Hamas attacks southern Israel

[mishkin]

I have the impression that Israel has been in a fight for its life even before its creation.

[Søren]

It’s quite easy to call for peace but the aims and even needs of both sides are so incompatible that I struggle to see a realistic route there at the moment. In particular Hamas had been moving in recent years towards some improvements in the situation in Gaza, with more international aid/recognition and the ability for some Gazans to find work outside there. But their recent attack has conclusively shown there is no potential for a Palestinian state run by them to be a viable neighbour for anyone. There is just no evidence that a peaceful accommodation with them is possible now, nor sadly that their approach lacks support among the Gazan population or to a lesser extent in the West Bank.

[PointOfViewGun]

Regarding the hospital bombing if you have not looked at any articles or videos watch the summary made by the British Channel4 News:

It took days for official Israeli causality figures to be tallied and the name of every person killed to be published, followed in almost every case by short stories in the Israeli media based on interviews with surviving eyewitness and/or family members and friends. Early Israeli estimates were often very tentative and in many cases turned out to be significant underestimates.
I am still receiving daily emails with the names of Tel Aviv University students and faculty members and their relatives who were killed on the first day who have only recently been identified and added to the list.
This is an auditorium at the university:
In contrast, Hamas put out a figure minutes after the explosion that was miraculously close to the precise figure they claimed just hours later. The situations aren’t particularly comparable, especially since in Israel, the foreign press have easy access to the victim’s surviving family and friends. Not to mention that it’s safe in Israel for the press to question the government.
I wouldn't have much to say on the topic if the media simply accompanied official Palestinian casualty figures with the phrase “according to the Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Health”. Keep in mind that the illustrative example I used refers to deaths that I believe the majority of reasonable people have concluded were most likely inadvertently caused by a rocket fired from Gaza.

I'm sure if Palestinians were not being bombed every hour and have the means that Israelis have they'd hold vigils and decorate fancy university buildings with Facebook pictures of the victims. It's suspect that you seem to be treating both cases different. In the hospital strike numbers of casualties changed throughout the day as well. Initial claim was at 200. The number gradually rose with each hour. Plenty of pictures and videos of dead people followed. Internationally well-known volunteer doctors in the hospital talked about the carnage. The day after we saw mass graves being filled with the dead. We didn't see much of that yet I didn't see you objecting to the figure of 40 beheaded babies in a village of 800. Whats up with that?

It’s quite easy to call for peace but the aims and even needs of both sides are so incompatible that I struggle to see a realistic route there at the moment. In particular Hamas had been moving in recent years towards some improvements in the situation in Gaza, with more international aid/recognition and the ability for some Gazans to find work outside there. But their recent attack has conclusively shown there is no potential for a Palestinian state run by them to be a viable neighbour for anyone. There is just no evidence that a peaceful accommodation with them is possible now, nor sadly that their approach lacks support among the Gazan population or to a lesser extent in the West Bank.

Best way to combat Hamas is for Israel to come out clean about how much they supported Hamas in Gaza to kick out Fatah. Israeli officials should come out one by one publicly and boldly point out how they supported Hamas in the past to nurture them. It will likely wipe out any remaining support that is left existing in Gaza.

If I understand what you wrote correctly you touch upon one big misconception about Hamas and Gazans. For starters, Hamas came to power with less than 50% of the votes in the 2006 elections. In the past decade, it never really enjoyed majority support, while dipping down really low at certain points. If there is any support in Gaza its caused by Israeli actions rather than based on love for violence many people are trying to argue.

[fkizz]

As a disclaimer I don't understand fully the conflict,

But Israel would have no benefit whatsoever in bombing an Hospital mainly just before Joe Biden arriving. I could be wrong, but the whole idea makes no sense. At most could've been a misfire, but israeli weapons are more accurate than Hamas rockets. Misfires can happen in war.
Israel bombing an hospital just before an important state visit doesn't click, and makes no tactical or strategic sense.
It was either a misfire, mistake or something else. There would be no gain for IDF to give orders for that action.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

As a disclaimer I don't understand fully the conflict,

But Israel would have no benefit whatsoever in bombing an Hospital mainly just before Joe Biden arriving. I could be wrong, but the whole idea makes no sense. At most could've been a misfire, but israeli weapons are more accurate than Hamas rockets. Misfires can happen in war.
Israel bombing an hospital just before an important state visit doesn't click, and makes no tactical or strategic sense.
It was either a misfire, mistake or something else. There would be no gain for IDF to give orders for that action.

