I'll start off with aspects I think you've missed, then onto places where I agree.
Note: I live in Israel.
1. By capturing some 240 hostages Hamas forced Israel's hand. A government that didn't try it's hardest to get back these hostages would have collapsed within weeks by popular pressure.
2. The Shalit prisoner exchange is widely seen as responsible for Hamas deciding to take these hostages. A prisoner exchange on Hamas's terms would likely be terrible for Israel in encouraging more copycat attacks.
3. The war in Gaza is actually very likely to resolve the hostage situation one way or another. Either the IDF goes through the entirety of Gaza and finds the hostages (alive or dead), or it pressures Hamas into releasing the hostages on Israel's terms. The latter appears to be happening if rumours are to be believed.
4. I think Israel's been relatively clear about it's official aims. It wants security control of Gaza much like it does for the west bank. That will be bad for Gaza, and possibly Israel long term, but I think it's somewhat disingenuous to pretend like we don't know what they want at all.
5. This operation is very similar to the one in Mosul, both in terms of terrain, civilian casualties, tactics etc. That did effectively destroy ISIS as a *significant* terrorist organisation. Caveat - different levels of popular support.
6. Historically, cases where Israel has been seen as giving into violence have bred further violence. So have cases where they reacted with excessive violence. So it's in a bit of a catch 22 here.
7. The area around the Gaza strip is important for Israel's food security - it produces some 70% of Israel's locally grown vegetables. This war is likely to be successful at creating a situation where people are prepared to return, in a way that different tactics likely wouldn't be.
OTOH
I agree that nothing particularly good is likely to come from this war.
I also think that Israel should put a lot more effort *than it appears to be* into working out what comes after. This includes rebuilding Gaza, governance, economy etc. I think Israel should pay for rebuilding Gaza itself as a goodwill gesture.
It also should take a lot stronger immediate efforts to alleviate the humanitarian situation in southern Gaza.
Final thoughts:
What should the rest of the world do:
1. Putting pressure on Israel about Gaza is unlikely to have much useful effect. Let it play out, and focus on humanitarian interventions (tents, food, water, field hospitals).
2. In return put incredible pressure on Israel to reign in settler violence and stop all settlement building. The US has the power to demand this as an ultimatum and should. Condition all aid to Israel on this.
3. Other than that - mostly ignore this. There's a lot of horrible countries doing a lot of horrible things and there's not much you can do about them. That is the sad state of the world. The US wasn't able to help Syria, Sudan, Yemen, The Uighers, and the vast majority of horrible things that are happening/happened recently. When there's a solid practical intervention you can do, do it, but trying to do something without clear strategic aims tends to make things worse.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Let me reply briefly.
On 1-3, I agree that with my proposal, Israel would likely have been forced to accept a very costly prisoner exchange to get back the hostage and that it would have been a cost of this approach that Israel's actual approach doesn't have. But that cost would be minimized by increasing manpower at the border and making it much harder for Hamas to capture more hostages in the future and Israel's actual policy also has costs my proposal would not which I think are even greater.
On 4, I don't see how it's unfair to say that it's dubious Israeli officials have a very clear idea of what their goals are. Of course, if you phrase them in sufficiently general terms as you do in your reply (i. e. having the same kind of security control over Gaza that Israel has over the West Bank), Israel's ultimate goals are clear, but as often the devil is in the details and we simply don't know much about them at the moment. As I say in the post, I doubt even the Israeli government does, but I don't think it's unfair to say that. First, in general governments tend to respond to crises by improvising, and I don't see why Israel would be any different. (It certainly wasn't in the past, as anyone who has read the literature on e. g. the Six-Day War knows.) Moreover, not only do Israeli officials say very little about their post-war plans in public, but some are quoted in media reports as admitting they haven't really thought about it. For instance, here is an excerpt from a recent NYT article (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/world/europe/israel-hamas-gaza-war.html), which I think was very good: "And hovering over everything is the political conundrum of what happens to Gaza after the war ends. Once in, how does Israel get out? Once it has dismantled Hamas, if it can, to whom will it hand the keys? If Hamas no longer governs Gaza, who will? For the moment, Israeli officials say, those questions are not their immediate concern." Even you admit later in your comment that Israel doesn't appear to be thinking enough about what comes after, so I don't really understand this criticism.
On 5, again I don't say that it's impossible that Israel will be able to destroy Hamas as an organized structure and acknowledge that implicitly in the article, I certainly think that Hamas will cease to exist as a quasi-state organization, but that's not the same thing as saying it can be destroyed once and for all. (I don't like the comparisons with Mosul/Raqqa because, as you allude to in passing, Hamas probably has much more support in the population, which is not surprising given that it's part of the long-term Palestinian resistance to Israel, so I think it will be harder to get rid of it completely. People get angry when you call Hamas a resistance movement, but I make no value judgment when I say that, it's just a factual observation which I think should be taken into account in making predictions about the organization's prospects to survive in one form or another in the post-war environment.) Of course, even if it falls short of completely destroying Hamas, destroying it as a quasi-state military organization still has serious advantages for Israel and I don't deny it. I'm just saying that the value of doing that is mostly instrumental and most of the advantages one can derive from achieve that could also be obtained at a lower cost.
On 6, I agree but I also think Israel has never made a good faith effort at achieving a fair negotiated settlement, so to me it doesn't really have standing to complain about this until it does. I realize that you may disagree with that assessment, but we aren't going to solve that issue here.
On 7, I think it's a good point, but that you overstate it. What is true is that you point to a real additional cost of the kind of approach I recommend, but I think that cost shouldn't be exaggerated and again the alternative chosen by the Israeli government also has additional costs, which I think are much higher. I doubt that, if Israel adopted my approach, the people who lived in those communities wouldn't return eventually and that the land would not be exploited, I just think it would take longer. But also we should keep in mind that Israel is already highly dependent on food exports, so I doubt even in the worst case scenario the reduction in domestic food production this would cause would fundamentally alter the situation.
On your final thoughts, I'm not much of an interventionist in foreign policy in general and I don't make an exception for Israel. I think the Israeli-Palestinian conflict affects Europe more directly than most conflicts people have gotten because it regularly threatens to set the whole region ablaze, so other things being equal I think we have more reasons to be concerned about it, but on the other hand it's if anything even more intractable than those other conflicts and I think the West's power to have a positive effect on it is arguably even more limited, so I'm not arguing that we should do regime-change in Israel or some anything crazy like that. I would just like Western governments to publicly state much more clearly that Israel's behavior is unacceptable, stop providing military/economic aid to it and probably adopt limited sanctions against it or at least reducing cooperation with it and no longer rewarding it by including it in various schemes it benefits from like the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Otherwise, I'm broadly in agreement with your point that we should focus on settlement building rather than Gaza (I also think JaziTricks makes a good point on this), but this post wasn't about what Western governments should do and that doesn't mean I think what Israel is doing in Gaza is okay. I do not.
I think that's all pretty fair, and I don't think we're hugely apart on things so there's not much point hashing out the details.
I think the main point I would emphasize is that you're suggesting an option that in practice the Israeli government/IDF didn't have. Over 80% of Israeli Jews support the ground operation in Gaza, and it's unlikely that the government could have survived without doing it or something fairly similar.
A. The original massacre was such a mess not all victims could be identified, nor does Hamas have all of the prisoners. There's no complete list, and it's quite possible even Hamas can't have it.
B. The current format of the deal Hamas explicitly wants is basically 'everyone for everyone'. Which means that Hamas has every motivation to keep some for itself or for a future deal. There's also every motivation to string this out (Israel captures Palestinian attackers at a much higher rate).
C. The Oron Shaul affair reminds us Hamas can traffic in conspiracy theories. Years after this is over, someone will claim one of the missing is 'alive'.
Pretty much the only way for Israeli society to have any closure is to take the Stripe while it's still closed from the world. This is also the only way to stop Hamas from basically arranging a prepardon for any future terrorist for years, which will increase attacks along all borders. Reducing these considerations to 'better defence around Gaza' is not very smart. As is ignoring the other Hamas branches, like the one in Lebanon.
7. Did anyone ever try talking to them? Most of the people will not return barring a fundamental change. Especially following a deal whose explicit terms is releasing those who harmed them back into Gaza. And there are other borders to look at. Being indifferent to >100,000 of internal refugees (count differ, this is the minimum) is a not a position the Israeli government would take.
