The problem is that the Palestinians are a heterogeneous group. Even if the Palestinian government makes a 'peace' deal with the Israelis, other Palestinians opposed to the deal can 'break' it by shooting off a few cheap rockets. Further complicating the issue, there are outside parties (such as the Iranians) who have a vested interest in preventing a lasting peace (in order to preserve their influence both in Palestine and in Lebanon).
Only if Isreal reacts by declaring the peace deal with one group dead because another group fired rockets. It takes two to tango, as they say.
If a gunman from Canada fired into the USA, the USA is unlikely to consider it a declaration of war and start nuking Canada!
This is problematic for a number of reasons. First, it could be that the Palestinian government was actually responsible for shooting off the rockets, but were scapegoating someone else for political reasons (the internal and external messaging are very different things, and it's hard to figure out the truth). Second, 'authority' is not unified in Palestine, and a government may be composed of groups which only agree on some policies, and have members have differing objectives and strategies.
Overall, if the Palestinians fail to stop rocket and mortar attacks, the only logical response for Israel is to blame their government. If Canadians were attacking the USA repeatedly and it seemed likely that the attacks were being organized by a political party which was a member of the governing coalition, I think the USA would have no option but to blame the government.
This is not the same as the point i was replying to. That point was that even if Israel made peace with the government a seperatist entity could still fire rockets. So no we are not talking about the governing coalition.
If the gunman had ties to the de-facto government and the government was unwilling/unable to arrest the gunman, i think it is likely they would.
After all, wasn't that what happened with 9/11?
[0]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-51643636
The Iron Beam is the low cost per intercept solution, meant to intercept cheap unguided ballistic rockets.
Then it won't be so shiny anymore, absorbing even more energy and so on, until it stops being a solid object.
As for erratic flight paths - a physical object can't aim to match the beam steering capabilities of a group based stationary laser, given any realistic currently available propulsion or steering technology. It would need to do crazy high g & high energy manufacturing yet from the PoV of the laser its moving just a couple degrees if at all. As unlike a physical interceptor the laser beam moves at the speed of light and thud the point of aim can more more or less instantaneously.
Iron Beam is all about cost per interception.
> My best guess is the long term solution (if there is ever one attempted) will be more related to why people are motivated to launch rockets at their neighbours.
There's been plenty of attempts to have peace conferences and what not. There's a wide gap between attempting and actually getting something to stick.
Look at the conflicts of the world. Pawns don't get defeated. Most of the time the other side decides the situation isn't worth it and leaves, but in this case that's not an option because the other side has no possible retreat.
Note that a pawn can lose it's backing which in effects promotes it to being a king--and kings can be defeated.
The option is there to conquer and reoccupy Gaza. It would be terribly expensive in terms of human lives and the occupation will be very difficult to keep, but it would solve the problem of the rockets.
Ditto for Lebanon and Syria. From the 2006 war, often considered a failure for Israel, there were nonetheless very very few rocket attacks from Lebanon.
So defensive weapons could also be a perverse incentive, since they discourage military action that is more direct and more effective for the long term.
It's a very difficult problem. People are motivated to launch rockets because of grievances and because they see an advantage to do so. Israel has rewarded these kinds of attacks more then one time (e.g. loosening the blockade on Gaza) and the world has become quite convinced with the Palestinian narrative.
Israel's options are limited to defensive weapons (with a lot of problems long-term) and offensive ones (very expensive in terms of lives, government popularity, PR, etc..)
And maybe stop encouraging Qatar to fund Hamas[1]? Yes, you read that right, and the source is a reputable Israeli newspaper. Hamas is a really convenient opponent for the Israeli government: they are evil, corrupt and basically harmless, but they are a great excuse for everything else (“we are at war, stop asking questions”).
[1]: https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-netanyahu-...
The children of Gaza die because Hamas wants that to happen. And look at the demographics of those "children"--most are 16 and 17. And the only one starving children of Gaza is Hamas.
Hamas is evil. Sure they want to happen. Children being murdered is still happening though!
As I wrote Israel could reconquer the strip and remove this layer, but that's very difficult to do.
