The findings by a Palestinian pollster signal more difficulties ahead for the Biden administration’s postwar vision for Gaza and raise questions about Israel’s stated goal of ending Hamas’ military and governing capabilities.
Washington has called for the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, currently led by Abbas, to eventually assume control of Gaza and run both territories as a precursor to statehood. U.S. officials have said the PA must be revitalized, without letting on whether this would mean leadership changes.
The PA administers pockets of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and has governed Gaza until a takeover by Hamas militants in 2007. The Palestinians have not held elections since 2006 when Hamas won a parliamentary majority.
Israel is playing on easy fucking mode here, and they’re choosing not to take advantage of it. High-density areas are hell to fight through in a counter-insurgency scenario, but they’re ideal for the whole ‘winning hearts and minds’ thing that has been core to counter-insurgency operations since the British in the fucking 1950s.
Israel chooses not to take advantage. Because they want the insurgency.
I’m not familiar, could you explain why High density areas are ideal for “winning hearts and minds”?
Basically one of the core issues with a competent government trying to ‘win hearts and minds’ is reaching people. Rural and isolated areas are the absolute hardest to deal with, because it’s hard to secure the area, hard to reliably communicate, and hard to construct infrastructure in the area. Without those three tools - security, propaganda, and material improvement of conditions - securing hearts and minds is a very difficult task. Infrastructure is more difficult to construct in isolated areas, but essentially infrastructure in all cases benefits from economies of scale - it’s much cheaper to build one major project for 100,000 people than 100 small projects for 1,000 people each, or worse, 1000 small projects for 100 people each.
You see this in the (successful) attempts of the British in Malaysia and the (unsuccessful) attempts of the Americans in Vietnam - the ‘strategic hamlet’ program sought to centralize populations so that they could be secured, means of communication could be supplied, and then the population could be won over with material improvements to their lives. You also see this to a lesser degree in Iraq and Afghanistan - Coalition forces had their strongest support in cities which could be secured and improved at a reasonable cost of investment (and amongst areas that would suffer from sectarian conflict if the national government fell, such as the Kurds and Tajiks).
Thanks for expanding on you what you mentioned
Lol!
Yeah… no. “Hearts and minds” shitfuckery is propaganda for your own side, Clyde. That is all it has ever been.
The keys to winning at colonialist warfare - oops, I mean t to say “counter-insurgency” - is still the same as it has ever been… destroy the means of existence of the population the resistance exists within. Ie, what the Brits did in South Africa and Malaya (and others), what the US did in the continental US and what the US tried (and failed) to do in Vietnam.
Stop being naive.
Oh, the weirdo who keeps calling me Clyde is back.
You have fun ignoring the actual strategies used in counter-insurgency warfare in exchange for your weird, pseudo-religious view of world politics and The Great Satan.
You desperately wanting to cling onto GI Joe fairy tales does not make “hearts and minds” any less of a propaganda strategy purely intended to fool people like you, Clyde. I guess the people who came up with it knew their audience well enough, eh?
But hey… maybe I’m wrong. And in that case it should be very easy for you to find evidence of a colonialist war where this “hearts and minds” malarkey even influenced the final outcome of colonialist warfare.
Shouldn’t be too difficult for you, should it?
Sorry Bob, I just don’t care enough to argue with reactionary scumbags like you. Have fun playing with yourself, though!
I’m not the one swallowing colonialist propaganda, Clyde - you are.
So that’s a no on the whole “provide-a-shred-of-evidence-for-your-claim” thing?
No surprises there.
I’m still not the one swallowing colonialist propaganda, Clyde - you are.
So that’s satill a no on the whole “provide-a-shred-of-evidence-for-your-claim” thing?
Still no surprises there.