The hospital wasn't bombed and remains completely intact. There was damage to the parking lot, where some vehicles caught fire and detonated.

[mishkin]

There was damage to the parking lot, where some vehicles caught fire and detonated.

not to mention the hundreds of dead.

All of Gaza is being bombed, that is why they demanded the withdrawal of the population. Hospitals, markets, mosques, schools, everything is allowed because they warn/warned.

[PointOfViewGun]

As a disclaimer I don't understand fully the conflict,

But Israel would have no benefit whatsoever in bombing an Hospital mainly just before Joe Biden arriving. I could be wrong, but the whole idea makes no sense. At most could've been a misfire, but israeli weapons are more accurate than Hamas rockets. Misfires can happen in war.
Israel bombing an hospital just before an important state visit doesn't click, and makes no tactical or strategic sense.
It was either a misfire, mistake or something else. There would be no gain for IDF to give orders for that action.

I think the confusion lies in thinking Israel as a singular entity. It could be:
A failed Barak 8 Iron Dome missile.
A bomb set to airburst that missed its target.
A trigger happy jet pilot acting on its own.
A deliberate strike to build on pressure to dislocate people to southern Gaza.

[Ludicus]

On October 17, Haaretz's editorial stated that the fog of war is covering the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank, and for settlers, it's an opportunity to occupy their lands.

Israel's Expulsion of Palestinians in the West Bank Amid the Fog Of War

What to the sane majority in Israel is the greatest catastrophe in its history, is to the settlers an opportunity to chase Palestinians from their land and take it over.
This is not an isolated incident, but a broad campaign, taking place under the auspices of the government of the right wing, and that now, under cover of war, has gained immense momentum. According to the UN’s office for humanitarian aid coordination report published in September, 1,105 shepherds, some 12,5 percent of this population- have left their homes in the West Bank over the past year.

This is not a war between Israel and Hamas. It's a war between Israel and the Palestinian people. Since its inception many decades ago, the story of this conflict has been the story of overwhelming Palestinian death and displacement. Israel was built after the war (1948) in part as compensation for the barbarities of Nazism. However, it established itself in a territory that was populated, inhabited,and since then continuously expanding by the force of arms.Since then, the rights of Palestinians have been minimized and annulled without respect for UN decisions to establish the State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel. The law of force (not the force of law) prevails, with the visible support of the US and, more discreetly, other Western countries.
----
Download the book “The Great War for Civilization”. Robert Fisk was the Independent’s multi-award-winning Middle East correspondent. He lived in the Arab world for more than 40 years, covering the war in Syria and Lebanon, five Israeli invasions, the Iran-Iraq war, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Algerian civil war, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, the Bosnian and Kosovo wars, the American invasion and occupation of Iraq and the 2011 Arab revolutions. He passed away in October 2020 aged 74.

Read the chapter 11, Fifty Thousand Miles from Palestine
https://files.libcom.org/files/The_G...vilisation.pdf (full book)

Quote,
“By 1938, George Antonius was saying quite clearly that “the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, or of a national home based on territorial sovereignty, cannot be accomplished without forcibly displacing the Arabs…” Antonius wanted an independent Arab state “in which as many Jews as the country can hold without prejudice to its political and economic freedom would live in peace, security and dignity, and enjoy full rights of citizenship.” Fearing “an unpredictable holocaust of Arab, Jewish and British lives,” help for the Jews of Europe, he said, must be sought elsewhere than in Palestine:

The treatment meted out to Jews in Germany and other European countries is a disgrace to its authors and to modern civilization; but posterity will not exonerate any country that fails to bear its proper share of the sacrifices needed to alleviate Jewish suffering and distress.
To place the brunt of the burden upon Arab Palestine is a miserable evasion of the duty that lies upon the whole of the civilized world. It is also morally outrageous.
No code of morals can justify the persecution of one people in an attempt to relieve the persecution of another.
The cure for the eviction of Jews from Germany is not to be sought in the eviction of the Arabs from their homeland; and the relief of Jewish distress may not be accomplished at the cost of inflicting a corresponding distress upon an innocent and peaceful population.

