While I also hold this suspicion, there is fairly little evidence of this.
However, I'd say the biggest evidence is that it was literally the 50th anniversary, down to the same holy day, of the last time Palestine forces attacked Israel. The fact that Israel didn't at least have some sort of elevated defense last Saturday is absolutely unforgivable. This is not quite a smoking gun, but definitely at least gun smoke.
There are two possibilities I see. Either Israel knew it was going to happen, and let it, or they didnt know. Both are unfathomably irresponsible, and unforgivable.
Israelis should be tearing their own government apart for their ineptitude and/or treason, and likewise, Palestinians should be tearing Hamas apart for being so stupid and impotent.
No matter what the facts on the ground are, Israel is an incompetent and poorly governed state. Based solely on the demographics and economics, the average Israeli is far more to blame for the current state of affairs, than the average Palestinian — the average Israeli has been alive over a decade longer than the average Palestinian, and the average Israeli is about 20x wealthier than the average Palestinian…
More than 2/3's of Gaza's population are under 30, and the vast majority are not only poor, but poorly educated. Only a few % of the population are over 65. Most developed economies have an over 65 population of 10-20%, including Israel… The stats aren't much better for the West Bank. Essentially, 99% of the Palestinian population have lived their entire existence under Israel's apartheid rule — segregated in either Gaza or the west bank.
Contrast that to Israel, which is a wealthy, well-educated, developed economy; that have maintained similar demographics with the rest of the developed world, and actually far exceed the USA in most statistics related to quality of life and standard of living.
When will the world stop acting like an impoverished, uneducated, largely illiterate non-state — that isn't even recognised by most of the world — populated by children and young adults… Should have it's shit together and act with more wisdom and humility than a rich, educated, developed country; governed by middle aged adults and boomers?
Instead, Netanyahu just consolidated an emergency mandate with the support of his opposition on the cabinet, widened the right wing majority on the Knesset (israeli congress) and is about to commit a US sponsored genocide.
Something to the effect of 90% of Israelis hold Netanyahu accountable for this. He'll stick around through the unity government to see the war to its end, but his political future is absolutely dead after this.
I think calling their lack of preparation for something that hasn't happened in 50 years suspicious is a stretch, regardless of whether or not there was an anniversary.
It's not that it's not happened in 50 years, it's that it's the anniversary of an event and it's a big anniversary. Instead of a slightly raised security presence, it was markedly reduced. The US has heightened security every year on key holidays, and the US does't have such an immediate threat right next door. Meanwhile Israel is generally more militaristic as a nation with mandatory service. The lack of defensive forces present on the day is just ludicrous.
I personally haven't seen any actual evidence that it was intentionally reduced for the anniversary specifically. That would be more suspicious if you can provide proof.
There have been plenty of sources that said forces had been moved away from Gaza to the West Bank. In fairness though there were some diversionary attacks by Hamas in the West Bank, also, but many of the gates that were breached seem to have been completely unguarded. Perhaps telling, there has been very little mention of casualties to Israeli defense forces, or even details about where they engaged with the insurgents during the initial attack.
Hamas was also left to run amok for 5 hours and at the end of that were able to cross back over the border with hostages.
How on earth is one of the worlds most powerful militaries caught with it's pants down that badly and how were they not able to organize some kind of a response in 5 hours?
At the very least you'd have expected them to ambush them on the way out and rescue the hostages. They have fleets of drones for pete's sake, they could have taken out every single one of those terrorists with drones to spare.
It makes no sense whatsoever, unless of course they let it happen as a casus belli to once and for all deal with the Palestinian problem.
I'm not going to pretend like I know the ins and outs of Israeli military defense, but none of this sounds like damning evidence. I'm not as eager to jump straight to the "Bush did 9/11" equivalent.
Egypt warned them days before, the USA has confirmed the warning by Egypt. Hamas has released training videos showing the paratroopers training with flying gliders. Yair Lapid released a video in September warning the government was ignoring intelligence signals.
Egypt warned them days before, the USA has confirmed the warning by Egypt.
I'm not so sure on this, I think the US politicians that said this could well be repeating the same single source we've heard. Egypt didn't officially say that they notified Israel, either, that came from a source within Egypt's intelligence services. It may well be true, but I just wouldn't rate those statements as good evidence - as far as I'm aware no one from within the US intelligence community has confirmed it.
You often see reports after a successful attack that "so-and-so warned such-and-such about this-and-that days before attack", but they almost certainly get dozens of warnings a day from lots of sources. Some are right, some are wrong. The attacker only has to be lucky once. The defender has to be lucky every time.
That's not to say that Israel won't capitalise on the chance to flatten Gaza, because I browsed /r/combatfootage and have eyes, but I think they'd rather not have hundreds of Israelis held captive and over a thousand dead.
but I think they’d rather not have hundreds of Israelis held captive and over a thousand dead.
I think the average Israeli wouldn't want that. I also think the ultraconservative faction (which includes most of the current govt) is celebrating this opportunity to seize more land.
It's not the land that's worth it to them (because of 150km² of bombed out city is pretty worthless). They don't need it.
They just seem to like the idea of the Palestinians no longer having it.
Fully agree with you on that
Like that will somehow restore their reputation with the Israeli voters they failed to protect.
Sigh… I wish I could be as confident as you there. The far right voters will see it as a victory, and the rest depends on how well they spin the propaganda
While I also hold this suspicion, there is fairly little evidence of this.
