Pumpkinhead said:
Israel government is losing the political war internationally and also support is eroding domestically over there for their current approach. Coming up on two years blasting away at an area the size of Houston metropolitan area and despite all that time and tremendous cost they have still been unable to recover/free all the hostages or eliminate Hamas as a military and political force. It is a huge problem and they are faced with either tripling down and going even harder on the ground Iwo Jima assault style with significant Israeli troop and civilian casualties….basically exactly what Hamas 'Tar-Baby' strategy is hoping they do….and the longer that takes them, the even more they will continue to lose the political war. Or they will have to rethink the long term strategy. The current government seems pretty boxed in where a change in strategy probably isn't an option. Netanyahu has to either militarily attack until he can say Hamas is completely gone, or his government implodes.
This is where I am also. I am a staunch supporter of Israel, but that doesn't stop me from looking at their military strategy and thinking that what they are doing now isn't likely to work.
Everything should be focused on what the future looks like for Gaza at this point. If you couldn't kill Hamas in 2 years, it's not likely going to happen in 3 years either. Do they want to be there for 10 or 20 years? As pumpkinhead mentioned, Israeli public support is already waning.
The world let Israel have 2 years to figure this out, and worldwide opinion is turning because it seems clear that outside of getting revenge on Hamas guys and getting the hostages back there isn't a plan for Gaza going forward.
One poster mentioned annexing, and I think that's what they should do as well, but I haven't heard Israel suggest that plan publicly. I think they should have announced that plan from the beginning when they had sympathy on their side. Now they've used a lot of that sympathy and will have to deal with significantly more backlash if they announce a plan to annex Gaza.