John Mearsheimer - considered one of the foremost International Relations scholar's in the world today - on Gaza:
Israel is "waging a punishment campaign in Gaza, they are punishing the civilian population... The Israelis are interested in causing a huge amount of destruction in Gaza and in the process they are going to kill huge numbers of civilians... It seems to me that when you do that you're committing war crimes. If the Israelis were going to great length to target just Hamas and avoid civilian casualties then you could make a coherent argument that this is not a case of them committing war crimes but they're not doing that, they're purposely tearing the place apart. This is a massive punishment campaign.
Furthermore at the same time they've cut off all food, water and gas to Gaza and this means that in effect they're going to end up starving out, or trying to starve out, the civilian population in Gaza. By my understanding of international law, this too is a war crime."
He also says the U.S. is "definitely complicit" in those war crimes.
Mearsheimer also makes the case that it simply won't work as he doesn't believe there's a military solution here:
"I don't think that [Israel] can beat Hamas on the battlefield and even if [they] do some other group will come to take their place. And I don't believe you can beat the Palestinians into submission."
Instead he says "what you have to do is come up with a political solution", which everyone "fully understands" is the 2-state solution. However he says "the Israelis have - except on one occasion - never been really interested in even trying to achieve a 2-state solution."
Prof. John J. Mearsheimer: Ukraine/Israel: How China benefits (25 min)
![[Image: Pwb0ueM.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/Pwb0ueM.jpg)
DefenseScoop
Israel is "waging a punishment campaign in Gaza, they are punishing the civilian population... The Israelis are interested in causing a huge amount of destruction in Gaza and in the process they are going to kill huge numbers of civilians... It seems to me that when you do that you're committing war crimes. If the Israelis were going to great length to target just Hamas and avoid civilian casualties then you could make a coherent argument that this is not a case of them committing war crimes but they're not doing that, they're purposely tearing the place apart. This is a massive punishment campaign.
Furthermore at the same time they've cut off all food, water and gas to Gaza and this means that in effect they're going to end up starving out, or trying to starve out, the civilian population in Gaza. By my understanding of international law, this too is a war crime."
He also says the U.S. is "definitely complicit" in those war crimes.
Mearsheimer also makes the case that it simply won't work as he doesn't believe there's a military solution here:
"I don't think that [Israel] can beat Hamas on the battlefield and even if [they] do some other group will come to take their place. And I don't believe you can beat the Palestinians into submission."
Instead he says "what you have to do is come up with a political solution", which everyone "fully understands" is the 2-state solution. However he says "the Israelis have - except on one occasion - never been really interested in even trying to achieve a 2-state solution."
Prof. John J. Mearsheimer: Ukraine/Israel: How China benefits (25 min)
DefenseScoop
"It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." – Thomas Sowell