4. The Israeli cost benefit is simple: Every talk about what comes next just invites outside pressure, while not actually giving Israel anything. It's the Israeli interest to be as tight-lipped as possible. On the other hand, there'll never be a shortage of internal posturing...
Aside, I find nothing exceptional in Phillippe's attitude. It's pretty standard French foreign policy post Algiers.
Reasonable people would like a '2 continent solution'. Blacks get sub-Saharan Africa, Arabs get the Middle East, and Europeans get Europe. Pesky pied noirs, Boers, Rhodesians and Zionists should move on and stop getting in the way of this grand compromise. Problem is, reality doesn't work that way.
yes (re final section 2). the world should force Israel to stop the whole settlements nonsense.
what's happening now is that the world is prioritizing protecting Hamas headquarters under al-shifa hospital, rather than fight for a realistic and rational settlement stoppage.
also, the "human right" crew are destroying their whole credibility inside Israel by protecting Hamas and calling for Hamas' preferred ceasefire.
insofar that Israeli public opinion is important for achieving peace, anything "human rightsn organizations" will henceforth be equalled inside Israel too "Hamas loving absolute idiots". this has consequences.
In order to stop settlement construction, you need to assure Israeli centrist Dads that they can pursue Land for Peace without excessive risk. One part of that is presenting a Palestinian leadership that can just shut up and pretend for five minutes they aren't just going to use any new territory to attack Israel (no mean feat). Even more important than that, though, is assuring them that, if they are attacked, Israel will be able to respond, not like an occupying army, but like a state, fighting another state. That means they get to use whatever military advantages they have and only have to keep the strict letter of international law, with no "but look at this crying civilian, you have to stop now" clause.
What people don't understand about the last 3 Gaza wars is that they were fought primarily to convince Israeli centrists Dads that this was so (which, by the way, it isn't). This is why centrist-Dad avatars like Olmert or Gantz have always been much more hawkish on Gaza than Bibi. They were wars fought to preserve the idea of the 2 state solution, or, at least, the Oslo process. Bibi was a relative Gaza moderate because he didn't care about this so much (this has been spun into some 5D chess plan to promote Hamas at the expense of the PA, partly by Bibi himself when trying to placate the Far Right). Lemoine, perhaps to his credit, wants to dispense even with this. As far as he is concerned, Israel should just give Palestinians territory in full knowledge that the Palestinians will use it to attack, and that Israel will not be allowed to use their military advantage in response, because ultimately a massacre of 1,000 or so people every 5 of 6 years isn't an existential threat. I can see the justice of the position, from a certain perspective, but it's not exactly what I would call realism.
I agree. the "ceasefire now" crowd are discrediting the peace camp inside Israel.
if peace is to happen, Israelis need to believe in it.
the "ceasefire now" guys are effectively proving to the Israeli public that the false caricature the right has been painting if the owner camp is mostly true.
But the false caricature is true. And the truth is that it's not reasonable to expect the international community to give us a license to carpet bomb the Palestinians just because we are sick of dealing with them. The Israeli far Left is basically right about the morality of Israel's military strategy, and the Israeli far right is basically right about the Palestinian's intentions.
> What is going to happen to the people who live there this winter if they don’t have a roof over their head?
I've checked the weather stats and during the coldest week of the year it's 17C/62F during the day, 10C/50F during the night. I've done a lot of camping in similar temperatures and it's not a big deal to live in a tent during such temperatures. If anything, it's the summer that's going to be far more brutal without air conditioning. So I'd say the biggest problems will start around May rather than during January.
You may be right. I remember reading that in France, where it's colder than in Gaza, more homeless people die because of the heat in the summer than before of the cold in the winter. I will say though that even if people don't die from exposure, spending a few days camping for fun is not the same thing as spending months or even years without proper housing.
Israel cannot allow Hamas to continue to have military capability in Gaza due to the fact that modern technology is making this situation more and more dangerous (due to drones and missiles). They could tolerate it before because they did not accurately perceive the magnitude of the threat. Unlike Lebanon, Gaza is small enough to actually eradicate Hamas’ military capability. With military control afterwards, they can prevent that capability from regenerating.
One of the things that struck me is how disconnected much of Western commentary is from the reality of either side. It's as-if they can't believe either side believes the things they obviously do believe.
1) Israel is very small, enough to wonder how viable it is without its border communities.
Hamas's actions are a textbook ethnic cleansing campaign, and almost nobody will return unless some justice is done and Hamas is neutralized. There are official offshoots in West Bank, Lebanon and other enemies in the Sinai and the North (An observer might note the North border is emptied as well). Now, how many refugees is a bit difficult to calculate (how far is a 'border'?) but we're talking about more than 100,000 for sure.
2) It's a threat against the state's raison d'etre. You can't go 'never again' and allow these actions. (What people missed about Erdan's stunt was that _was_ the reaction of many Israelis)
3) According to a recent poll, about 75% of Palestinians support 7/10. If Hamas wins (aka survives in Gaza), either Hamas takes over WB, or Fatah radicalizes to the same extent.
4) Hamas is never ever giving up ALL its hostages. Why give up potential human shields, sexslaves, and future sources of impunity to commit warcrimes? Any deal will intentionally be lengthy (impunity again), and Hamas can always report some as dead. Note that according to official Hamas announcement, 23 hostages were 'buried under the rubble due to bombardment and their bodies cannot ever be extracted'.
So a campaign was inevitable, and in fact the moderate-ish Left is actually the most hawkish here (forget about 2 states if Hamas survives - neither side would agree; Did I mention the Gaza border communities were Left-aligned?). It would be most amusing if people manage to get rid of Nethanyahu only to discover his replacement to be more hawkish in the near term.
P.S. The last thing anyone should care about is physical infrastructure in Gaza. We all know what will happen after the war is over: The Emir of Qatar or MBS/Z would give up some pocket change to reconstruct, it's too politically useful to ignore. Admittedly, they'll be giving up on a few collections of gold-plated cars and have to set their airconditioners to 19C instead of 18C.
P.S.S. Since Philippe doesn't provide sources I'll be lazy and provide none either!
1) The truth is that a lot of Israelis self-traumatised themselves binging on atrocity videos and victim testimony from October 7th and thus everyone except a few commie weirdos is in favour of this war, despite having no clue about its objectives other than 'destroy Hamas'. I think the most rational Israelis I have talked to are ones who were already pretty Right Wing, but not especially religious, because they already knew what Palestinians are (more on that later).
2) I'm a bit of an autistic weirdo and in the week after October 7th I started freaking out about mass civilian casualties in Gaza and I started writing to any pro Palestinian journalist I could think of about practical suggestions they could give to Palestinians to calm Israelis down. Needless to say, none of them even answered and Palestinians have done the absolute opposite of everything I suggested.
3) You're literally an idiot if you believe Palestinian living conditions in Gaza pre-war were better than in the West Bank. You can't possibly have spent any time in the West Bank and actually believe that, or even just be familiar with some basic economic data. Of course, conditions in the West Bank have got progressively worse ever since the Oslo process (1967-1977 was probably the sweetest deal any Arabs in the region ever had outside Gulf petrostates, more on that to come), but they are not anywhere near as squalid and, frankly, utterly crazy as Gaza.
4) The IDF is hamstrung by extreme aversion to taking military casualties, which is especially strong among the 'Right wing' sector. My personal belief is that we should use our wars as informal eugenics programmes like Russia, but if I said that in Hebrew I might get lynched. That's the real reason we rely so heavily on bombing which is cowardly and unmanly and justifiably invites contempt from around the world, except for ...
