Shin Bet: We officially agree with everything Redactor ever said

First of all, Israel's military superiority over everyone in the region is pretty well assured for decades to come. I often point out that the IDF is not as good as popular opinion believes or that the Arabs can be surprisingly tough fighters, but let's not kid ourselves here. Israel remains the dominant military power in the region. Also the nuclear weapons help.

Will Israel continue to be supported by America for the next 30 years.

I doubt it. This has more to do with generational shifts in America than anything they do. My mom spent most of her life thinking they were just wonderful people who were terribly oppressed because she saw Exodus when she was a little girl. That's all you had to do to convince people back then, is make a movie and bias the news coverage a little. (Also the Palestinians doing the dumbest fricking possible things for PR at every opportunity. Shooting up a school bus. Wow. )

Anyway, I'm digressing. My point is that they fooled most old boomers back then, but it won't work on the younger generation. It's not even a matter of who is right or wrong. Look at South Korea. They've got an elderly population who remember the war who are like 95% pro-US, a middle-aged population who blame the US for everything to rebel against their parents, and a young population who love the US to rebel against their parents. So with Israel, I expect that no matter what happens they're going to be hated by lots of Americans just to be contrarian.

Will Israel successfully annex the entirety of Gaza?

They can just shut off the food and water (as they're doing right now). They effectively control it already except for the tunnels. And those guys can't hold out in the tunnels for long. The only reason the war has gone on this long is that a certain somebody doesn't want it to end.

The real question is what happens to the population there. If you know me (and apparently none of you r-slurred cute twinks do) I'm fairly sympathetic to the Israeli position back in my boomer times and and I don't toss around the G-word, but it's pretty clear that post-Oct7 the Israeli public just wants them all killed. My guess is they'll be deported to the West Bank, excuse me, "Judea and Samaria" . I dunno.

Will Israel survive as a nation in the middle East or degenerate further as more time passes?

This might seem like a lazy comparison, but I expect it will be like South Africa. They've won militarily. They totally dominate the Palestinians. They'll (officially) annex the West Bank soon. They can keep the Palestinians in their neighborhoods at night in barbed wire enclosures. People don't like to admit this to themselves, but this is actually a viable way of running a society. Inefficient but it can work for a long time with the support of outside powers. I expect this situation to remain the same for the next 30 years. Beyond that, even my crystal ball becomes cloudy.

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They must make up half the DEA.

I haven't heard that one but it's totally believable. That's what the Egyptians did before 1973. They practiced crossing the canal over and over until one day it wasn't a practice anymore.

Israelis won because they always outnumbered them. Because the Arabs were too busy fighting each other.

Iran has to be one of the most glowie riddled nations in the world.

They have everything you need for intrigue. Lots of very motivated people (if you ever look into their eyes when they're thinking about the old country you know what I mean), high IQ in a slightly neurodivergent way, they're extremely into secrecy, they won't forgive it if you wrong their family, and everyone has a grudge against someone else.

Camus said something like: "Some people prefer lying to keeping secrets. Some prefer keeping secrets to lying. Some like both lies and secrets."

Goddarn I need an Iranian woman in my life.

That's why you gotta keep in mind your enemy's capabilities, not just try to guess their intentions. Because their intentions might be incredibly r-slurred and self-defeating.

They usually can't flip to conventional because they lack the equipment and training. In rare cases, they can.

There's plenty from my boomer times. Fatah, the PFLP, the Tamil Tigers, the FLN in Algeria. Groups that we normally associate with terrorism but could put (admittedly really shitty) armies into the field. I mean heck, you could even put the Viet Cong or the Afghan Mujahideen into that category.

But with Hamas, it only lasted a short while until they retreated into their tunnels and reverted back to unconventional warfare.

Yes, trying to take on one of the top 10 military powers in the world wasn't going to last long.

The most "conventional" they got was with a flotilla of lawnmower helicopters

I'm guessing they were using ATGMs quite a bit, at least in the first couple days. But that's mostly just me guessing based on how Hezbollah operates.

Which stuff, my side or theirs?

Sure. What direction do you want me to go? One of my earliest memories was reading the Star Trek Starfleet Technical Manual and my knowledge kind of trails off during DS9.