@Alon @BenRossTransit i’ll grant you that the weeks of just bombing stuff were particularly weird. but the unblackpilling of 7.10 was a legit shock, how the $%€! was Gaza’s border so undefended? it is a genuine catastrophe for the sense of impregnability Israel relies upon. neither bombing nor invading undoes it. 1/

@Alon @BenRossTransit everyone knows, as Amichai Eliyahu has helpfully pointed out, Israel could literally nuke Gaza. but the costs of it doing so, not just to Palestinians but to Israel’s own position, render that “superior power” useless in practice. nuking Gaza would not restore the genuine respect for Israel’s competence and capacity that was lost 7.10. nor does lesser bombing. 2/

@Alon @BenRossTransit can a ground invasion? that depends how it works out. if it is maximally destructive, little will have been won, it’s just bombing by other means. Israel was respected for being competent, capable, clever, able to achieve its aims at moderate cost in its own resources and more broadly. It’s remarkable that Israel was able to normalize relations with so many Sunni Arab states despite Palestine, because Israel seemed actually able to contain the conflict. 3/

@Alon @BenRossTransit Hamas’ victory is that Israel cannot contain the conflict. Any maximalist response is continuing evidence of noncontainment. It doesn’t restore the pre 7.10 perception of Israeli competence, but flaunts its collapse. Arab-state elites never admired Israel for its ability to flatten stuff — they can do that too! — but for Pegasus, the Iron Dome, clever means of exerting hard power and still being able to dine in London. 4/

@Alon @BenRossTransit I’m not such a fan of all that stuff either, or the relationship of Arab state elites and their unhappy restive populations. But at any level of realpolitik, putting ideals and ethics aside, Israel’s government should think a bit harder about what forms of respect have served it and whether its present actions do anything to restore those. /fin