5) Palestinians are horrible people. I'm not a Zionist; I believe Zionism was a mistake and the principal reason I believe that is because the region is just full of such horrid awful people who make Ukrainians and Cossacks look like mother Teresa and Socrates put together. Just cut it with all the 'had nothing to do' nonsense. Civilians shouldn't be targeted in war, full stop, but Palestinians have a uniquely loathsome combination of bloodlust, incessant whining, obnoxious, stupidity, extreme childishness, and death worship that is the most repulsive thing on earth. Maybe that's all our fault (I think it's more the fault of their backers), but, even if it is, any friend of the Palestinians has to start by accepting that they are dealing with a crazy crackhead, and their advice needs to be to stop smoking crack and biting people all the time, not indulging them in their stupid bullshit about grandad's olive groves. If Zionism hadn't turned up, they would be living in a poor dump with endemic civil violence and a state that arrests people in the middle of the night for random reasons because *that's what Arab countries are*. They are simply not cut out for living in a world that conquered child mortality. They never will have civil and political rights because Arab countries don't have those, and if they had just accepted living under Israeli rule, they would be doing better than any other Arabs. Is that a rant? Maybe, but, bear in mind that by Israeli standards I'm presently a hardcore peacenik, so STFU about innocent Palestinians. Not interested.
I think you reversed "Gaza" and "West Bank" in the first sentence of your third point. To be clear, I agree with you that, in economic terms, life in the West Bank was better than in Gaza before the war, but I don't think material conditions are the only thing that matters. However, I agree that as written this paragraph is misleading, because it makes it sound like Israel did the Palestinians a favor by unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza and though economic conditions are not everything they still matter a great deal and from that point of view the Palestinians in the West Bank benefited from their greater integration with Israel. I'm not sure what is going to happen to that now though.
On the last point, I think Israel has a huge responsibility in that (though I'm also not delusional and understand that it's far from the only factor), but to be clear I agree that Palestinians are pretty bad and I have admitted as much repeatedly on Twitter, so I think you're talking to the wrong guy. In fact, it's precisely because I know that Hamas enjoys a lot of support among Palestinians that I think Israel has no choice but to negotiate with it, at least if it wants to pursue a negotiated settlement. The claim that most of them had nothing to do with October 7 is simply a factual acknowledgement that the attacks were carried out by a very small number of people.
"To be clear, I agree with you that, in economic terms, life in the West Bank was better than in Gaza before the war, but I don't think material conditions are the only thing that matters."
Right, economics are not the only thing that matters, but Gazans aren't better off in any of the other stuff either. They are not less likely to be arbitrarily arrested, they are not less likely to be shot, or run over by a car, or mugged or any of the other stuff that makes life bad. When people talk about Palestinian's having a rough time in the West Bank they are always implicitly comparing it to life in a normal western country, but life in Arab countries also stinks. All people are really saying by saying Palestinians should have their own state is that it's mystically more just to be ruled over by people of your own race than by some other race. And life in the West Bank would get a lot better, real fast, if Palestinians would just stop terrorism, which is why the whole rhetoric of 'resistance' is just Orwellian.
Parenthetically - and I am definitely just rambling now - a fairly big Dissident Right twitter account recently recommended a movie Paradise Now! to understand the Palestinian perspective, so I watched it. One of the main characters dad was murdered. By Israelis you might assume, but, no, by Palestinians because he was a 'collaborator'. So this main character blows himself up on a bus full of Israelis for his family's honour, or because it was the Israeli's fault - I couldn't really follow, but apparently this depiction of depraved retards engaging in senseless violence for bizarre incomprehensible reasons was supposed to support the Palestinian cause. Anyway, my point is I hate Palestinians and, again, I am in the least belligerent 2% of the population, easily.
Well, this may be stupid (I largely agree because I think that, in many ways, nationalism has been pretty bad for mankind), but people don't have a purely individualist outlook and also care about collective rights, so it matters to them if they are being oppressed by a foreign occupier rather than their own people. This is why I don't think it makes a lot of sense to point out that life in the West Bank would improve for Palestinians if terrorism stopped, even if I think it's true. For life to really improve a lot for them, they would not only have to give up terrorism but also accept Israel's sovereignty over their land, but they don't want to and in that respect at least they are no different than other people. But look I don't even want to press this point, not just because I agree that it can only get you so far and that life in Gaza was already terrible before the war, but also because I think the problem is that it's very dubious that Palestinians in Gaza or even in the West Bank will be able to continue to benefit from economic integration with Israel after this since it's likely that in response to the attacks will seek to "decouple" its economy from the Palestinians. This is part of what I had in mind when I said that restrictions will probably be permanently tightened even in the West Bank after October 7, especially if Fatah is forced to resume armed opposition to Israel under pressure from public opinion.
"but also accept Israel's sovereignty over their land, but they don't want to and in that respect at least they are no different than other people"
Nationalism, while it plays on certain natural feelings, is not actually natural. Palestinians accepted Turkish rule for long enough without ever deciding it was intolerable and they would bear any cost to overthrow it. I think it's possible to conceive of a military strategy that would liquidate enough of both Hamas and Fatah that economic re-integration based on mutual self-interest would be possible, but that would require America to sign off on it, and Israel to adopt a military strategy that wasn't based on bombing stuff from the air, and a political strategy that wasn't beholden to low IQ Likud voters and Israeli centrist Dads. And maybe it's too late now anyway. So you are right that everything will get worse.
Of course nationalism is not natural, it's a relatively recent phenomenon after all, but this doesn't that it's not a significant force today and that it won't remain one for the foreseeable future. The fact that the Arabs of Palestine were fine with Turkish domination for centuries doesn't mean they would be okay with it now. If Zionism had started one century earlier, before nationalism started to spread outside Europe and colonialism went out of fashion, there would be no conflict because the Zionists would probably have been able to expel the Palestinians from the land.
I'm skeptical that even in principle the kind of military campaign you're envisioning could have worked, but even if you're right I think it was always a non-started because the cost in terms of IDF lives would have been very large and politically that would have been impossible. You can't just ignore low-IQ Likud voters and Israeli centrist dads no matter how much you dislike them. But then again, in fairness to you, my own advice is also implicitly predicated on the idea that the Israeli government could ignore them.
To summarize, it's Israel's fault that the Arabs are grumpy and violent because the presence of sovereign jews living next to Arabs makes them grumpy and violent, and anything Israel does to stop Arabs from being grumpy and violent is going to make them even grumpier and violenter, so Israel's best course (or maybe it's morality's best course, it's unclear) is to "negotiate" i.e. beg that Arabs to stop being so grumpy and violent, and I guess hope for the best, but in all likelihood, eventually just pick up and leave.
Look, if your prior (as it apparently is) is the classic "aristocratic" anti-zionist position that the Jews have no business interfering with the ethno-religious supremacist aspirations of the Arab-Muslim world because (a) it's bad for business and (b) the Jews should have gotten used to their rootlessness by now, then sure, I agree. Perhaps the French too can find a nice spot in Idaho once they become inconvenient obstacle to those aspirations in a few decades time. Or perhaps some part of Uganda is still an option. I hear it's lovely in the Spring.
If, however, you think it's fair, just and good that the Jews reestablish a tiny little homeland (and do wonders with it), and that it's reasonable for the Arabs to accept a fraction of 1% encroachment of their two-continent empire--and if not, to go pound sand--even if requires an equivalently tiny percentage of Arabs to move a few miles to the East, North and South (and choose from any number of Arab-Islamic ethnostates to call home), since as you say, they seem incapable of playing nicely with others, then, of course, you are very wrong.
I totally understand why the Arab Muslims are upset about the trade--they've been running the place for 1,000 years--but, y'know, don't be piggish, swallow your pride, and move on. Mexico seems to make it work with the U.S. Poland too. France and England can be expected to give up some parts of their empire, why not the Muslims too?
Fortunately, we know that, in this case, peace is achievable with distance and boundaries. Outside of Iran (and its proxies), Israel has peace with its neighbors because, while they may not like the indignity of uppity Jews, the Jews are not right under their noses (or *gasp* sovereign over them), and they have other things to worry about. Even if there are more belligerent elements of their populaces who may feel otherwise, they are a bit too far away to make "resistance" all that convenient or practical. Heck, even in Israel, resistance would be far less practical and convenient without all the outside support that pays to keep the "cause" indefinitely kicking. Do you think Hamas or the PA buy their own guns or pay to feed their soldiers? Lol.
Good fences (plus a little breathing room) make good neighbors. Imagine that. ('Oh but the horror of the "maximalist" aspirations of big bad Bibi and the scary settlers!' Please spare us the faculty-lounge midwittery. There is only one "maximalist" in this showdown and it's not the Jews. Claiming otherwise is, to use your parlance, stupid and/or a lie.)
