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Is Israel just taking out its impotency on the civilians of Palestine and Lebanon? Because they damn sure haven’t eliminated Hamas or Hezbollah

I think this is what they are doing in practice, but in theory I think the idea behind hurting civilians during wars is/was to a) reduce morale and willingness to fight in that country because the losses might become too great; b) weaken the resolve of the fighters themselves because you're probably hitting their families at least occasionally; c) enforce a "racial hierarchy" in which you regard the life of a single one of your countrymen to be equal to 100 Gazans/Lebanese/Yemenis/etc; and d) be seen by your own countrymen as doing something to fight the enemy to make them feel better about the losses you're receiving

the issue is that historically, none of these ideas actually function and anti-colonial movements were generally victorious regardless. I suppose the only lasting benefit to the colonizers is that the country they've ravaged with war is now so fucked up and damaged that it necessitates a continuing relationship to either them or some other capitalist nation to trade with and rebuild, though even this is declining as a factor because of anti-hegemonic alternatives like China, Russia, Iran, etc.

so Israel is just falling into the same trap as so many other colonial or imperialist projects in the past, believing that a sufficient amount of violence will be enough to dissuade resistance to their regime, and that, sure, it might make them unpopular and morally reprehensible to use increasingly violent methods but this is simply the price of maintaining the project. this isn't how it actually works; breaking international laws and doing ever more violent acts is not a sign of (albeit evil) strength and power, it actually just makes you lose. there's no edgy "I have sacrificed everything and killed thousands of innocents but attained ultimate power and now nobody can stand before me!" scene at the end of this path; everybody just hates you and your shitty project collapses. there are countless historical examples here, from Nazi Germany to South Africa.

there is a reason why imperialist exploitation has shifted from a violent, bloody past in which cities were looted by soldiers and civilian populations genocided by armies, to a modern system which is less outwardly violent and instead relying on the banality of debt and poverty and unemployment to enforce inequality. it's easier to find a common enemy if they're sending their armies through your land because some feudal lord or early capitalist demanded it. it's considerably harder to battle an enemy which consists of like, IMF-enforced austerity.