It is astonishing that such remarks—so prescient in view of the Palestinian disaster a decade later—could have been written in 1938”.
-----
-----
The great journalist has a remarkable passage- when he meets a Jewish survivor of the concentration camps in the Israeli village of Givat Shaul, built on the ashes of the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin and destroyed during the Nakba,

Josef Kleinman is no ordinary Jewish Holocaust survivor. He was the youngest survivor of Auschwitz and he testified at the trial of Adolf Eichmann, head of the special “Jewish Section” of the SS, who ran the Nazi programme to murder the Jews of Europe. Josef Kleinman even saw Dr. Josef Mengele, the “Angel of Death,” who chose children, women, the old and the sick for the gas chambers. At the age of just fourteen, he watched one day as Mengele arrived on a bicycle and ordered a boy to hammer a plank of wood to a post. Here is part of Kleinman’s testimony at the Eichmann trial: We weren’t told what was to happen. We knew. The boys who couldn’t pass under the plank would be spared. Those boys whose heads did not reach the plank would be sent to the gas chambers. We all tried to stretch ourselves upwards, to make ourselves taller. But I gave up. I saw that taller boys than me failed to touch the plank with their heads. My brother asked me: “Do you want to live? Yes? Then do something.” My head began to work. I saw some stones. I put them in my shoes, and this made me taller. But I couldn’t stand at attention on the stones. They were killing me. Josef Kleinman’s brother, Shlomo, tore his hat in half and Josef stuffed part of it into his shoes. He was still too short. But he managed to infiltrate the group who had passed the test.

Read on to find out why this Dachau survivor couldn't believe the mass murder of the Palestinians.
Edit,for those not interested in reading the book,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It was his wife, Haya, who replied. “I think that after what happened to him—which was so dreadful—that everything else in the world seemed less important…But is it just about the enormity of one crime and its statistical comparison to the exodus of Palestinians in 1948? A group of Jews, Muslims and Christians have long been campaigning for Deir Yassin to be remembered—even now, at the height of the latest Palestine war. As one of the organisers put it, “Many Jews may not want to look at this, fearing that the magnitude of their tragedy may be diminished. For Palestinians there is always the fear that, as often before, the Holocaust may be used to justify their own suffering.”

A massacre that spread to 500 Palestinian villages and caused more than 700,000 Palestinians to flee their land. Many of their descendants die today under Israeli bombs in Gaza and are threatened with further expulsion. Condemning the terrible and indiscriminate killing of civilians in the Hamas attack does not mean forgetting and erasing the systematic murder of Palestinians over the last 75 years.
After the conversation I had with fkizz, about Portugal's citizenship law for the descendants of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from the country 500 years ago, I can't help but wonder: when will Israel be willing to enact a similar law for the Palestinians it expelled 75 years ago?
-----
Intel and Siemens have both announced they will not take part in the Web Summit in Lisbon due to Paddy Cosgrave’s remarks about Israel violating international law and committing war crimes in its war against Hamas.

Which brings up the question: Where Does the ICC Palestine Investigation Stand?- Lawfare.

this article aims to address questions specific to the ongoing ICC investigation in Palestine: How will the latest outbreak of hostilities affect the investigation, and vice versa? Will the investigation have any meaningful impact on the war? What challenges will investigators face as the war drags on?

“So far, Khan’s case priorities have fallen in line with the foreign policy priorities of major global powers,” wrote Alice Speri in the Intercept in May.
While the prosecutor moved quickly to investigate possible war crimes in Ukraine, for instance, he has done little to advance an investigation in Palestine, opened by his predecessor in 2021 and strenuously opposed by the U.S. and Israel, neither of which are ICC members.

Though Khan has indicated that he hopes to “visit Palestine,” the investigation is minimally staffed and has largely stalled, according to people familiar with it.
…And though the Biden administration, in a major policy shift, began sharing evidence of alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine with the ICC in July, the United States and Israel have maintained their opposition to the investigation in Palestine.

Though impossible to know at this point for whom the ICC will issue arrest warrants, if at all, some clues as to Khan’s thinking on this question may be found in the first arrest warrants issued in the Ukraine situation: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.

The high-profile warrants raised strategic questions—the likelihood of apprehending Putin or Lvova-Belova is much lower than that of a field commander who may be captured in battle. But it was also remarkable because it was an arrest warrant for the leader of a very powerful state that is not party to the court.

Since the outbreak of war, leaders around the world have repeatedly called for a respect for international law and the laws of war and, in the cases in which that respect is violated, accountability for those violations. For those who seek accountability for alleged war crimes, there’s already a mechanism, albeit flawed, in place—the ICC investigation into the situation in Palestine.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

not to mention the hundreds of dead.