"Ohh but they'd never take them. Egypt, Jordan and Saud have emphatically said "no."" Perhaps, but we haven't really tried (and since when did "oh we asked and they said no" become a de facto dead end, and if it is, then surely it applies to "negotiations" too, which I suppose to you know). If people are irrationally butt-hurt, then we can and should fairly expect them to be less irrationally butt-hurt. It's certainly a lot easier than expecting mortal enemies to just mingle peacefully.
Putting aside practicality, from a moral standpoint, it is unequivocally the responsibility of the Arab-Muslim world to accommodate and assimilate the lion's share of what should have been a few hundred thousand fellow Arabs, but has now increased to a few million. Their refusal to do so because of some combined contempt for these people, and a strategic self-interest to destablize Israel (and maintain leverage with the West) should be the target of your (and everyone else's) outrage. Of the two things to not tolerate, Israel's existence v. the venality of Arab leadership, I'm pretty confident which one should be the one to go.
More to the point, allowing the Arabs to relocate would end the conflict overnight with by far the least suffering or bloodshed. Facilitating would be the easy part. It's allowing that's the obstacle. The vast majority would go willingly, if they were simply allowed to, without fear of reprisal or opprobrium. We could take the billions we spend on war machines in that part of the world and create an annuity that would make it more than worth their while, and vastly improve everyone's lives.
There are 3.7M Syrians living in Turkey now. Multiple more millions moved to make peace possible during the Partition of India. 2M people experience the "trauma of displacement" over the US Southern Border every year for the past two years. In the big scheme of harms, "moving" isn't all that high, particularly if the conditions are as awful as you claim. It's not nothing, but it's not that big a deal. (And don't even start with the "ethnic cleansing" canard. They'd be as "ethnically cleansed" as the New Yorkers who move to Florida, and whatever claim to a state they may have ever had, they lost decades ago after the umpteenth attempted genocide.)
The only reason people object to the Passport Solution (other than ignorance) is because (a) it means the Jews "win" and people don't like that--Arabs and NGOs, for obvious reasons, but also the hardliner policy "experts" who've insisted the only way to peace is to indulge their fantasy of a "two state solution" (or three- or four-state now, it's hard to keep track), and people really don't like to be wrong; and (b) it's strategically more convenient for neighboring countries to perpetuate the suffering of Arabs and Israelis, particularly when they're rewarded for doing so.
That's it. Those are the only reasons the fighting continues. The former is dumb and petty, and the latter is feckless and cruel. Otherwise, the conflict could end in a few weeks.
The question you should be asking (like Matt Y) is "what the point of the Cause?" And the answer is "nothing good." So end the cause, end the conflict, and everyone moves on, happier and healthier.
It's like you have not listened to or read Hamas statements. They are emphatic that nothing short of the destruction of Israel will satisfy them. They are Islamic fundamentalists that have drilled into their members and populace the subhuman state of jews and that martyrdom is not just a positive outcome but a desriable one. Their world view is fundamentally so different from yours that you cannot believe that it is not a front. But it is true.
Since they have neverending support from the Left and from the Arab world, they have no reason to negotiate at all, never mind surrender. No defeat matters to them, because only the fight matters. They are mostly supported by the populace, BTW. They believe - as do most of their brethren - that the desire to negotiate is weakness. They understand only power and strength. The people of Gaza need to pay a heavy price for what they did. After that? A DMZ around the border. Also, their is plenty of empty land in the Sinai and in Jordan. I wonder why they refuse to take in their Palestinain brothers.
Have you ever wondered why have the Palestinian Arabs have never declared an official state within their borders - even before 1967? Because that would be a tacit admission that the territory of Israel is not theirs. Gaza is essentially a de facto state, which has committed acts of war and atriociies against its neighbor. What other nation would tolerate this? What even would a "Palestinian" state look like? What is the Muslim Middle Eastern model for this peaceful democratic state? Syria? Lebanon? Qatar? Yemen? Egypt? Maybe the UAE. But they are emphatically not interested in that. From the River to the Sea is their slogan and its meaning is clear. It's not just rhetoric.
But the point is that all this was also true before Oct 7th and there was broad consensus in Israel (except for the far Right who aren't actually serious) that it wasn't worth it to invade and depose Hamas. So what is actually different now?
That's not a rhetorical question. A metaphor I have been pondering is that you live next to Charles Manson. The police won't do anything, you can't do anything without risking dying yourself, so you hire security guards and install a bunch of alarms. One day the security guard on duty is a Ukrainian so he gets drunk and passes out and Charlie bursts in a stabs your daughter. So, now, what do you do? In a sense, nothing has changed except that you have to check up better on your security guards, and in another sense everything has.
"After that? A DMZ around the border. "
Israel used to have a policy of shooting anyone armed who approached within 300m of the fence, and anyone who approached 100m. Palestinians came up with the genius idea of the march of return: just encourage your most retarded citizens (no shortage of them) to walk up to the fence unarmed (but with rocks etc.) demanding their right to reconquer Israel. For a while Israel held firm to its original policy, but the international condemnation was all too much and we learned to accept Palestinians milling around the fence, a key component of the Oct. 7th attack. Which is to say none of these arrangements are sustainable in the long term.
Well, everyone now knows that Hamas is willing and able to act on this scale, in this brutal a fashion, and then tolerate the blowback. This is a new development.
Well. for one thing, they have those videos they can watch forever. The videos seem like a tactical mistake on the Palestinians' part. Even the fact that the videos do not seem to trouble the vibrant young newcomers to western universities, is like a resolve-builder, it seems to me. But I hated people well before Oct.7th, for far lesser things.
I’m honestly not sure what Bibi’s goal here other than looking tough. However, someone like Gantz might argue that pursuing this operation would make a future two-state solution more likely. At the very least, it’s at least a somewhat plausible hypothesis since a weaker Hamas could mean less trouble for a future two-state solution were one to actually be achieved. But that would require a huge diplomatic push post-war, which someone like Gantz might agree to but Bibi certainly won’t. Good thing that Bibi’s political career is likely permanently over after this war ends, though.
Interesting and well-thought-out post but you seem to have a bit of a blind spot in seeing a solution in a "negotiated settlement." In the end, I tend to agree that a negotiated settlement is the only way this ends. But how is the negotiation supposed to start? How would it result in a solution even remotely acceptable to Israel? And how could Israel trust that Hamas and other counterparties to the negotiation would hold to their commitments?
The success of any negotiation depends on a number of factors including:
Considering each of the above factors, Israel's actions improve the likelihood of a successful negotiated solution:
- Hamas' short-term military capabilities have obviously been degraded, although given enough time and a ceasefire, they could be rebuilt (hence Israel's dismissal of calls for a ceasefire, w/o preconditions).
- Israel's leverage has increased by the simple fact that it committed to and executed a land invasion. Previously Hamas operated under the supposition that Israel may occasionally lob missiles into Gaza but would not put troops on the ground.
- Hamas' BATNA (or rather the BATNA of Hamas' leadership) looks a lot worse than before. From ~2005 to Oct 7, 2023, Hamas BATNA was continued "jihad", meaning low-level strikes against Israel, retaliated in kind, that essentially preserved the miserable status quo for Gazans while keeping Hamas in control of the strip. Right now, Hamas' BATNA is to remain underground indefinitely, or until killed or captured, wondering when the next missile hits them or someone they love. Perhaps some of Hamas' leaders are true believers and relish the chance for martyrdom. But I suspect quite a few of them, ala Nasrallah circa 2006, are thinking they overdid it on Oct 7 (https://www.opindia.com/2023/10/hezbollah-regretted-terror-attack-on-israel-counter-terrorism-2006/).
I can't being to predict how an all-encompassing negotiation would eventually play out -- but a review of the hostage situation over the two weeks since you wrote the OP shows how Israel has impacted negotiations through their actions. A decade ago, Gilad Shalit was traded for >1000 Hamas prisoners, including convicted killers. Reports shortly after 7/10 indicated Hamas expected a similar ratio for the 200+ captives just taken -- up to all Hamas prisoners being freed. But in the end the ratio went from 1000:1 to 3:1, and Israel is only releasing women and teenagers. What changed? Israel's demonstrated willingness be far more deadly and drastic then they had been this century.
