Hamas knows that they’ve already won the battle of public opinion and media sympathy. Almost ALL ‘news’ coverage is heavily slanted towards the Palestinian side. Likewise, with the trendy new Anti-Semitism that’s all through western society, courtesy of IAW and BDS on every college campus, no matter what the Jews do, short of surrendering to Hamas and vacating the entirety of Israel, they have already been branded as genocidal oppressors.
Agreed... And assuming your premise is correct, then Israel has absolutely nothing ELSE to lose...
The non-stop bombing should begin closely followed by ground forces to clean up what is left...
EVERY LIVING THING!
Better to be feared in this situation...
You overestimate Hamas' position here by a great deal.
Hamas has been unpopular and weak and have lost many of their benefactors. The "unity" government they recently joined with the PA saw them as a junior partner with little to no real representation - and even this was done out of weakness.
Hamas is unpopular with their own people in Gaza because they've failed miserably at governing. They've not only lost their ally, the Muslim Brotherhood, in Egypt - they've gained an enemy with the new al-Sisi led Egyptian military regime. It in fact is very possible Egypt and Israel are coordinating to some extent as they both share the same goal of weakening Hamas. This government has also cut off most of their supply lines from Egypt into Gaza. Worse for Hamas, they sided with the Syrian opposition which pissed off their sponsor Iran who in turn cut off some of their funding.
Hamas is largely a paper tiger at this point. Most of its rockets are unguided WW2 era kaytusha clones whose value decrease by the day as Israeli's realize they are more an annoyance than a dire threat. Hamas has been unable to conduct any successful military operations to date, every attempt having been thwarted. They've managed to kill 1 Israeli with a mortar, and in exchange for that their strength has likely already been degraded by half.
Things aren't necessarily what they seem. To the extent that Hamas survives is likely Israeli reluctance to see Gaza slide into total chaos since Hamas is the party responsible for services, etc. From the Israeli (and Egyptian) point of view, degrading and humiliating Hamas to some level they've determined most beneficial is probably the real calculation here.
You said ... “... they have already been branded as genocidal oppressors.”
Now the odd thing about “that” is that while we KNOW that Israel is not a “genocidal oppressor” — there are these “faux supporters” of Israel who call on Israel to ACTUALLY BE A GENOCIDAL OPPRESSOR!!
A true supporter of Israel supports Israel when they DENY (and rightfully so) that they are genocidal oppressors — while the “faux supporters” of Israel (who seem to be paid by Islamist propagandists) urge Israel to genocidally oppress!
I just got through answering one of those “faux supporters” of Israel - right here on Free Republic, with him saying that Israel should be genocidal and should oppress!
I should also note that just about every thread on Free Republic about Israel and the Palestinians (in either Gaza or Judea and Samaria) has these “faux supporters” of Israel URGING ISRAEL to BE REAL GENOCIDAL OPPRESSORS.
Sometimes a thread on Free Republic really gets going and we get about ten or more “genocidal supporters” chiming in. It never fails and you will ALWAYS get at least one.
We’ve already got one on this thread ... :-) ...
I watched a BBC news video in which a BBC reporter questioned an Israeli spokesman. Needless to say, the BBC reporter sounded like a passionate supporter of Hamas. She didn’t even try to hide her strong bias.