Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told Israeli Army Radio that Israel’s war aims are not just the total destruction of Hamas, but the country also aims to reduce the size of Gaza. The pronouncement is the most explicit indication yet that Israel will move to annex parts of Gaza, as some analysts have speculated.
Okay, I’m willing to believe that Israel had a contingency plan ready to exploit the political leeway created if they were hit by a terrible attack. Like “if they kill a bunch of Israelis, this is our shopping-list of objectives to gain ground and kill targets in a time when the world can’t criticize us”. I would believe there are people in the Israeli military who are amoral enough to do that.
However, believing they looked the other way when they knew about an impending attack strains credulity.
And if you’re believing they were active participants in orchestrating an attack on their own people? That means you need your tinfoil hat loosened.
Well, they did fund hamas…
As dumb as it sounds, the FBI actually found and red flagged a few of the 9/11 terrorists months before the attack.
Of which the CIA, DoD, and White House convincently ignored.
I don’t really think Israel set this up, but sometimes I wonder if there’s intentional negligence because how else do you miss such a significant planned attack.
Although both could also be explained by bluffs. Maybe they really didn’t think Hamas was actually going to go through with anything, especially since there was no building escalation.
Which would make sense because Mossad’s intelligence is supposed to be world-renowned.
It’s hard to argue that the escalations of harassment, settler expansion, and killings of Palestinians in 2023 wouldn’t lead to some sort of retribution attack by Palestinians. I think the Israelis were shocked by the success of the attack and the failure of their security system to minimize the damage. I don’t think they were oblivious when many analysts and even the Egyptian government suggested a few days earlier that things were getting hot (they didn’t warn of an imminent attack like was reported in some media, but that there was an increasing threat of some sort of violent resistance to Israel’s violation of international law).
Israel knows they’re violating the 1967 borders, they also know how bullying works. Every few months, bulldoze some houses and claim that area as your own. Keep squeezing and poking until your victim lashes out violently and then use that violence as justification to be more violent. It’s a classic bully tactic.