Hamas strike on Israel

That only matters if you take their "excuses" at their face value.

If you consider the reality that it is simply more about sating bloodlust and killing as many as possible (ideally for them all) Palestinian men, women and children. This stuff about them wanting to free hostages or kill Hamas has as much basis in reality as the debunked official State media publications of photos of markets full of fresh food in locations which had already been obliterated.

Israel don't even have a clue how many Hamas fighters they have actually killed.

When it emerged that 2/3 of all deaths had been women and children and was put to some government spokesman, he came back with an off the curr remark that 1 in 3 deaths are Hamas. Saying in the current situation it's was a good ratio. I think they are just using the Hamas figures to guestimate. Basically any adult male = Hamas.

This thread is not about Ireland though or our defence capabilities or lack of.

no, it's the ireland that is part of a club and abides by (well most anyway) of the rules it signed up to as a member of that club.

long may ireland be a part of the EU, way better then being under british rule that's for sure.

Biden has such odd behaviour in this campaign, providing military aid to Israel to continue the bombing indefinitely and humanitarian aid to Gaza at the same time. I don't think they even each other out. It would very dangerous to provide aid into a war zone

Bother doing what ? Giving military aid to Israel or giving humanitarian aid to Gaza? If he did less of the former he would have to do less of the latter.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/report-us-quietly-approved-more-than-100-arms-sales-to-israel-since-october-7/

They have been aided significantly by the Americans

Some might have the opinion that dropping 30k meals might not quite counterbalance or compensate for the vast deluge of US supplied military missiles and other hardware that have flattened their homes and killed and maimed many of them.

You can try.

But I think you are overestimating your own contribution to the Zionist cause with your fervent and blind support of their genocide on here. It's likely that the chances they get away with it or not will not be affected by your contributions on boards.ie

A lot of people crapping on Israel and claiming that their actions are meaningful in some respect. My problem with this from the beginning has been that I don't think anything Israel does or can do will have any impact on the broader picture.

And that is very simple: lots of people/groups in the region (and beyond) do not want a Jewish state to exist at all in any form whatsoever. And they have the means to continue attacking Israel in perpetuity. It does not matter what Israel's borders are or how it treats the Palestinians. Israel will always be under attack by its mortal enemies. Iran and its proxies Hamas, Hezbollah etc don't want peace with Israel, they want the Jews dead. There is nothing Israel can do to change their minds.

Should this reality not be considered when critiquing Israeli strategy and actions?

Not saying or arguing it is a correct or a moral policy, but basically he is in an bad electoral bind where if he finally and belatedly tries to pressure Israel's govt. to change course he will lose votes, but if he keeps on as is + confines US displays of displeasure with Israel and disgust at what they have done to verbal criticism he will lose votes too.

On the danger, I do see some dangers for Israel if the US is stepping in now and trying to deliver the aid directly + has lots of its own assets and people buzzing around Gaza.

Do they carry on their usual policy where everyone doing that up to now is sort of "Hamas" or "Hamas Adjacent" and every so often the IDF might either block them from delivering, or even get trigger happy and light up a suspect aid truck (or even ship or plane...!) through carelessness or just to send a message?

I can't see that going well, but it is going to hard for their military to change its spots and filter down a "leave the American's well alone" message to those lower down the totem pole who have their blood up and are used to lax(er) rules.

Israel are heavily militarised already and backed up by the most powerful army in the world. Israel is not going anywhere. The Iranians know this only too well.

The Iranian are limited to using proxies. These proxies might have less support to draw on if Israel was nicer to the Palestinians.