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[Phmcw]

No. Most Palestinians by far want to cease hostilities. Just like most Israelis do.

The Hamas is in power because they won the previous elections fair and square. And I saw enought documentaries about the region to know what is going on. I also know enough Muslims to know that according to most Palestinian, Israel must go.

Which is more important to you? Your answer is a choice.

My answer is irrelevant. The question is : what is Israel doing, and for which reasons? How many factions are there? What is the palestinian authorithy doing and for which reasons? Who exactly?

And no, hamas is at its lowest in terms of popularity.

Because they are completely corrupt and mad. The fact that they want to destroy Isreal got them in power in the first place.

why it needed a desperate kidnapping operation using those tunnels.

Exact, but how much are you willing to bet that they'll enjoy a peak of popularity in the coming month, provided by the enthusiastic response of Israel's military? 10€ to toady?

Edit : Added the name of the quoted persons.

[Darvi]

Phmcw, if you're going to quote multiple people, the least you could do is to add the author to every quote.

[GavJ]

If that's so easy, how come israel didn't know about the ones going under dining rooms in kibutzim near gaza? or the ones where hamas operatives merged out, managed to walk around for an hour unnoticed and get back with only 1 casualty (0 israeli casuaties, yet, that was pure luck)

Because Israelis are human beings, and not superintelligent robot hive minds that magically anticipate every possible tactic ever?

You have to actually GET the plane with the technology. And you have to actually FLY it. And PROGRAM it. The technology existing alone isn't enough. I'm guessing they never suspected that Hamas would do something as bonkers as tunneling into a country. But now that they DO know that, they can go ahead and get the necessary tools and find them.

“The miner is looking for gold, the oilman’s looking for oil, and the rescuer is looking for trapped miners,” Masters said. “So what they end up doing is excluding everything else except the specific thing they are interested in. And that particular thing does not have anything to do with a tunnel.”

This logic only makes sense if we assume that mining prospectors are somehow smarter than everybody else on earth who might wish to look for different specific things... 
All these groups of people they cited took the same technology and adapted it to find their specific things.
So... do that for tunnels. Does israel not have computer programmers and scientists?

"But it might take some effooooorrrrt! Or moneyyyyyy!" does not raise much sympathy in me.

Not being willing to bother to outsmart somebody with a shovel and pennies on the dollar in funding versus you, and invading and killing a hugely disproportionate number of people instead because it's easier is, IMO, an evil choice. Sorry.

[XXSockXX]

---

Did you read these articles palsch posted? They are making quite clear that a) Israel is trying to detect tunnels and b) American scientists last year thought it would take a long time until the technology would be ready for practical deployment. So it's not for lack of effort or money, but detecting tunnels is really difficult:

“If you have a uniform geology,” Masters said, “and a single tunnel, you get a beautiful return. Looks great. And everyone says: ‘Look, there’s a tunnel!’”

But then he showed off another computer model, and this one, of an actual piece of terrain at the border, has rocks and boulders spread throughout on the screen.

He showed off a simulated seismic “thump” running through it. The returns and the wave returns were scattered and unpredictable.

Still, there has been success, at least on the computer. In small areas, where the actual geology has been adequately mapped, the simulations, theoretically, show that a tunnel can be found.
....

That’s a long way to go before technology can be deployed in the real world, chiefly because there is little room for error. “We can’t go check if every rock or boulder is a tunnel,” Masters said.

[Mr. Strange]

Sometimes I think the only way for peace in the south Levant will be for Israel to complete it's ethnic cleansing, kick out the Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank, and for the Palestinians move on to other nations.

And of course, during that time, horrible crimes. Lovely.

Or Iran could nuke the whole place up. Equally lovely.

Or you could have some UN peacekeeping force (not including USA, of course) take over security in Gaza and several kilometres around it on Israeli side, so that international humanitarian aid could reach Palestinians freely and help rebuilding society there, showing them that there are people who still care and haven't forgotten them. Treated like human beings for once and not worrying if they get food and (clean) water tomorrow too, not to mention being safe from Israelian "retaliations" would do wonders to Hamas support, I think.

[Dutchling]

Yeah I'm sure Hamas will allow themselves being made useless to the Palestinians.

[Mr. Strange]

Yeah I'm sure Hamas will allow themselves being made useless to the Palestinians.

Well, you're not going to convince them with that attitude! 

Some preface about lifting the blockade and Israelian withrawal from the border and UN taking over in exchange for UN having access to make any inspections to search tunnels _{or rockets or weapon catches or whatever} announced with much fanfare everywhere in middle east means they couldn't easily back out on it without losing support.