Qatar money transfers (yes, everybody minimally informed knows about that, it's not a secret) are in my opinion harmful errors on Israel's part. It's basically protection money, it makes Hamas stronger. But that's an understandable error, considering the few options Israel has. The short term solution is to pay for quiet, politicians love that.
And Hamas is not harmless by any means. It has a big rocket arsenal, contacts with Iran, it has showed it can instigate civil unrest inside Israel, it kidnapped in the past civilians and soldiers, it has a good defense force (Israelis had great difficulties entering the strip in 2014), it launched tens of thousands of rockets and thousands of incendiary payloads causing life losses and fires, it has drones, earth to air missiles, it penetrated Israel borders a few times. And it's growing more powerful. No it's not harmless (and that's even not considering their soft power in terms of propaganda and controlling news sources)
Oh yeah, like when Saddam had the strongest army in the world and mass destruction weapons…
Regarding Rockets: last time Hamas sent all their rockets accumulated for the past few years, they have killed 13 people! That's not bad for a lone wolf acting on behalf of ISIS or the like, but for an organized force, that's ridiculous.
> it has a good defense force (Israelis had great difficulties entering the strip in 2014)
A mere 67 soldiers died in a month and a half of operations… That's not what it likes to fight against a “good defense force”.
You're just being brainwashed by war propaganda.
But logically this way of measuring harmfulness is idiotic. Hamas couldn't make more victims precisely because Israel had a lot of defensive and offensive systems to prevent that. All those systems are expensive financially, militarily, from a PR perspective, in term of personnel. It's like arguing guns are not dangerous since the usual targets wear a bulletproof vest anyway. A single Iron Dome counter missile costs 40000-100000 USD, for example. Hamas has tens of thousands of rockets which cost 1000 USD at best each.
Of course I would! We (France) have lost more military than this (and a much much higher ratio among involved soldiers) in extra territorial operations in the past few years and we don't make a big deal about how powerful the African armed groups are… They aren't, the fight are almost always one-sided, but you can't wage war without losing men.
Dozens of soldiers dying is nothing when talking about countries doing large-scale military operations. Of course, at the individual level it means 80 individual tragedies, with children losing parents, parents losing children, wifes losing husbands and so on. But on the military level, it reveals a highly asymmetric fight where you didn't really encountered resistance. Really far from your “Hamas is a powerful military” propaganda.
> But logically this way of measuring harmfulness is idiotic
Not if you actually tried to understand my point. Which I would rephrase for you: Tsahal is so dominant in this conflict it could get rid of Hamas military capabilities forever, with ease. They could completely remove the threat they cause to Israel, like how the Fatah on the West Bank is completely helpless today. But they do not do that, and it's on purpose: to wage war, you need an opponent, and nobody neither in the military, nor in the far-right in charge in the government, wants to end up without an enemy.
The former because it would means budget cut (peacetime budget vs wartime budget), the later because they would have no scapegoat to justify their racist and expansionist policy.
See, the Palestinian leadership needs to have an enemy too. And you say of the far-right in Israel they are "expansionist and racist", well Hamas/Fatah are arguably worse.
And it's not like there would be no enemies and no need for a powerful military once Gaza is conquered and Hamas neutered (Iran? Hezbollah?).
There are powerful interests in the Israeli side wanting to keep Hamas a menace, but there are also big interests on the Palestinian side too to keep the war going.
I'm not discussing that. But only one side has the power of destroying the other and is instead keeping it alive on purpose. That's why I blame the Isreali government: Hamas is an evil terror group, and they deserve to die.
> And it's not like there would be no enemies and no need for a powerful military once Gaza is conquered and Hamas neutered (Iran? Hezbollah?).
The more enemies an army have, the better for their budget (the US DoD is really good at keeping multiple enemies relevant at the same time). Also, the other actors you mentioned are threats, but Israel is arguably not at war with them right now, which reduces their impact.
And the army is only one side of the coin, the other is the far-right politicians, who really need Hamas to justify everything they do to other Palestinians inside Israel or in the West Bank, neither Iran nor Hezbollah makes good excuse for destroying Palestinians homes for instance.