All of Gaza is being bombed, that is why they demanded the withdrawal of the population. Hospitals, markets, mosques, schools, everything is allowed because they warn/warned.

Except Israel did not do this.

[AnthoniusII]

I have the impression that Israel has been in a fight for its life even before its creation.

You miss 2-3 poeces of the puzzle. 1st UK did not want jews in palestine because that idiot Churchil dreamed a new British Empire. That had a result of souzens of ships full of Jews wondering arround Mediteranean. British (what a coincidnce) kept the German guarisson of Crete fully armed under their command. One option Churchil thought was to make Crete the new Isreal betraying his allies. The 2nd thought was the region arround Thessaloniki that had Jewish populatin in the past AGAIN betraying Greeks. The 3rd and finall solution was to give Cyprus as new Israel but under Churchil's vision for controling all seas that option got out of the table. Besides FO presssed Churchil to keep his promise to Greece to give Cyprus as reward of Greece's entering in the ww2 in the allies side. That last option did not like Jews either because even after Italy's surrender Jews traveled to Palestine and created fortified camps.
Those fortified camps are Israel's legacy. That is why in the last Peace Treaty between ISRAEL and Palestine was the destruction of those fortified settlements that were inside Palestone teritories as they were agreed. But after Trump's ellection and his statement that Israel's capital is Jerousaleem Jews created over 30 such fortified settlements inside both West Bank and Gaza. Those settlements were attacked. For the history every Isrealy that lives in those camps concidered as Militia and have guns and military equipmant given by the state.

[sumskilz]

I think the confusion lies in thinking Israel as a singular entity. It could be:
A failed Barak 8 Iron Dome missile.
A bomb set to airburst that missed its target.
A trigger happy jet pilot acting on its own.
A deliberate strike to build on pressure to dislocate people to southern Gaza.

All unlikely...

From Reuters:

A blast at a Gaza hospital was not the result of an Israeli missile strike, but likely caused by a misfiring Palestinian rocket, the French military intelligence directorate (DRM) said on Friday.

Palestinian officials said 471 people were killed in the blast at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital on Tuesday. Gaza's health ministry blamed an Israeli air strike, while Israel said the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by militants.

"There is nothing that allows us to say that it is an Israeli strike, but the most likely (scenario) is a Palestinian rocket that had a firing incident," the DRM said.

An unclassified U.S. intelligence report seen by Reuters on Thursday said it judged that Israel was not responsible for the blast and estimated the death toll at 100-300 people.

According to the DRM, the impact crater was too small to have been caused by an Israeli missile.

"The most likely hypothesis is a Palestinian rocket, which exploded with a charge of about 5 kilos," the DRM told reporters, adding that Palestinian groups had small-calibre rockets with that sort of explosive charge.

The DRM does not usually release such information, but on the instruction of President Emmanuel Macron decided to make its findings public given the contrasting accounts about who is responsible.

It ruled out various possibilities, including fragments from Israel's Iron Dome air defence system or intercepted missiles being the cause.

Part of the analysis was based on open-source material ranging from the light structural damage at the hospital, including some broken windows, few destroyed vehicles and the relatively limited presence of civilian belongings at the blast site.

The DRM could not give the exact departing point of the failed rocket and did not place blame on any specific group.

It declined to estimate the death toll, but said that it was likely to be fewer than 471 given the impact.

French military intelligence says Israeli strike not behind Gaza hospital blast

AP News also conducted a detailed investigation. Some excerpts:

Shortly before 7 p.m. Tuesday, a volley of rockets lit up the darkened sky over Gaza. Videos analyzed by The Associated Press show one veering off course, breaking up in the air before crashing to the ground.

Seconds later, the videos show a large explosion in the same area – the site of Gaza’s al-Ahli Arab Hospital. ...

The AP analyzed more than a dozen videos from the moments before, during and after the hospital explosion, as well as satellite imagery and photos. AP’s analysis shows that the rocket that broke up in the air was fired from within Palestinian territory, and that the hospital explosion was most likely caused when part of that rocket crashed to the ground.

A lack of forensic evidence and the difficulty of gathering that material on the ground in the middle of a war means there is no definitive proof the break-up of the rocket and the explosion at the hospital are linked. However, AP’s assessment is supported by a range of experts with specialties in open-source intelligence, geolocation and rocketry.

