Didn't Israel recently open up another crossing and increase the amount of aid trucks allowed to cross over the border? They deployed military forces to stop aid trucks from being stopped by protests. They have increased the amount of aid allowed in.
Not necessarily, there is nothing saying that a strong democracy will result in a big government. Just like there is nothing preventing authoritarians from having a big government.
In theory, maybe that's true. But that's not the intention, design or historical reality of the situation.
I will agree though, if you are authoritarian, you probably don’t want a big government, it is just easier to threaten and enact violence against your people to get the outcomes you want.
Maybe but you definitely don't want a heavily Federalized government. Federalization always diminishes the power of a central government.
A "stronger democracy" at least in the context of modern Republics does mean a stronger central government; especially when implemented from a Western "Liberal" party. The thing is, in that these systems the choice isn't (or at least Pre-Trump wasn't) between a dictator and a democracy. It was a decision between federalization and centralization. Between limitations on a legislative branch of government or mob rule.
Strong Democracies gave us things like Jim Crow. Strong power delegation gave us things like Brown vs. Board of Education.
A more powerful democracy leads to more centralization. Because a more powerful democracy is a more powerful government. When you increase the size and scope of the things that a central government can control you by definition increase it's power.
They're credible because the CIA has no evidence to refute it and Israeli's equivalents didn't share the raw intelligence with them. Turns out spying on Hamas isn't something the US does a lot of. If they had evidence to refute it they'd call the reports conflicting or something similar.
"Casts doubt" in the title. Credible in the report from the CIA.
Tealc is a goat penguin.
Hamas members confirmed they operated under Al Shifa. There's video evidence of the tunnels. the AP and CNN are the top two hits in that search I linked. CNN corroborated the claim. Articles from years ago made it clear that Al Shifa was a defacto Hamas HQ.
Those people all IDF?
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/13/politics/intelligence-assessment-dumb-bombs-israel-gaza/index.html
Half of their bombs are not modern bombs.
But then in your article:
A US official told CNN that the US believes that the Israeli military is using the dumb bombs in conjunction with a tactic called “dive bombing,” or dropping a bomb while diving steeply in a fighter jet, which the official said makes the bombs more precise because it gets it closer to its target. The official said the US believes that an unguided munition dropped via dive-bombing is similarly precise to a guided munition.
So the dumb bombs their using their deploying them in a dangerous method to minimize collateral damage. That makes my point, it doesn't refute it.
What does Hamas incompetence have anything to do with civilian deaths?
Because if Hamas had been competent they'd be able to contest the airspace their fighting over and prevent wide scale bombing. What's more instead of killing babies and elderly and raping women they'd have secured a transportation corridor to the West Bank so they could be resupplied overland.
Or put more succinctly, they would have prepared appropriately for the war they started. And if they had done so and followed the rules of war Israel would actually have the political capital internally to negotiate a peace of some sort. Instead they said, "Let's put all of our resources into a slave raid."
And what kind of math is that? 50k Hamas would have to be killed for the 300k number to matter. The actual number of Hamas killed is way way lower. There is some dispute over the exact number, but between 6-12k which would be between 36-72k civilians killed.
Exact numbers of Hamas dead won't be available until long after the war. But part of the reason there's such a full court press to get Israel to stop is that they've got large pockets of Hamas surrounded in the North. At some point that pocket is going to fall and the number could double.
I understand your position, but I'm still concerned that it is an attempted genocide due to the high number of civilian casualties, the methods israel has been taking such as using phosphorus bombs and pushing all civilians south to Rafah and then starting to bomb Rafah as well, and just by what israeli officials have said that are genocidal in nature.
It's not unreasonable to see what's happening in Gaza and desiring that it stop. It's a very natural response. And you're not a bad person for thinking that way.
But at it's core Hamas has not only been unapologetic about its terrorist attack (which was proportionally larger than 9/11 when adjusted for population); but they've promised that they'd do it (Oct 7th) again. During the temporary ceasefire they broke it and fired rockets and or missiles every single day into Israel. Their leaders have confirmed that they don't see the wellbeing of the Palestinian Civilians in Gaza as their responsibility. They've ruled as a religious dictatorship, executing political opponents with no democracy for almost two decades now. They confirmed that they will never, ever attempt to live at peace with their neighbors. And they've committed widespread domestic atrocities against their own populace.
Hamas simply cannot be allowed to remain in power in the Gaza strip if there is to be long lasting peace. After 20 years of Hamas' rule it's pretty clear they will never be a party to something like the Good Friday Agreement and enter a period of peace.
Given the incompetence of the Hamas led defense, no 30k in 4 months is surprisingly low. Gaza is incredibly small and incredibly dense. They (the IDF) has to use incredibly modern munitions to airstrike single buildings and minimize collateral damage.
If the IDF went full Russia and simply WW2 artillery barraged Gaza similar to Bahkmut I'd expect 250k+ casualties.
If that happened, every country on earth would have declared war on israel two months ago and every israeli official would be in prison for crimes against humanity.
Unlikely.
Give me an exact number that israel has to reach before you admit it's a genocide.
6:1 is the UN acceptable civilian to military casualty rate before they generally start investigating a conflict as a genocide. There's an estimate 50k Hamas fighter in the Strip. That's a theoretical headroom of 300k civilian casualties. That's the number that would make me think it's more than likely not a genocide.
There's no hits for this Google search. Got it.
From an article that came out today. Hamas won't even attempt to confirm the hostages it has.