However, I'd say the biggest evidence is that it was literally the 50th anniversary, down to the same holy day, of the last time Palestine forces attacked Israel. The fact that Israel didn't at least have some sort of elevated defense last Saturday is absolutely unforgivable. This is not quite a smoking gun, but definitely at least gun smoke.
There are two possibilities I see. Either Israel knew it was going to happen, and let it, or they didnt know. Both are unfathomably irresponsible, and unforgivable.
Israelis should be tearing their own government apart for their ineptitude and/or treason, and likewise, Palestinians should be tearing Hamas apart for being so stupid and impotent.
No matter what the facts on the ground are, Israel is an incompetent and poorly governed state. Based solely on the demographics and economics, the average Israeli is far more to blame for the current state of affairs, than the average Palestinian — the average Israeli has been alive over a decade longer than the average Palestinian, and the average Israeli is about 20x wealthier than the average Palestinian…
More than 2/3's of Gaza's population are under 30, and the vast majority are not only poor, but poorly educated. Only a few % of the population are over 65. Most developed economies have an over 65 population of 10-20%, including Israel… The stats aren't much better for the West Bank. Essentially, 99% of the Palestinian population have lived their entire existence under Israel's apartheid rule — segregated in either Gaza or the west bank.
Contrast that to Israel, which is a wealthy, well-educated, developed economy; that have maintained similar demographics with the rest of the developed world, and actually far exceed the USA in most statistics related to quality of life and standard of living.
When will the world stop acting like an impoverished, uneducated, largely illiterate non-state — that isn't even recognised by most of the world — populated by children and young adults… Should have it's shit together and act with more wisdom and humility than a rich, educated, developed country; governed by middle aged adults and boomers?
Well put.
Instead, Netanyahu just consolidated an emergency mandate with the support of his opposition on the cabinet, widened the right wing majority on the Knesset (israeli congress) and is about to commit a US sponsored genocide.
Something to the effect of 90% of Israelis hold Netanyahu accountable for this. He'll stick around through the unity government to see the war to its end, but his political future is absolutely dead after this.
I think calling their lack of preparation for something that hasn't happened in 50 years suspicious is a stretch, regardless of whether or not there was an anniversary.
It's not that it's not happened in 50 years, it's that it's the anniversary of an event and it's a big anniversary. Instead of a slightly raised security presence, it was markedly reduced. The US has heightened security every year on key holidays, and the US does't have such an immediate threat right next door. Meanwhile Israel is generally more militaristic as a nation with mandatory service. The lack of defensive forces present on the day is just ludicrous.
I personally haven't seen any actual evidence that it was intentionally reduced for the anniversary specifically. That would be more suspicious if you can provide proof.
There have been plenty of sources that said forces had been moved away from Gaza to the West Bank. In fairness though there were some diversionary attacks by Hamas in the West Bank, also, but many of the gates that were breached seem to have been completely unguarded. Perhaps telling, there has been very little mention of casualties to Israeli defense forces, or even details about where they engaged with the insurgents during the initial attack.
Hamas was also left to run amok for 5 hours and at the end of that were able to cross back over the border with hostages.
How on earth is one of the worlds most powerful militaries caught with it's pants down that badly and how were they not able to organize some kind of a response in 5 hours?
At the very least you'd have expected them to ambush them on the way out and rescue the hostages. They have fleets of drones for pete's sake, they could have taken out every single one of those terrorists with drones to spare.
It makes no sense whatsoever, unless of course they let it happen as a casus belli to once and for all deal with the Palestinian problem.
I'm not going to pretend like I know the ins and outs of Israeli military defense, but none of this sounds like damning evidence. I'm not as eager to jump straight to the "Bush did 9/11" equivalent.
I don't think there is any damning evidence available, one way or the other.
Egypt warned them days before, the USA has confirmed the warning by Egypt. Hamas has released training videos showing the paratroopers training with flying gliders. Yair Lapid released a video in September warning the government was ignoring intelligence signals.
I see a clear picture emerging.
I'm not so sure on this, I think the US politicians that said this could well be repeating the same single source we've heard. Egypt didn't officially say that they notified Israel, either, that came from a source within Egypt's intelligence services. It may well be true, but I just wouldn't rate those statements as good evidence - as far as I'm aware no one from within the US intelligence community has confirmed it.
You often see reports after a successful attack that "so-and-so warned such-and-such about this-and-that days before attack", but they almost certainly get dozens of warnings a day from lots of sources. Some are right, some are wrong. The attacker only has to be lucky once. The defender has to be lucky every time.
That's not to say that Israel won't capitalise on the chance to flatten Gaza, because I browsed /r/combatfootage and have eyes, but I think they'd rather not have hundreds of Israelis held captive and over a thousand dead.
I think the average Israeli wouldn't want that. I also think the ultraconservative faction (which includes most of the current govt) is celebrating this opportunity to seize more land.
It's not the land that's worth it to them (because of 150km² of bombed out city is pretty worthless). They don't need it.
They just seem to like the idea of the Palestinians no longer having it.
Like that will somehow restore their reputation with the Israeli voters they failed to protect.
Fully agree with you on that
Sigh… I wish I could be as confident as you there. The far right voters will see it as a victory, and the rest depends on how well they spin the propaganda