It ain’t pretty, but taking those hostages has to be one of the smartest decisions Hamas ever made.
The IDF has clearly given zero shits as to whether or not they’re killing hostages with their indiscriminate murder.
The IDF doesn’t, but the Israeli public clearly does, hence the OP. I elaborated in my replies to the other person, but long story short: The hostages are the nucleus of the anti-war faction of Israeli politics; if not for the hostages, such opposition to Netanyahu’s escalation would simply not exist. Given that the cost was basically trivial, I would call it a really smart decision.
How do you figure that? Their homeland is practically just a pile of bricks, and most of the hamas leadership has been killed.
Because the Israeli public wouldn’t give a shit about ending the war if it wasn’t for the hostages. Israel wasn’t going to genocide Gazans less had Hamas not taken the hostages, but doing so enabled them to shove a massive wedge into the Israeli home front, which otherwise tends to be mostly united in support of genocide.
I’m still not understanding how Gaza is better off because Hamas took hostages.
IDF literally don’t even bother to verify if the people they’re shooting at or bombing is a hostage.
We can’t know what actions the Netanyahu government did not take in order to avoid incurring the anger of the anti-war (really pro-hostage) branch of Israeli politics, so that’s part of it. Other than that it’s less about how Gaza is better off now and more about how an Israeli peace movement will be essential to eventually ending the war/genocide; it’s then that the true value of having taken those hostages will be realized. This is speculation on my part, but the end of the war will come from these guys, not from the Israeli government.