“In the absence of additional evidence, the most likely scenario would be that it was a rocket launched from Gaza that failed mid-flight and that it mistakenly hit the hospital,” said Henry Schlottman, a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst and open-source intelligence expert.

AP ran its visual analysis by a half-dozen experts who all agreed the most likely scenario was a rocket from within Gaza that veered off and came apart seconds before the explosion.

Andrea Richardson, an expert in analyzing open-source intelligence who is a consultant with the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, said specific landmarks visible in the videos show where the rockets were launched.

“From the video evidence that I have seen, it’s very clear that the rockets came from within Gaza,” said Richardson, a human rights lawyer and experienced war crimes investigator who has worked in the Middle East. She added that the timing of the rocket launches, the explosion and the first reports that the hospital had been hit also seemed to confirm the sequence of events.

Justin Crump, a former British Army officer and intelligence consultant, said the failure rate of such homemade rockets is high.

“You can see obviously it fails in flight, it spins out and disintegrates, and the impacts on the ground follow that,” said Crump, CEO of Sibylline, a London-based strategic advisory firm. “The most likely explanation is this was a tragic accident.”

Such a scenario unfolded last year, when Islamic Jihad-fired rockets malfunctioned and killed at least a dozen Gaza residents. The AP reported at the time that live TV footage showed the militant rockets falling short in densely packed residential neighborhoods. ...

Intelligence analyst Schlottman said the most likely scenario remains that it was a militant rocket that somehow had some kind of malfunction mid-flight and then landed on the hospital.

“We have video of when the explosion happened and the only rocket visible in that video was the one that kind of had that diverging trajectory,” he said. “We cannot possibly exclude other scenarios. ... Just what we have right now points to that.”

AP photos taken the morning after Tuesday’s explosion showed no evidence of a large crater at the impact site that would be consistent with a bomb like those dropped by Israeli aircraft in other recent strikes. The hospital buildings surrounding the outdoor area at the center of the explosion were still standing and did not appear to suffer significant structural damage. ...

A small crater photographed in the hospital’s parking lot appeared to be about a meter across, suggesting a device with a much smaller explosive payload than a bomb. While Israel’s extensive arsenal includes smaller missiles that can be fired from helicopters and drones, there has been no public evidence of such missile strikes in the area around the al-Ahli Arab Hospital on Tuesday night.

David Shank, a retired U.S. Army colonel and expert on military rockets and missiles, said the large fireball captured on video at the hospital could potentially be explained by the fact the malfunctioning militant rocket impacted prematurely and was still full of propellant. That highly volatile fuel then ignited when it hit the ground, setting off a large explosion but leaving a relatively small crater.

Speculation has circulated on social media in the days since the explosion that the breakup of the rocket and the explosion on the ground was caused by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, which is designed to shoot such rockets out of the sky.

Israel has said it does not use its Iron Dome system within Gaza, but to intercept and destroy rockets coming into Israeli airspace.

Experts also noted multiple videos from around the time of the hospital explosion showed no visible evidence of Iron Dome missiles being fired from Israel into the airspace over Gaza.

John Erath, the senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and an expert on missile defense, said that while it might be technically possible for Iron Dome to intercept a missile over Gaza, it would be unlikely in this case because the projectile was very early in its flight path – still on the way up – and the system is designed to only intercept projectiles it determines are on a flight path to a populated part of Israel.

“I’m not saying that it’s impossible,” Erath said. “But based on my understanding of how the system works, it is unlikely.”

Added missile expert Shank: “They don’t engage a target unless it’s going to impact a critical asset such as a population area, maybe a power grid, maybe a military base.”

“It’s technically designed to take the best shot that gives it the highest probability of kill,” he said. “And for Iron Dome ... that is not over Gaza.”

AP visual analysis: Rocket from Gaza appeared to go astray, likely caused deadly hospital explosion

In summary, US intelligence, French intelligence, Reuters, AP News and the six experts they consulted, all agree that a misfired rocket from within Gaza is the most likely cause of the explosion in the hospital parking lot.

[paleologos]

...
Some officials in Israel must loose their position because we are talking about a big failure of the Israeli secret services.

Well, it's been two weeks since the original post.
Has anyone lost their position?

[sumskilz]

Well, it's been two weeks since the original post.
Has anyone lost their position?

I don’t think Shin Bet (internal security) agents’ identities are public, so we probably wouldn’t know.

