this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
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No Stupid Questions

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It just seems crazy to me given the power imbalance. A cynical part of me suspects that things are playing out exactly as some evil strategists hoped they would, which, given all the children dying, is super-depressing.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

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[–] Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world 78 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

This video by a political science professor explains it best: https://youtu.be/zMxHU34IgyY?si=N5oHElN4Xlbiqznh

In short, the only people who truly know are Hamas, and the best the rest of us can do is speculate.

Some possibilities are that Hamas wanted to sabotage normalizing relations between Israel and the rest of the Muslim world, that Hamas wanted to bait Israel into a wildly disproportionate response that would garner themselves sympathy and recruits, that Hamas was bluffing and feigning strength and counting on Israel to think the attack was bait, that Hamas was just acting on bloodlust and wanted to attack regardless of the consequences, or many other possibilities.

Further, we focus a lot on the substative issues, i.e., the grievances and disagreements at hand, but we don't talk about the bargaining frictions nearly enough. There are countless border disputes around the world, and yet they rarely result in war. Why? Because war is costly and most wish to avoid it. War typically happens when there are both substantive issues and bargaining frictions, i.e., things preventing the two sides from negotiating a solution. But us onlookers can't even know for sure what these frictions are, only speculate.

All this is simply the nature of the fog of war, that the true strategies/goals won't be known for a while, if ever. Anyone who tries to tell you with certainty why they did what they did at this stage doesn't actually know with any degree of certainty. Nobody but Hamas actually knows.

I do recommend watching the full video above, as the professor is very engaging, rather amusing, and covers this topic quite thoroughly.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 34 points 1 year ago

All this is simply the nature of the fog of war, that the true strategies/goals won't be known for a while, if ever. Anyone who tries to tell you with certainty why they did what they did at this stage doesn't actually know with any degree of certainty

That's one of the most reasonable responses to this madness I've seen recently.

Far too many people are out there demanding instant information with 100% accuracy and crying conspiracy when they can't get their impossible wish.

[–] volvoxvsmarla@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

All this is simply the nature of the fog of war, that the true strategies/goals won't be known for a while, if ever.

This is what we've all been thinking about Russia/Putin's government too. With tons of friends and family in Russia and Ukraine we are still at a loss what exactly the idea/projected outcome/strategy/expectation was to start that war. I hear a lot of armchair experts and amateur war psychologists trying to explain it away like it is obvious but it just isn't. It feels like there are a bunch of clues and pieces of a puzzle mixed in with random puzzle pieces that don't belong to what you are trying to assemble, and it is unclear whether we will ever truly understand it sometime in the future.

[–] zzzz@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Thank you for the video and the thoughtful response!

[–] PutangInaMo@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Interesting watch, got a new subscriber from that one. Much appreciated.

[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Great video and summary! Love that channel.