Comment by edanm

> Can it be?

I have no idea.

The common criticism is that Netanyahu never really worked on a day-after plan, so while the IDF managed to take lots of territories and gain many military victories, there was no clear idea of what to do when the fighting stops, which allowed Hamas to re-take areas that were already taken, and to set themselves up for the future.

I think ideally what should have been done is setting up alternative leadership in Gaza, namely the PA with assistance from Saudi Arabia or something like that. But I wouldn't be surprised to learn that in back-channels, the PA was asked to take this kind of role and basically said "until Hamas is gone, it's too risky for us, please finish off Hamas first".

> At what point does Israel prosecuting its own Vietnam in Gaza meet the same razor?

I mean, people make these kinds of comparisons all the time and insinuate that Israel should stop fighting. But the Vietnam war lasted, what, twenty years? And it was far less important to the US's security than this war is to Israel. As Ezra Klein once said, if you look at the timeline of the US's reaction to 9/11 and map it onto Israel's reaction to October 7th, the US had still not even begun the Iraq war by this stage - it started more than two years after 9/11 iirc.

(I'm not saying that I think the war should continue, btw - I'm very much in favor of this current deal, and I highly suspect the war is dragging on for political reasons and not actual reasons of security, which is both harmful to Israel in various ways, and devastating to the civilians of Gaza, who deserve so much better than their current situation. Ideally Israel could take out Hamas which would be better for the people of Gaza themselves, but it's unclear if that's possible, and the price they are paying in the meantime is far too high!)