However…

The vast majority of Israelis believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should publicly accept responsibility for the staggering failures that led to Hamas’s devastating onslaught on October 7, according to an opinion poll by the Maariv newspaper.

The chiefs of the IDF and the Shin Bet have already taken such responsibility, as have the defense minister and finance minister.

Eighty percent of Israelis say Netanyahu should follow suit, including 69% of those who voted for the premier’s Likud party in last year’s election, according to the survey. Only 8% of the general public think he should not.

Moved from the Ukraine thread:

@Sumskilz

Thanks for the infor. Post was bit harsh like I said got nerve pinch and its kinda putting me in a perpetual bad mood.

THat being said I was kinda shocked that Israel needed to draw ammunition aid so quickly. I knew the US had ammunitions stored in Israel for emergency use but I still though Israel would be solidly self sufficient (at least on basic ammunition) and not be counting that as an immediate go to thing. What is Bibi spending on?

Paying stipends to Ḥaredi Jews so they don’t have to work. Investing in infrastructure for isolated settlements where it costs five times as much per citizen to provide security. Basically, the agendas of his far-right and Ḥaredi coalition partners, who know they have him by the balls because none of the mainstream right-wing or centrist parties will work with him.

Although, that’s all suspended now since there is a temporary wartime government. The difficult parties have been somewhat sidelined. Gantz, Gallant, and Netanyahu are the wartime cabinet. Gantz is a former defense minister and former chief of staff. Gallant is the current defense minister and former head of southern command. The reckoning will come after the conflict is resolved, however long that takes.

[paleologos]

Wikipedia says the initial strength of Hamas was 2500 with 1000 of them taken down already and the strength of IDF was 10000 by the end of the first day of the attack.
How long do you think it really takes (honestly) to defeat Hamas and disarm them?

Also, -a more general question- I am somewhat baffled by what seems to me as apathy of the moderate population of Israel in the face of the increase of ultra nationalism.
If my country was becoming ultra nationalist it would start to feel like not my country.

[sumskilz]

Wikipedia says the initial strength of Hamas was 2500 with 1000 of them taken down already and the strength of IDF was 10000 by the end of the first day of the attack.
How long do you think it really takes (honestly) to defeat Hamas and disarm them?

I don’t know. It could be a bit like the Battle of Mosul. The Israeli ground forces are much better trained and equipped than the bulk of the coalition forces were, but Hamas and PIJ together have about four times as many fighters as ISIS, plus fifteen years to prepare and fortify.

Also, -a more general question- I am somewhat baffled by what seems to me as apathy of the moderate population of Israel in the face of the increase of ultra nationalism.
If my country was becoming ultra nationalist it would start to feel like not my country.

There were massive protests against the government for 39 weeks straight until the war started. That’s one of the factors that contributed to the lack of preparedness I think, because the border guards were being used for crowd control. That being said, Israelis are quite nationalist on average. It’s the illiberalism and corruption that was pissing everyone off.

[paleologos]

...
That being said, Israelis are quite nationalist on average.
It’s the illiberalism and corruption that was pissing everyone off.

That is another thing that baffles me.
How can one be ok with nationalism and not be ok with illiberalism. These two have always gone hand to hand.

Just think about it:
If you are a nationalist to the extend that you feel pacifism and/or fairness towards other ethnic groups is effectively hostile to your nation's interest what do you do with those who hold, let alone openly express such opinions?
Do I really need to post references on how many pro-Palestinian political parties have been outlawed in Israel?
(Which reminds me: political and other grievances, when shoved under a carpet they tend to fester. If all civil voices expressing said grievances are silenced, the aggrieved will gravitate toward the less civil.)

Are all these "quite nationalist" Israelis really so naive as to believe that a government that normalizes the political suppression of one group on the grounds of national interest (as defined by an authoritative "technocratic" minority) would refrain from utilizing the same justification on the same grounds against nearly everybody who is not them?

Or, is it that they consider the blatant disregard of political objections/grievances to a situation illiberal only when it applies to Israelis?

[sumskilz]

That is another thing that baffles me.
How can one be ok with nationalism and not be ok with illiberalism. These two have always gone hand to hand.

Just think about it:
If you are a nationalist to the extend that you feel pacifism and/or fairness towards other ethnic groups is effectively hostile to your nation's interest what do you do with those who hold, let alone openly express such opinions?
Do I really need to post references on how many pro-Palestinian political parties have been outlawed in Israel?
(Which reminds me: political and other grievances, when shoved under a carpet they tend to fester. If all civil voices expressing said grievances are silenced, the aggrieved will gravitate toward the less civil.)

