someone’s guns.

I'm pretty sure most democracies also have a right to decide who can become a citizen. Forcing a country to give citizenship to enemy combatants would be kinda crazy, regardless of whether or not the territory those combatants operate from is under a military occupation.

https://www.espn.com/page2/s/thompson/010918.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Benjamin_Netanyahu

Some of the allegations are 15 years old at this point and the trial is still ongoing.

* a large portion of civilians (and thus civilian casualties) in Mariupol actually identify as ethnic Russians, so it seems unlikely Russia targeted them intentionally

* nobody has filed a genocide case against Russia on the basis of the large number of civilian deaths in Mariupol

It's probably as simple as Netanyahu's branded himself as Israel's protector, and if Palestine were to become less threatening, his political prospects sink.

They want a heroic victory for MB because the West knows there are going to be numerous billions of Muslims and they can't kill them all so the best thing is to 'control' the religion as they own and run MB.

October 7 completely undermined the non-MB resistance. Hamas jumped the gun, Israel 'stood down', and the axis of resistance was caught like deers in a headlight. They have been 'reacting' ever since and have been losing every step of the way.

Now the question is: Is Qatar/MB upset about all this? ...

It was atrocious then and it's atrocious now. There's almost something worse about zionst making it a business now. It's one thing to ethnically cleanse an area out of hatred, it's sick on a whole new level to try and turn a buck in the process.

Despite agreeing to leave under the brokered peace deal, Israel are still in southern Lebanon and show no sign of leaving. The flagrant breach of the original cease fire agreement appears to have no consequences.

The effective seige and annexation of the West bank appears to be gathering pace.

Smotrich said back in April that their campaign in Syria will end 'when Syria is dismantled' - they show no sign of leaving, and are still running operations in and around Damascus, and appear to be running the classic divide and conquer strategy.

While the countries you mention may be stronger - Syria and Lebanon are both very weak and very dependent on US 'aid'.

And in terms of US support, which I agree is critical in all this, they appear to have carte blanc from the current US administration.

Also criticism from EU countries is much more muted than their populations would like - for example the UK government is spending more effort on trying to lock up it's own protesting citizens ( for 14 years under anti-terror laws for doing nothing more that holding up a sign ) than doing anything to stop Israel.

Long term - who knows - but right now the plan does appear to be working.

But, obviously, there's no reliable source in a war zone, and starving people often don't die directly from hunger, but from disease after being weakened. Most statistics about deaths from famines are estimates after the fact.

On the Palestinian side, it doesn't give them the "right of return" (to the land they were expelled from in 1948) that they frankly deserve, which is a tough pill to swallow for them. But besides some hardliners they've pretty much resigned themselves to the fact they'll never get their stolen land back (much like the Native Americans).

On the Israeli side, it's much more problematic as it would mean dismantling many or all of the settlements on the WB. This is anathema to Israel and would be heavily resisted (perhaps violently) by the settlers who were put there in the first place expressly to prevent a two-state solution. Israel deliberately violated all the agreements about settlements reached over the years in order to create a situation where it could say "we can't expect those settlers to move out". It's no coincidence that the settlers who were given the stolen land are generally the most militant of the Israelis, and many are heavily armed, by the way.