"Does anybody seriously believe that, unless it obliterates Gaza, Israel has no way to prevent another October 7? This is so absurd that making such a claim should be immediately disqualifying. The fence around Gaza is only 65 kilometers long, this isn’t the Great Wall of China, so Israel could obviously prevent something like that from happening again by beefing up security around it. As everybody noted after October 7, those attacks should never have been possible in the first place and it’s clear that someone massively screwed up, so I don’t think that point should even be controversial. Of course, this would have a cost, but it sure as hell would be less costly than destroying Gaza and indefinitely occupying it."
Since Hamas violent takeover of Gaza in 2007 Israel spent billions on securing its border with it, including a new smart fence, the underground barrier, automatic guard towers, new bases, a lot of new iron dome systems. Nevertheless, Hamas and its allies in the strip managed to carry out rocket attacks and ground attacks many times, using their ability to virtually smuggle to Gaza through tunnels anything apart from really large structures like tanks. They used their regime to create a military industry in the strip and create their own attack vehicles, rockets, armed drones, RPGs and machine guns. And they also have a huge supply of manpower out of 2 millions Gazans and they invested a lot in it, training tens of thousands of fanatic youths to be qualified fighters.
So sure, there were problems with the Israeli defense in October 7 that could be better, and the manpower could be tougher, and yes you could invest another billion in creating a concrete wall of 65 kilometers or even two walls with a moat, and buy 1000 iron dome systems that would launch 10 expensive interceptors at any rocket from Gaza. We are also investing in a new laser system that could work against mortars too.
But there is a basic rule in military writing that says "the defense line will always be breached." When a dedicated enough enemy with enough preparation and equipment really want to, and if it has the initiative, then it can breach any defense. The common wisdom in Israel is that even if Hamas would have used tenth of the forces it used in October 7, maybe 300 fighters and not 3000, it would still could have inflicted a lot of deaths and kidnap a lot of Israelis. That means that Israeli defense should have been more than 10 times better then what it was to even have a chance to stop the attack, basically keep a standing army of tens of thousands of soldiers all the time around Gaza. It is impossible. And even that may not have been enough, with 2 million people in Gaza I think Hamas could have easily recruited 30000 fighters and not just 3000. The main challenge would have been counter intelligence, but if they could do it with 3000 then it's not impossible they could have done it with more.
So, the only way to stop such attacks, from military point, is to do what Israel does in Judea and Samaria. Keeps the initiative with raids and arrests every night of any person of interest, and of course demolishing any military industry that tries to get build. Another important thing is the total control of the border, in Judea and Samaria the IDF control the Jordan border and prevents almost all smuggling, unlike the Gaza Egypt border.
That doesn't mean there isn't terrorism at all in Judea and Samaria, but there are no rockets and no military style units of terrorists and no heavy arms. That is the goal in the current operation in Gaza to, as far as I understand. Basically the goal is to demilitarize Gaza after Hamas militarized it. The Hamas would never agree to demilitarize Gaza and no army apart from the Israeli army is willing to get inside there and do that work.
Could this goal be achieved with much less bombings from the air? Sure, Hamas doesn't have air force so in theory you could destroy it's military without air force too. In Judea and Samaria there are no air bombings. But for that there would be a high cost in Israeli soldiers lives, and that is a cost the Israeli public flatly refuses to pay. Could a stronger international response change the Israeli calculus on that matter? Possible somewhat.
I just don't see what other choice any Israeli govt that expects to remain the Israeli govt would have besides a military retaliation of some kind. Room for choice on scale and details I imagine, but I am not informed enough to say what the feasible parameters were.
It would have been better to react differently, but no government in the world, be it democratic or not, can refrain from a heavy-handed reaction if 1400 of their citizens are slaughtered. Yes, many Palestinians who were not directly supportive of the 7th October activities will be punished, but as the Israeli reaction was foreseeable and inevitable, the moral responsibility is with Hamas and those supporting Hamas (arguably, a considerable share of the Gazan population).
In the middle run, Israel may have to build a wall around Gaza which is much more secure than the previous one. Rocket attacks should be responded to almost automatically with retaliatory strikes. If at some point the Palestinians get tired of fighting Israel, the border could become more open, with Gazans getting work permits for Israel.
"Rocket attacks should be responded to almost automatically with retaliatory strikes."
That was already the policy after 2005, but Israel had to back down on it because it results in too many pictures of Gazan people crying by bombed-out buildings.
The basic dynamic is that the Palestinian strategy works like this:
(1) Attack Israel
(2) Bitch and moan and bitch and moan and bitch and moan until the international community impose a ceasefire
(3) Wait a bit and go back to (1)
There is no way to break this cycle. If Palestinians are given more territory, they will use that to launch more attacks, if they are given more territory, they will use that to attack too. Even if Israel gave the entire occupied territory, plus some extra, they would use that to attack, and when they do, the international community will give Israel 3-6 weeks to respond (depending on how bad the attacks were) and then demand a ceasefire.
Fact is the Palestinians are just playing this game better. Israel is not a long-term viable project. Of course, they do this at the cost of making themselves one of the most repulsive cultures in human history, but they seem to quite like it.
I am curious about your statement that Israel is not a long-term viable project. If that is the case, what is the end-game? How do the structural tensions at the heart of Israel resolve themselves in the long run?
"Automatically" I meant quite literally. Similar to what Robert Aumann had suggested, i.e., a system that would retaliate without human input, using the logic of the "doomsday device". This would make it (more) difficult to blame Israel for casualties of the other side. I agree that also this option is not really enticing because it is offputting to be in a permanent state of war. What is your suggestion?
I have toyed with such ideas, but if we had an army that could think this far out of the box, I don't think we would be in this mess in the first place.
It's nonsense. Every such system can be turned off, and other people would expect it to be turned off. Playing such games only works on a very narrow field, ultimately this is a decision: Israel needs to *decide* to act in advance and attack *first* when it feels it needs to regardless of pressure.
Thanks for writing this. I think you have summarized many important points very well, but there appears to be some tension in the argument being made here. While Hamas might not be an existential threat in a vacuum, neighboring states might well become existential threats if they perceive weakness and vulnerability on Israel's part. If the point of the retaliation is to send these neighbors a message, then they are plausibly fighting against a real existential threat with a large display of force. Other approaches, like a bigger fence or additional negotiation, might deter Hamas specifically or recover some hostages (with a costly swap, possibly displaying additional weakness given the history with Shalit), but these will not make anyone think Israel is stronger than it was on October 6th
"I think they are delusional because no country will agree to welcome Palestinian refugees except in mostly symbolic numbers and the only result will be international outrage"
How do you know this? They didn't confiscate the ships of rescue organizations bringing Africans into Europe
Thanks for this piece!
I'll start off with aspects I think you've missed, then onto places where I agree.
Note: I live in Israel.
1. By capturing some 240 hostages Hamas forced Israel's hand. A government that didn't try it's hardest to get back these hostages would have collapsed within weeks by popular pressure.
2. The Shalit prisoner exchange is widely seen as responsible for Hamas deciding to take these hostages. A prisoner exchange on Hamas's terms would likely be terrible for Israel in encouraging more copycat attacks.
3. The war in Gaza is actually very likely to resolve the hostage situation one way or another. Either the IDF goes through the entirety of Gaza and finds the hostages (alive or dead), or it pressures Hamas into releasing the hostages on Israel's terms. The latter appears to be happening if rumours are to be believed.
4. I think Israel's been relatively clear about it's official aims. It wants security control of Gaza much like it does for the west bank. That will be bad for Gaza, and possibly Israel long term, but I think it's somewhat disingenuous to pretend like we don't know what they want at all.
5. This operation is very similar to the one in Mosul, both in terms of terrain, civilian casualties, tactics etc. That did effectively destroy ISIS as a *significant* terrorist organisation. Caveat - different levels of popular support.
6. Historically, cases where Israel has been seen as giving into violence have bred further violence. So have cases where they reacted with excessive violence. So it's in a bit of a catch 22 here.
7. The area around the Gaza strip is important for Israel's food security - it produces some 70% of Israel's locally grown vegetables. This war is likely to be successful at creating a situation where people are prepared to return, in a way that different tactics likely wouldn't be.
OTOH
I agree that nothing particularly good is likely to come from this war.