Are all these "quite nationalist" Israelis really so naive as to believe that a government that normalizes the political suppression of one group on the grounds of national interest (as defined by an authoritative "technocratic" minority) would refrain from utilizing the same justification on the same grounds against nearly everybody who is not them?

Or, is it that they consider the blatant disregard of political objections/grievances to a situation illiberal only when it applies to Israelis?

I don’t think the average citizens of any country think about such things very deeply. Kach, Ta'al, Balad, and the United Arab List have all been banned by the central elections committee for supporting terrorism and/or incitement, but the High Court ultimately overturned all those bans except the one on Kach which is a far-right Jewish party. The protests against the coalition were primarily because of the coalition’s attempt to weaken the High Court. Although, this has little to do with the Arab parties, which hardly anyone gives a second thought to, because they are pretty much useless. On that, I think Jews and Arabs agree. The only Arab party that has ever accomplished anything is Ra'am, because they were willing to join a coalition. That said, Ben Gvir’s general hostility to Arabs offends average Israeli Jews. Israelis in general have positive feelings about Arab citizens who are not hostile. Stories about Arabs who showed bravery in the face of the recent Hamas attack or died trying to save others are very popular on social media, like Youssef Ziadna, a bus driver who saved 30 people, and Awad Darawshe who was killed by Hamas while trying to treat wounded people at the Nova festival.

[paleologos]

My series of questions were not intended to be an insinuation of bad acting on the part of Israeli citizens.
It's that I am genuinely baffled by those Israelis who voted for the parties that are in the government coalition.
I am to accept that a nation of people that are considered the "smartest" ethnic/racial group (followed by East Asians) elected parties that are openly racist and exclusionary believing that this kind of authoritarianism would never turn to bite them in their backsides.
Please do excuse the stereotyping, but whatever reputation Jewish people have, it is not one of naivety.

[PointOfViewGun]

All unlikely...
From Reuters:
French military intelligence says Israeli strike not behind Gaza hospital blast
AP News also conducted a detailed investigation. Some excerpts:
AP visual analysis: Rocket from Gaza appeared to go astray, likely caused deadly hospital explosion
In summary, US intelligence, French intelligence, Reuters, AP News and the six experts they consulted, all agree that a misfired rocket from within Gaza is the most likely cause of the explosion in the hospital parking lot.

Much of these "analysis" points are glaringly problematic in the points they make and they often contradict each other. Even the two links you post have contradictory points. Most importantly, while we do not know for a fact what exactly caused the explosion, we know for a fact that the information provided by Israel is both false and contradictory.

[sumskilz]

My series of questions were not intended to be an insinuation of bad acting on the part of Israeli citizens.
It's that I am genuinely baffled by those Israelis who voted for the parties that are in the government coalition.
I am to accept that a nation of people that are considered the "smartest" ethnic/racial group (followed by East Asians) elected parties that are openly racist and exclusionary believing that this kind of authoritarianism would never turn to bite them in their backsides.
Please do excuse the stereotyping, but whatever reputation Jewish people have, it is not one of naivety.

Well, that’s an Ashkenazi stereotype, but those who vote for the far-right parties are pretty solidly young to middle-aged working class non-Ashkenazi men.

This is an excerpt from an essay written by an older Mizrahi woman (so close enough I guess) about why they vote right-wing:

Mizraḥi mistrust of Arabs, or what Shube calls ‘anti-Arab racism’, is real and not the result of Ashkenazi gaslighting. It is borne of bitter experience—a hostility Mizraḥim brought with them from Muslim countries. This is the elephant in the room, ignored or downplayed by the Ashkenazi left: the subliminal memory of Arab and Muslim persecution experienced by parents and grandparents—violent riots, arrests, torture, even executions in the recent past, coupled with the atavistic fears of a vulnerable and servile minority at the mercy of an unpredictable majority. Mizraḥim view the Palestinian jihad against the Jews of Israel as just the latest chapter in a long story of Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism.

And here is another fallacy about “shared culture.” It will not save you from missiles, or a mob which wants you dead, or a government hellbent on scapegoating your people. A “shared culture” did not save the “Arabized Jews” of Iraq, any more than acculturation saved the German Jews from the Nazis.