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Hamas duped Israel into thinking it cared more about economic stability than a war, Reuters said.
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Meanwhile, it was practicing for an attack in plain sight, the report said.
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Hamas trained its fighters on a mock Israeli settlement, learning how to storm it, Reuters added.
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The Palestinian militant group Hamas built a mock Israeli town in Gaza and practiced attacking in plain sight — but Israel didn’t react, Reuters reported on Sunday.
Hamas militants launched a surprise offensive on Israel on Saturday, in what has been described as the worst breach in Israel’s defenses in decades.
The attack followed a careful campaign of deception by Hamas that ensured Israel was caught off guard over the weekend, an unnamed source, with connections to the group, told Reuters.
Despite convincing Israel that they had no interest in war, Hamas militants were practicing for the offensive in plain sight by setting up a mock Israeli settlement in Gaza to train its fighters.
I don’t think the conspiracy theory that they had advance knowledge is true, if only because the immediate response was so chaotic. If they knew, they’d have at least had a plan to respond.
But one thing that’s not a conspiracy is that Netanyahu had a policy to strengthen Hamas as part of a cynical strategy to kill off the 2 state solution. Basically, undermine the more moderate Palestinian Authority by allowing Hamas to get more organized, rule Gaza without fresh elections, let Hamas-linked groups distribute aid, etc.
So, while I don’t think they knew about the current attacks, I do think they knew an attack would eventually, inevitably come and they thought it’d be worth it to have Hamas as a boogeyman.
Remind me again who backed Hamas in the early days?
Let’s not pretend that this isn’t a huge popularity boost for Netanyahu and the Israeli right. Now they have an excuse for years of military operations and populist propaganda. Israel has a military industrial complex that not even Iran can match. A plausible theory is that they just let it happen. Since they feel like it gives them carte blanche for unlimited retaliation. I fear we will see a Palestinian genocide in this decade.
Look at 9/11, the attack was over in less than a day and it shaped 2 decades of politics and retaliation. They have little reason to “let it happen”
They had warnings an attack was coming. They probably thought it would be pretty insignificant though rather then a proper offensive.
Theres some other good discussion of this already in this thread, to reiterate what others have said, its not unthinkable to belive that the government may have ignored those who warned of this, assuming they could politicize a minor attack, only to be caught completely off gaurd when a complex, multi pronged offensive appeared.
There’s a big difference between 9/11 and the WTC parking lot bombings. When warned of terror attacks in early 2000’s, America was probably thinking of the former rather then latter.
The Israeli population is furious at Netanyahu for the intelligence failures that allowed this to happen. He may stick around for a unity government while military operations are conducted, but he’s gonna be toast after this.
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One can only hope but hes a the point where the courts dont matter to his government so we’ll see I guess. This stinks either way
This just further raises questions on whether Netanyahu was actually unaware or if this attack was allowed to happen to provide cover for his corruption charges.
With so many different blatantly apparent elements and the well known past efforts by the IDF and Israeli intelligence to prevent things like this, such a massive buildup toward the attack in plain sight seems impossible to have been missed.
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Deliberately fiddling with the dial on Palestinian tension for political reasons is like Netanyahu’s go to move. I admit I would be a bit surprised if it turns out he green lit this. It’s a lot of Israeli lives and at this scale it looks a lot like incompetence, which is probably not ideal.
But it’s totally reasonable to discuss the question.
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What a genuinely stupid take. There is absolutely no question that governments have ignored intelligence, or allowed attacks to occur in order to bolster support for military engagements from the general public.
Seriously, how naive do you have to be to suggest that is a conspiracy theory or misinformation? We know the Bush administration ignored warnings from the CIA of impending attacks by Al Qaeda prior to 9/11. Whether you chalk that up to malice or incompetence is ultimately irrelevant when it led to a quagmire that has shaped decades of US foreign policy and military action.
If you don’t think it is even worth discussing if far right crypto-fascist authoritarian like Benjamin Netanyahu is willing and able to let his own people die because the means justify the ends then you are not a serious interlocutor.
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There is a difference between QUESTIONING a narrative and ASSERTING a cause or motivation.
Are you actually suggesting that there is no appropriate time in which to question if there is institutional corruption or an organized conspiracy within the government?
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“The bush administration, and the clinton before them, did not act on warning signs of 9-11” is not a conspiracy theory. “The US government allowed 9-11 to happen” is.
You’re the only one here making that leap though.
My comment only highlights his history of doing things like this, and several times I say I don’t think he was involved.
@Silverseren only says that the obviousness of the build-up makes more people wonder if netanyahu knew - which of course it does. They don’t say he did either.