[GavJ]

Yes, I'm aware it will take some time to develop the technology better.  So what?
WAIT a little while until it's developed. This is not complicated!

In the meantime:
* Maybe Hamas has a couple guys jump out of a tunnel and get lucky and shoot somebody in the meantime. Okay? That's much less of a big deal than invading a country and having firefights all over the streets with hundreds dying...! 
* Now that you know about tunnels you can send some more people to guard likely in-range tunnel targets and have them aware of tunnels as a possible threat to watch out for, and attacks from them will be less effective in the first place, even if completed.
* Those same people guarding likely tunnel targets are also now available to go check out possible tunnel detections from the detection technology within, say, a mile or two radius. The article stupidly scoffs at the concept of "checking every rock" but of course you wouldn't do that. You'd check rocks that the system flags that are ALSO near things that matter... which would probably actually be quite effective and doable, even with a 10% correct hit rate, or something.

Sorry to harp on this issue for so long, but it's a pretty good analogy for the whole situation.  Weighing a modicum of patience and common sense and sane levels of cost and benefit = obvious much more peaceful, reasonable solutions with much less death and escalation from multiple angles

And yet instead they choose to hot-headedly throw in the towel on those plans and just cowboy it up with tanks and nail guns before the careful solutions have any chance to show returns.

[martinuzz]

Except that it isn't the palestines that are the problem. its radical islam, funded by Qatar/Saudi Arabia that is praised by the west for being an advanced and progressive country, despite actually being a women stomping, barbaric radical islamist that fund terror organizations from africa to asia.

Sometimes I do wonder if nuking Mecca would put an end to that. The terrorist funding I mean, not the woman stomping.

[Mr. Strange]

Sometimes I do wonder if nuking Mecca would put an end to that. The terrorist funding I mean, not the woman stomping.

Unlikely. Rich saudi brats who do much of it live jet set life and wouldn't get hit. I'm pretty sure they would pour all their monies and influence into revenge if something like that would happen.

[palsch]

Yes, I'm aware it will take some time to develop the technology better.  So what?

No. It will take some time to get the technology (which Israel has been developing for two years according to the articles I'm reading) in anything like a workable state for border efforts.

Seriously, you are making some wild claims about the technology and it's applicability without any sources or demonstrating any understanding of the physical, practical or logistical limitations such a system will face. You are speculating and treating it as hard and fast fact while being very dismissive of anyone who doesn't (not to mention the experts developing such systems in the US). The reason I linked the DHS article in the first place was to show they you were flat out wrong about the technology being easy or widely available.

[GavJ]

Yes, and I read your article
1) If you'll notice, I adjusted my suggested strategic choices accordingly to reflect a future mature technology rather than a currently perfected one.
2) Your article mentioned systems that EXIST and ARE IN PLACE using phonological methods that provide greater than zero knowledge of tunnel detection. Which I also integrated into my suggestions. I realize they're noisy and immature. That's still better than nothing in the meantime, like I suggested.
3) The article suggests that better methods using electromagnetics are probably not too far from success.
4) Notice, critically, that your article did not make any mention of US border patrol invading Mexico (or rather, patrolling around in Mexico outside their jurisdiction, since we are moreso allies, but you get the idea) to stop tunnels. Even though drug cartel members probably quite often emerge armed and dangerous and willing to shoot people, and even though they're bringing crime and death into the country, and even though we don't have advanced mature tech anymore then Israel does. We still seem to stay in America to stop them, we don't send agents into Mexico, or they didn't mention it if we do.
5) Your article mentioned several other non-invasive techniques to root out tunnels. For example, paying snitches to give away their locations. These alternative supplemental strategies could presumably be used to greater effect in Gaza as well.


When cartels shoot a couple of cops, we respond by investing more in the problem and trying to be smarter. We don't go blow up half a Mexican city in retaliation. Somehow, amazingly, America has not crumbled as a result!  GASP! Imagine that.

[Leafsnail]

Sometimes I do wonder if nuking Mecca would put an end to that. The terrorist funding I mean, not the woman stomping.

Ah yes, performing an act that would make every single Muslim in the entire world furious.  That sounds like a great way to reduce terrorism.

[smjjames]

And nuking Jerusalem would make every Jew, Christian, and Muslim furious, which btw makes me wonder hiw crazy Iran would have to be to even consider nuking Jerusalem as it would make them an instant mega-paraiah.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

We could just nuke everything, to be sure.

And the moon. We gotta teach that bastard a lesson every once in a while.