Will Israel win the 2023 Israel–Hamas war?
110
Ṁ13k
2025
41%
chance

This market will resolve YES if and when the English Wikipedia's page on the 2023 Israel–Hamas war (or the nearest equivalent if that page no longer exists) lists in its infobox "Result: Israeli victory" (or equivalent), and I am satisfied that this is not part of an edit war.

It will also resolve YES if the result describes the victor as some coalition of which Israel is a part, or describes the outcome in terms of the defeated side being Hamas or some coalition of which Hamas is a part.

Any other "result" after the war is no longer described by Wikipedia as "ongoing" will cause the market to resolve NO, including hedged statements like "Partial Israeli victory" or "Israeli victory with territorial losses".

Note specifically that if there is a frozen conflict that causes Wikipedia to update the infobox from "ongoing" to "inconclusive" or similar, this would be a NO resolution.

Resolution only depends on the first, non-dotpoint statement in the "result" section of the infobox. If hedging/concessions follow the intitial statement as dotpoints, or if they appear in the body of the article, this is not relevant to resolution. If the "result" comprises only dotpoints, the market will resolve NO.

The closing date for this market will be extended as needed until the market can resolve.

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I would bet No right now, and I think Israel's already 'lost', but I don't think it's possible to determine this clearly and fairly for a speculation like this tbh

I vote NO because I think wikipedia editors are very likely to try to describe all but the most total victory conditions (which are unlikely to occur) as inconclusive or hedged in some way.

bought Ṁ90 NO

Israel is simply not prepared to deploy the hundreds of thousands of troops it would need to permanently occupy Gaza, much less manage food, water, infrastructure, utilities, ect. for the 2+ million Gazans. They're just going to keep to their narrow corridors and lob bombs at the rest of the strip, maybe with an occasional raid or two. When the war ends, either through settling into a status-quo frozen conflict or through an Israeli withdrawal, it definitely won't be counted as an Israeli victory. Probably a wall of text or "inconclusive" on wikipedia.

I think if Hamas ceases to be the governing power in Gaza, at least nominally, that counts as an Israeli victory.

How is that going to happen? Israel just said they're ending the "intensive" phase of the war and returning to "mowing the lawn"-- meaning low-level bombing and raids. How is that going to displace Hamas as a governing authority? That's not the point of mowing the lawn!

As the last Gaza war described in Wikipedia as "Victory claimed by both sides", even after kills ratio of 10k to 100 people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Gaza_War

@yard nitpick, 2300 fatalities there

2.31k to 73 people if you do want to be precise

If kill count mattered, the US would have won in Afghanistan and Vietnam.

What should counts, for your opinion?

(I mean in Israel Hamas war specifically)

IMO, An unambiguous Israeli win would be if the Gaza strip becomes (de facto) Israeli territory, the former inhabitants become refugees outside of Israel, Islamic attacks against Israel reduce to below pre-war levels, and geopolitical tensions and sanctions return to pre-war levels.

For me it's about war aims:

  • Hamas wants to weaken Israel geopolitically. If western nations cut ties with Israel or Middle-Eastern nations unite against Israel in the long term, this is a point for Hamas.

  • Israel wants to subdue Hamas. If Islamist violence against Israel decreases in the medium-long term, this is a point for Israel.

IMO, the line between Palestinian civilians and Hamas is porous. Hamas is de facto the violent arm of Palestinian resistance to oppression, similar to the IRA being the violent arm of Irish resistance to oppression. As long as Palestinians are oppressed, they will keep refilling Hamas ranks, because oppressed humans don't just stop wanting to be free, and Hamas is the Schelling Point for anyone who has given up on peaceful means of protest (also Hamas probably wouldn't let other violent rebels coexist on their turf). This is why I say the unambiguous win scenario involves depopulating the Gaza strip and making it Israeli.

This makes it incredibly difficult for Israel to win the war, if not impossible. Any military action powerful enough to stop Hamas would likely mean international retaliation, and Hamas would happily become martyrs if it means Israel is destroyed.

well that is very strange definition, since this was not the purpose of the war , and there was no intention to make it all Israeli territory, nor the expulsion of the whole palestinialn population.

(the reason that I'm not betting here, is that the resolution criteria is too vague, and will probably resolve according to the political bias of the owner)

It's not a definition, it's an example of what it would take, IMO.

I agree that it's not the purpose of the war, but with its current scope the war looks unwinnable, so I imagine expanding the scope so that it becomes winnable. As it stands the war is not decreasing the number of Islamists willing and able to commit terrorism in Israel.

I wanted to suggest another way to think of this.

What will the other side will consider as defeat?

I think that should be part of the answer.

Of course that theoretically both sides can be defeated. But I think that helps to focus on what victory is.

I think that sinwar should die, and the Gazan should lose some land (this is very important for them) and I think if there will be no "deal" that it just end in a one-sided decision in an anticlimactic ending. With no hope for the future and with military regime untill they will chose moderate government that will be Palestinians defeat. (Better option will be if sinwar surrender with a white flag, but that is not possible ofc)