No Hamas in power? Seems like that would give pretty good confidence.
This reminds me of alternate history stories where Japan refused to surrender. The US demanded unconditional surrender in WW2. What would have happened if the axis refused. What would have made the allies confident that the war was over without German and Japanese unconditional surrender.
It seems like Hamas is not surrendering and Israel is demanding that. If Hamas surrendered and left power, would that appease Israel?
Google "Great March of Return" if you want to learn about what happenned when palestinians tried to protest peacefully.
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At least 189 Palestinians were killed between 30 March and 31 December 2018.[28]: 6 [29][30] An independent United Nations commission said that at least 29 out of the 189 killed were militants.[5] Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and live ammunition.[31] According to Robert Mardini, head of Middle East for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), more than 13,000 Palestinians were wounded as of 19 June 2018. The majority were wounded severely, with some 1,400 struck by three to five bullets.[32] No Israelis were physically harmed from 30 March to 12 May, until one Israeli soldier was reported as slightly wounded on 14 May,[9] the day the protests peaked. The same day, 59 or 60 Palestinians were shot dead at twelve clash points along the border fence.[33]
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yea, seems like it was the israelis who weren't peaceful. sorry if we're all starting to see a pattern.
edit: yes, 29 militants out of 189 killed and 130000 wounded. even at the most sympathetic take, Israelis come out looking like a bunch of sociopaths.
you also seems to skipped the beginning of article. for example, day 1 of peaceful march of return:
Hundreds of young Palestinians, however, ignored warnings by the organizers and the Israeli military to avoid the border zone.[74] Some began throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, to which Israel responded by declaring the Gaza border zone a closed military zone and opening fire at them.[55] The events of the day were some of the most violent in recent years.[75] In one incident, two Palestinian gunmen approached the fence, armed with AK-47 assault rifles and hand grenades, and exchanged fire with IDF soldiers. They were killed and their bodies were recovered by the IDF.
but back to the point.
- do you still claim that it was "peaceful march of return" ?
- where do you think the "return" part of the march were leading and what would have happened there ? (just in case, in UN report on Oct 7 documented that in most of places civilians followed armed members of hamas/pij/pflp/etc and engaged in looting, killing (famously thai workers that their heads were chopped off by unarmed civilians with help of hoe) and kidnapping (later sold to hamas/etc)
Besides, you've got to remember that a country is more than its government. What's going to stop its citizens from independently creating their own underground Hamas 2.0 terror group? What's going to stop the kids currently growing up and seeing their parents die due to Israeli actions from wanting revenge?
The situation is too far gone. Either Israel is going to learn how to live with the possibility of an attack (which is going to decrease over time as generations grow up who don't inherently hate Israel with every bone in their body for what it has done to them), or Israel is going to have to kill every single person in Gaza to make sure there's nobody left who could hate them. They should probably continue with Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt - because they all could attack Israel, after all...
France still has to live with the risk of Germany invading. It's fairly unlikely by now, but that risk exists. Germany has invaded multiple times in the not-too-distant past and done some pretty atrocious things while there. Germany still has a pretty large military, and I would be quite surprised if they didn't have some kind of invasion plan lying around in a drawer somewhere. Yet somehow, I don't think the average French citizen in 2025 loses any sleep over it. If they can live with the risk, why does Israel require absolutes?
No, we do not lose sleep about that. We have also been at war with England, Italy and Spain a lot. Especially England. We keep a close eye on them still that the Hastings battle is not forgotten.
But on the serious side, these concerns are so remote compared with the situation in Israel and Palestine. We do not have any territory claims with Germany. They have their land, we have ours. If you ask a random person in France about territoires we should get back, they would be really confused. The ones historically inclined would consider the 7th and 8th century and Charlemagne's lands.
I guess that this topic in the mind of Israelis and Palestinians is much, much more prevalent.
Hell, maybe Germany and Israel make a good comparison here. The jews who lived in mandatory palestine during WW2 were certainly afraid of Germany (and rightfully so), but i don't think Israel loses much sleep over the modern state of Germany.
Our countries have been at war for two millennia (whatever "country" meant across the ages), like the rest of Europe. Then, after WWII, a tremendous effort was made to mend the relationship, and the really good idea was to involve the youth.
When I was a teenager in the 80s, those who had German as a foreign language (sometimes as the first foreign language, before English) had exchanges with peers in Germany (they were coming to us and living with us for a week, and then we were going to them). It was great.
30 years later, my son had the same exchange and I could look at the kids' behaviour more closely. They (the French and the Germans kids) decided to have a football match. I was sure that it would be a Germany vs France one. Not at all: they mixed up, with teams composed of pairs (local and foreign). It was a-ma-zing.
Geography also matters. Israel is tiny compared to France. Israel has zero strategic depth and population centers could be overrun in a matter of hours if defenses failed. This tends to push their strategic planning towards absolutism. And to be clear I'm not trying to justify Israeli actions, just pointing out the strategic calculus at work and the difficulty of negotiating an agreement acceptable to both sides.
That’s the reason why.
As abundantly mentioned already, the Palestinian survivors will remember and have their revenge someday.
…unless the plan is: “there will be no survivors”.
Have you noticed how shocking the above “plan” is? Events seem to closely align with it. A literal final solution. Equally shocking is how little people care about actual genocide, and - consequently - how normalized this is in practice.
The international community lets Israel get away with far too much.