There will be conspiracy theories whether there is anything to base them on or not.
It’s definitely reasonable to discuss whether Netanyahu was involved in something that benefits him and he is known for. As I said, at the moment it looks unlikely to me that he was. But come on! He has motive, means, priors and it’s great timing for him personally. Acknowledging that all that is true doesn’t mean agreeing to a vast web of conspiracy. All that is true but it it can still be a legit intelligence failure.
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No, it is not “totally reasonable to discuss the question”. That is the basis for conspiracy theories and is why the world is so massively full of FUD and misinformation.
I would not at all be surprised if the israeli government allowed this to happen.
Uhhh, okay well which is it then? One second you say it is totally unreasonable to question, and the next you are actively agreeing that you would not be surprised if the government had allowed this to happen. I’m sure even you can see the hypocrisy in that.
But there is no evidence beyond “they did not act on questionable intel”.
I don’t recall ever suggesting that there was, nor did the OP of this chain.
The sooner we enter full conspiracy theory mode, the less credence there is TO (more) nefarious actions coming to light later.
I’m willing to give you a pass on this point because I think this is probably true. However, let’s not also act like the government doesn’t intentionally muddy the waters and paint anything that is counter to their chosen narrative as conspiracy theories anyway…
And all we do by entertaining conspiracy theories is erode the concept of truth.
That is entirely the point isn’t it? The government & intelligence community are fully aware of this phenomenon, and use it to their advantage as one of their main tactics to either squash or foment dissent depending on their objectives.
The truth has already been eroded to such a degree that whoever controls the largest & fastest means of information dissemination is able to control the narrative. It takes people who are willing to entertain other perspectives to weed through the bullshit in order to eventually land at something that more closely APPROXIMATES the truth.
The question is not “so was this a false flag action and all the festival goers were crisis actors?”. It is “why did israel not act on this intelligence. What made them think it was not valid”
Wow, this is such a laughable conflation that I don’t even know what to say about it really. Yes, there are morons who think that way, but I don’t think anybody in this discussion is one of them as far as I can’t tell. So, let’s stick to higher level discourse that can be potentially productive.
No, it is not “totally reasonable to discuss the question”
I would not at all be surprised if the israeli government allowed this to happen.
Are you familiar with the old robot saying, “does not compute”?
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The conspiratorial me is having a hard time believing that Israel’s intelligence was kind of unaware that something big was brewing up.
In times like this people are getting united in their grief. Like this Netanyahu would get a green card to conduct a large scale military operation in Gaza, which of course would lead to even more civilian casualties and suffering, he will probably introduce some new legislation, giving him even greater rights to govern and escape justice and probably introducing even more restrictions in the area, which logically would only increase the tension.
I highly doubt that anything good will come out of this situation and that’s really sad.
Both sides are in a codependent downwards spiral towards more authoritarian states. No, nothing good ever comes from revenge after revenge after revenge.
Maybe they should’ve built a mock Israeli town, pretended it was a real one, and practiced actually governing it.
Ah yes, governing the open air prison, where the average age of the resident is 18, having their civilian infrastructure bombed and destroyed constantly. Why didn’t they think of self determination before? /s
Waiting patiently for your turn to get evicted while the IDF forces incursions kill and maim whomever they please including foreign journalists. Sounds like a treat
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How hard you gotta train to kill unarmed festival goers/dancers?
I doubt they understood the scale, but I suspect that Netanyahu’s government was more than happy to plan to let Hamas strike first to kick-start the war the current administration has been trying to provoke since at least May.
This is absolutely correct. Israel wants this as bad as Hamas.
They may even actively and purposely looked the other way.
I’ve been thinking this since it began.
Not unlikely. Netanyahu needs a distraction from being a fascist afterall.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Palestinian militant group Hamas built a mock Israeli town in Gaza and practiced attacking in plain sight — but Israel didn’t react, Reuters reported on Sunday.
The attack followed a careful campaign of deception by Hamas that ensured Israel was caught off guard over the weekend, an unnamed source, with connections to the group, told Reuters.
Despite convincing Israel that they had no interest in war, Hamas militants were practicing for the offensive in plain sight by setting up a mock Israeli settlement in Gaza to train its fighters.
“Israel surely saw [the videos], but they were convinced that Hamas wasn’t keen on getting into a confrontation,” the source told Reuters.
In the years leading up to the attack, Hamas fighters wanted to give the impression that they were war-weary and more concerned about ensuring that workers in Gaza had access to jobs in Israel.
Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday said he had ordered a “complete siege” on the Gaza Strip: “No electricity, no food, no fuel.”
The original article contains 411 words, the summary contains 170 words. Saved 59%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