I also think that Israel should put a lot more effort *than it appears to be* into working out what comes after. This includes rebuilding Gaza, governance, economy etc. I think Israel should pay for rebuilding Gaza itself as a goodwill gesture.
It also should take a lot stronger immediate efforts to alleviate the humanitarian situation in southern Gaza.
Final thoughts:
What should the rest of the world do:
1. Putting pressure on Israel about Gaza is unlikely to have much useful effect. Let it play out, and focus on humanitarian interventions (tents, food, water, field hospitals).
2. In return put incredible pressure on Israel to reign in settler violence and stop all settlement building. The US has the power to demand this as an ultimatum and should. Condition all aid to Israel on this.
3. Other than that - mostly ignore this. There's a lot of horrible countries doing a lot of horrible things and there's not much you can do about them. That is the sad state of the world. The US wasn't able to help Syria, Sudan, Yemen, The Uighers, and the vast majority of horrible things that are happening/happened recently. When there's a solid practical intervention you can do, do it, but trying to do something without clear strategic aims tends to make things worse.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Let me reply briefly.
On 1-3, I agree that with my proposal, Israel would likely have been forced to accept a very costly prisoner exchange to get back the hostage and that it would have been a cost of this approach that Israel's actual approach doesn't have. But that cost would be minimized by increasing manpower at the border and making it much harder for Hamas to capture more hostages in the future and Israel's actual policy also has costs my proposal would not which I think are even greater.
On 4, I don't see how it's unfair to say that it's dubious Israeli officials have a very clear idea of what their goals are. Of course, if you phrase them in sufficiently general terms as you do in your reply (i. e. having the same kind of security control over Gaza that Israel has over the West Bank), Israel's ultimate goals are clear, but as often the devil is in the details and we simply don't know much about them at the moment. As I say in the post, I doubt even the Israeli government does, but I don't think it's unfair to say that. First, in general governments tend to respond to crises by improvising, and I don't see why Israel would be any different. (It certainly wasn't in the past, as anyone who has read the literature on e. g. the Six-Day War knows.) Moreover, not only do Israeli officials say very little about their post-war plans in public, but some are quoted in media reports as admitting they haven't really thought about it. For instance, here is an excerpt from a recent NYT article (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/world/europe/israel-hamas-gaza-war.html), which I think was very good: "And hovering over everything is the political conundrum of what happens to Gaza after the war ends. Once in, how does Israel get out? Once it has dismantled Hamas, if it can, to whom will it hand the keys? If Hamas no longer governs Gaza, who will? For the moment, Israeli officials say, those questions are not their immediate concern." Even you admit later in your comment that Israel doesn't appear to be thinking enough about what comes after, so I don't really understand this criticism.
On 5, again I don't say that it's impossible that Israel will be able to destroy Hamas as an organized structure and acknowledge that implicitly in the article, I certainly think that Hamas will cease to exist as a quasi-state organization, but that's not the same thing as saying it can be destroyed once and for all. (I don't like the comparisons with Mosul/Raqqa because, as you allude to in passing, Hamas probably has much more support in the population, which is not surprising given that it's part of the long-term Palestinian resistance to Israel, so I think it will be harder to get rid of it completely. People get angry when you call Hamas a resistance movement, but I make no value judgment when I say that, it's just a factual observation which I think should be taken into account in making predictions about the organization's prospects to survive in one form or another in the post-war environment.) Of course, even if it falls short of completely destroying Hamas, destroying it as a quasi-state military organization still has serious advantages for Israel and I don't deny it. I'm just saying that the value of doing that is mostly instrumental and most of the advantages one can derive from achieve that could also be obtained at a lower cost.
On 6, I agree but I also think Israel has never made a good faith effort at achieving a fair negotiated settlement, so to me it doesn't really have standing to complain about this until it does. I realize that you may disagree with that assessment, but we aren't going to solve that issue here.
On 7, I think it's a good point, but that you overstate it. What is true is that you point to a real additional cost of the kind of approach I recommend, but I think that cost shouldn't be exaggerated and again the alternative chosen by the Israeli government also has additional costs, which I think are much higher. I doubt that, if Israel adopted my approach, the people who lived in those communities wouldn't return eventually and that the land would not be exploited, I just think it would take longer. But also we should keep in mind that Israel is already highly dependent on food exports, so I doubt even in the worst case scenario the reduction in domestic food production this would cause would fundamentally alter the situation.
On your final thoughts, I'm not much of an interventionist in foreign policy in general and I don't make an exception for Israel. I think the Israeli-Palestinian conflict affects Europe more directly than most conflicts people have gotten because it regularly threatens to set the whole region ablaze, so other things being equal I think we have more reasons to be concerned about it, but on the other hand it's if anything even more intractable than those other conflicts and I think the West's power to have a positive effect on it is arguably even more limited, so I'm not arguing that we should do regime-change in Israel or some anything crazy like that. I would just like Western governments to publicly state much more clearly that Israel's behavior is unacceptable, stop providing military/economic aid to it and probably adopt limited sanctions against it or at least reducing cooperation with it and no longer rewarding it by including it in various schemes it benefits from like the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Otherwise, I'm broadly in agreement with your point that we should focus on settlement building rather than Gaza (I also think JaziTricks makes a good point on this), but this post wasn't about what Western governments should do and that doesn't mean I think what Israel is doing in Gaza is okay. I do not.
I think that's all pretty fair, and I don't think we're hugely apart on things so there's not much point hashing out the details.
I think the main point I would emphasize is that you're suggesting an option that in practice the Israeli government/IDF didn't have. Over 80% of Israeli Jews support the ground operation in Gaza, and it's unlikely that the government could have survived without doing it or something fairly similar.
1-3. The Hostage situtation:
A. The original massacre was such a mess not all victims could be identified, nor does Hamas have all of the prisoners. There's no complete list, and it's quite possible even Hamas can't have it.
B. The current format of the deal Hamas explicitly wants is basically 'everyone for everyone'. Which means that Hamas has every motivation to keep some for itself or for a future deal. There's also every motivation to string this out (Israel captures Palestinian attackers at a much higher rate).
C. The Oron Shaul affair reminds us Hamas can traffic in conspiracy theories. Years after this is over, someone will claim one of the missing is 'alive'.
Pretty much the only way for Israeli society to have any closure is to take the Stripe while it's still closed from the world. This is also the only way to stop Hamas from basically arranging a prepardon for any future terrorist for years, which will increase attacks along all borders. Reducing these considerations to 'better defence around Gaza' is not very smart. As is ignoring the other Hamas branches, like the one in Lebanon.
7. Did anyone ever try talking to them? Most of the people will not return barring a fundamental change. Especially following a deal whose explicit terms is releasing those who harmed them back into Gaza. And there are other borders to look at. Being indifferent to >100,000 of internal refugees (count differ, this is the minimum) is a not a position the Israeli government would take.
4. The Israeli cost benefit is simple: Every talk about what comes next just invites outside pressure, while not actually giving Israel anything. It's the Israeli interest to be as tight-lipped as possible. On the other hand, there'll never be a shortage of internal posturing...
Aside, I find nothing exceptional in Phillippe's attitude. It's pretty standard French foreign policy post Algiers.
Reasonable people would like a '2 continent solution'. Blacks get sub-Saharan Africa, Arabs get the Middle East, and Europeans get Europe. Pesky pied noirs, Boers, Rhodesians and Zionists should move on and stop getting in the way of this grand compromise. Problem is, reality doesn't work that way.
yes (re final section 2). the world should force Israel to stop the whole settlements nonsense.
what's happening now is that the world is prioritizing protecting Hamas headquarters under al-shifa hospital, rather than fight for a realistic and rational settlement stoppage.
also, the "human right" crew are destroying their whole credibility inside Israel by protecting Hamas and calling for Hamas' preferred ceasefire.
insofar that Israeli public opinion is important for achieving peace, anything "human rightsn organizations" will henceforth be equalled inside Israel too "Hamas loving absolute idiots". this has consequences.
In order to stop settlement construction, you need to assure Israeli centrist Dads that they can pursue Land for Peace without excessive risk. One part of that is presenting a Palestinian leadership that can just shut up and pretend for five minutes they aren't just going to use any new territory to attack Israel (no mean feat). Even more important than that, though, is assuring them that, if they are attacked, Israel will be able to respond, not like an occupying army, but like a state, fighting another state. That means they get to use whatever military advantages they have and only have to keep the strict letter of international law, with no "but look at this crying civilian, you have to stop now" clause.
What people don't understand about the last 3 Gaza wars is that they were fought primarily to convince Israeli centrists Dads that this was so (which, by the way, it isn't). This is why centrist-Dad avatars like Olmert or Gantz have always been much more hawkish on Gaza than Bibi. They were wars fought to preserve the idea of the 2 state solution, or, at least, the Oslo process. Bibi was a relative Gaza moderate because he didn't care about this so much (this has been spun into some 5D chess plan to promote Hamas at the expense of the PA, partly by Bibi himself when trying to placate the Far Right). Lemoine, perhaps to his credit, wants to dispense even with this. As far as he is concerned, Israel should just give Palestinians territory in full knowledge that the Palestinians will use it to attack, and that Israel will not be allowed to use their military advantage in response, because ultimately a massacre of 1,000 or so people every 5 of 6 years isn't an existential threat. I can see the justice of the position, from a certain perspective, but it's not exactly what I would call realism.
I agree. the "ceasefire now" crowd are discrediting the peace camp inside Israel.
if peace is to happen, Israelis need to believe in it.
the "ceasefire now" guys are effectively proving to the Israeli public that the false caricature the right has been painting if the owner camp is mostly true.
But the false caricature is true. And the truth is that it's not reasonable to expect the international community to give us a license to carpet bomb the Palestinians just because we are sick of dealing with them. The Israeli far Left is basically right about the morality of Israel's military strategy, and the Israeli far right is basically right about the Palestinian's intentions.
> What is going to happen to the people who live there this winter if they don’t have a roof over their head?
I've checked the weather stats and during the coldest week of the year it's 17C/62F during the day, 10C/50F during the night. I've done a lot of camping in similar temperatures and it's not a big deal to live in a tent during such temperatures. If anything, it's the summer that's going to be far more brutal without air conditioning. So I'd say the biggest problems will start around May rather than during January.
You may be right. I remember reading that in France, where it's colder than in Gaza, more homeless people die because of the heat in the summer than before of the cold in the winter. I will say though that even if people don't die from exposure, spending a few days camping for fun is not the same thing as spending months or even years without proper housing.
Israel cannot allow Hamas to continue to have military capability in Gaza due to the fact that modern technology is making this situation more and more dangerous (due to drones and missiles). They could tolerate it before because they did not accurately perceive the magnitude of the threat. Unlike Lebanon, Gaza is small enough to actually eradicate Hamas’ military capability. With military control afterwards, they can prevent that capability from regenerating.
One of the things that struck me is how disconnected much of Western commentary is from the reality of either side. It's as-if they can't believe either side believes the things they obviously do believe.
1) Israel is very small, enough to wonder how viable it is without its border communities.
Hamas's actions are a textbook ethnic cleansing campaign, and almost nobody will return unless some justice is done and Hamas is neutralized. There are official offshoots in West Bank, Lebanon and other enemies in the Sinai and the North (An observer might note the North border is emptied as well). Now, how many refugees is a bit difficult to calculate (how far is a 'border'?) but we're talking about more than 100,000 for sure.
2) It's a threat against the state's raison d'etre. You can't go 'never again' and allow these actions. (What people missed about Erdan's stunt was that _was_ the reaction of many Israelis)
3) According to a recent poll, about 75% of Palestinians support 7/10. If Hamas wins (aka survives in Gaza), either Hamas takes over WB, or Fatah radicalizes to the same extent.
4) Hamas is never ever giving up ALL its hostages. Why give up potential human shields, sexslaves, and future sources of impunity to commit warcrimes? Any deal will intentionally be lengthy (impunity again), and Hamas can always report some as dead. Note that according to official Hamas announcement, 23 hostages were 'buried under the rubble due to bombardment and their bodies cannot ever be extracted'.
So a campaign was inevitable, and in fact the moderate-ish Left is actually the most hawkish here (forget about 2 states if Hamas survives - neither side would agree; Did I mention the Gaza border communities were Left-aligned?). It would be most amusing if people manage to get rid of Nethanyahu only to discover his replacement to be more hawkish in the near term.
P.S. The last thing anyone should care about is physical infrastructure in Gaza. We all know what will happen after the war is over: The Emir of Qatar or MBS/Z would give up some pocket change to reconstruct, it's too politically useful to ignore. Admittedly, they'll be giving up on a few collections of gold-plated cars and have to set their airconditioners to 19C instead of 18C.
P.S.S. Since Philippe doesn't provide sources I'll be lazy and provide none either!
My response aS aN iSRAELI.
1) The truth is that a lot of Israelis self-traumatised themselves binging on atrocity videos and victim testimony from October 7th and thus everyone except a few commie weirdos is in favour of this war, despite having no clue about its objectives other than 'destroy Hamas'. I think the most rational Israelis I have talked to are ones who were already pretty Right Wing, but not especially religious, because they already knew what Palestinians are (more on that later).
2) I'm a bit of an autistic weirdo and in the week after October 7th I started freaking out about mass civilian casualties in Gaza and I started writing to any pro Palestinian journalist I could think of about practical suggestions they could give to Palestinians to calm Israelis down. Needless to say, none of them even answered and Palestinians have done the absolute opposite of everything I suggested.
3) You're literally an idiot if you believe Palestinian living conditions in Gaza pre-war were better than in the West Bank. You can't possibly have spent any time in the West Bank and actually believe that, or even just be familiar with some basic economic data. Of course, conditions in the West Bank have got progressively worse ever since the Oslo process (1967-1977 was probably the sweetest deal any Arabs in the region ever had outside Gulf petrostates, more on that to come), but they are not anywhere near as squalid and, frankly, utterly crazy as Gaza.
4) The IDF is hamstrung by extreme aversion to taking military casualties, which is especially strong among the 'Right wing' sector. My personal belief is that we should use our wars as informal eugenics programmes like Russia, but if I said that in Hebrew I might get lynched. That's the real reason we rely so heavily on bombing which is cowardly and unmanly and justifiably invites contempt from around the world, except for ...
5) Palestinians are horrible people. I'm not a Zionist; I believe Zionism was a mistake and the principal reason I believe that is because the region is just full of such horrid awful people who make Ukrainians and Cossacks look like mother Teresa and Socrates put together. Just cut it with all the 'had nothing to do' nonsense. Civilians shouldn't be targeted in war, full stop, but Palestinians have a uniquely loathsome combination of bloodlust, incessant whining, obnoxious, stupidity, extreme childishness, and death worship that is the most repulsive thing on earth. Maybe that's all our fault (I think it's more the fault of their backers), but, even if it is, any friend of the Palestinians has to start by accepting that they are dealing with a crazy crackhead, and their advice needs to be to stop smoking crack and biting people all the time, not indulging them in their stupid bullshit about grandad's olive groves. If Zionism hadn't turned up, they would be living in a poor dump with endemic civil violence and a state that arrests people in the middle of the night for random reasons because *that's what Arab countries are*. They are simply not cut out for living in a world that conquered child mortality. They never will have civil and political rights because Arab countries don't have those, and if they had just accepted living under Israeli rule, they would be doing better than any other Arabs. Is that a rant? Maybe, but, bear in mind that by Israeli standards I'm presently a hardcore peacenik, so STFU about innocent Palestinians. Not interested.
I think you reversed "Gaza" and "West Bank" in the first sentence of your third point. To be clear, I agree with you that, in economic terms, life in the West Bank was better than in Gaza before the war, but I don't think material conditions are the only thing that matters. However, I agree that as written this paragraph is misleading, because it makes it sound like Israel did the Palestinians a favor by unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza and though economic conditions are not everything they still matter a great deal and from that point of view the Palestinians in the West Bank benefited from their greater integration with Israel. I'm not sure what is going to happen to that now though.
On the last point, I think Israel has a huge responsibility in that (though I'm also not delusional and understand that it's far from the only factor), but to be clear I agree that Palestinians are pretty bad and I have admitted as much repeatedly on Twitter, so I think you're talking to the wrong guy. In fact, it's precisely because I know that Hamas enjoys a lot of support among Palestinians that I think Israel has no choice but to negotiate with it, at least if it wants to pursue a negotiated settlement. The claim that most of them had nothing to do with October 7 is simply a factual acknowledgement that the attacks were carried out by a very small number of people.
You are right, I fixed it.
"To be clear, I agree with you that, in economic terms, life in the West Bank was better than in Gaza before the war, but I don't think material conditions are the only thing that matters."
Right, economics are not the only thing that matters, but Gazans aren't better off in any of the other stuff either. They are not less likely to be arbitrarily arrested, they are not less likely to be shot, or run over by a car, or mugged or any of the other stuff that makes life bad. When people talk about Palestinian's having a rough time in the West Bank they are always implicitly comparing it to life in a normal western country, but life in Arab countries also stinks. All people are really saying by saying Palestinians should have their own state is that it's mystically more just to be ruled over by people of your own race than by some other race. And life in the West Bank would get a lot better, real fast, if Palestinians would just stop terrorism, which is why the whole rhetoric of 'resistance' is just Orwellian.
Parenthetically - and I am definitely just rambling now - a fairly big Dissident Right twitter account recently recommended a movie Paradise Now! to understand the Palestinian perspective, so I watched it. One of the main characters dad was murdered. By Israelis you might assume, but, no, by Palestinians because he was a 'collaborator'. So this main character blows himself up on a bus full of Israelis for his family's honour, or because it was the Israeli's fault - I couldn't really follow, but apparently this depiction of depraved retards engaging in senseless violence for bizarre incomprehensible reasons was supposed to support the Palestinian cause. Anyway, my point is I hate Palestinians and, again, I am in the least belligerent 2% of the population, easily.
Well, this may be stupid (I largely agree because I think that, in many ways, nationalism has been pretty bad for mankind), but people don't have a purely individualist outlook and also care about collective rights, so it matters to them if they are being oppressed by a foreign occupier rather than their own people. This is why I don't think it makes a lot of sense to point out that life in the West Bank would improve for Palestinians if terrorism stopped, even if I think it's true. For life to really improve a lot for them, they would not only have to give up terrorism but also accept Israel's sovereignty over their land, but they don't want to and in that respect at least they are no different than other people. But look I don't even want to press this point, not just because I agree that it can only get you so far and that life in Gaza was already terrible before the war, but also because I think the problem is that it's very dubious that Palestinians in Gaza or even in the West Bank will be able to continue to benefit from economic integration with Israel after this since it's likely that in response to the attacks will seek to "decouple" its economy from the Palestinians. This is part of what I had in mind when I said that restrictions will probably be permanently tightened even in the West Bank after October 7, especially if Fatah is forced to resume armed opposition to Israel under pressure from public opinion.
"but also accept Israel's sovereignty over their land, but they don't want to and in that respect at least they are no different than other people"
Nationalism, while it plays on certain natural feelings, is not actually natural. Palestinians accepted Turkish rule for long enough without ever deciding it was intolerable and they would bear any cost to overthrow it. I think it's possible to conceive of a military strategy that would liquidate enough of both Hamas and Fatah that economic re-integration based on mutual self-interest would be possible, but that would require America to sign off on it, and Israel to adopt a military strategy that wasn't based on bombing stuff from the air, and a political strategy that wasn't beholden to low IQ Likud voters and Israeli centrist Dads. And maybe it's too late now anyway. So you are right that everything will get worse.
Of course nationalism is not natural, it's a relatively recent phenomenon after all, but this doesn't that it's not a significant force today and that it won't remain one for the foreseeable future. The fact that the Arabs of Palestine were fine with Turkish domination for centuries doesn't mean they would be okay with it now. If Zionism had started one century earlier, before nationalism started to spread outside Europe and colonialism went out of fashion, there would be no conflict because the Zionists would probably have been able to expel the Palestinians from the land.
I'm skeptical that even in principle the kind of military campaign you're envisioning could have worked, but even if you're right I think it was always a non-started because the cost in terms of IDF lives would have been very large and politically that would have been impossible. You can't just ignore low-IQ Likud voters and Israeli centrist dads no matter how much you dislike them. But then again, in fairness to you, my own advice is also implicitly predicated on the idea that the Israeli government could ignore them.
"Hamas" means:
1. popular resistance. can't be eradicated.
2. capable, organized military system. rockets, rocket production, tunnels, large scale military training etc.
2 can be eliminated by occupying Gaza.
and only 2 is a serious threat for Israel. individual terrorism has always been around and Israel coped just fine.
October 7th came due to Hamas having the full freedom and territory to prepare a large scale military attack.
"eliminating Hamas as capable military system" is totally possible.
and creating more defenses isn't a serious solution. Oct. 7th occurred because Israel relied of defenses that can never be perfect.
To summarize, it's Israel's fault that the Arabs are grumpy and violent because the presence of sovereign jews living next to Arabs makes them grumpy and violent, and anything Israel does to stop Arabs from being grumpy and violent is going to make them even grumpier and violenter, so Israel's best course (or maybe it's morality's best course, it's unclear) is to "negotiate" i.e. beg that Arabs to stop being so grumpy and violent, and I guess hope for the best, but in all likelihood, eventually just pick up and leave.
Look, if your prior (as it apparently is) is the classic "aristocratic" anti-zionist position that the Jews have no business interfering with the ethno-religious supremacist aspirations of the Arab-Muslim world because (a) it's bad for business and (b) the Jews should have gotten used to their rootlessness by now, then sure, I agree. Perhaps the French too can find a nice spot in Idaho once they become inconvenient obstacle to those aspirations in a few decades time. Or perhaps some part of Uganda is still an option. I hear it's lovely in the Spring.
If, however, you think it's fair, just and good that the Jews reestablish a tiny little homeland (and do wonders with it), and that it's reasonable for the Arabs to accept a fraction of 1% encroachment of their two-continent empire--and if not, to go pound sand--even if requires an equivalently tiny percentage of Arabs to move a few miles to the East, North and South (and choose from any number of Arab-Islamic ethnostates to call home), since as you say, they seem incapable of playing nicely with others, then, of course, you are very wrong.
I totally understand why the Arab Muslims are upset about the trade--they've been running the place for 1,000 years--but, y'know, don't be piggish, swallow your pride, and move on. Mexico seems to make it work with the U.S. Poland too. France and England can be expected to give up some parts of their empire, why not the Muslims too?
Fortunately, we know that, in this case, peace is achievable with distance and boundaries. Outside of Iran (and its proxies), Israel has peace with its neighbors because, while they may not like the indignity of uppity Jews, the Jews are not right under their noses (or *gasp* sovereign over them), and they have other things to worry about. Even if there are more belligerent elements of their populaces who may feel otherwise, they are a bit too far away to make "resistance" all that convenient or practical. Heck, even in Israel, resistance would be far less practical and convenient without all the outside support that pays to keep the "cause" indefinitely kicking. Do you think Hamas or the PA buy their own guns or pay to feed their soldiers? Lol.
Good fences (plus a little breathing room) make good neighbors. Imagine that. ('Oh but the horror of the "maximalist" aspirations of big bad Bibi and the scary settlers!' Please spare us the faculty-lounge midwittery. There is only one "maximalist" in this showdown and it's not the Jews. Claiming otherwise is, to use your parlance, stupid and/or a lie.)
"Ohh but they'd never take them. Egypt, Jordan and Saud have emphatically said "no."" Perhaps, but we haven't really tried (and since when did "oh we asked and they said no" become a de facto dead end, and if it is, then surely it applies to "negotiations" too, which I suppose to you know). If people are irrationally butt-hurt, then we can and should fairly expect them to be less irrationally butt-hurt. It's certainly a lot easier than expecting mortal enemies to just mingle peacefully.
Putting aside practicality, from a moral standpoint, it is unequivocally the responsibility of the Arab-Muslim world to accommodate and assimilate the lion's share of what should have been a few hundred thousand fellow Arabs, but has now increased to a few million. Their refusal to do so because of some combined contempt for these people, and a strategic self-interest to destablize Israel (and maintain leverage with the West) should be the target of your (and everyone else's) outrage. Of the two things to not tolerate, Israel's existence v. the venality of Arab leadership, I'm pretty confident which one should be the one to go.
More to the point, allowing the Arabs to relocate would end the conflict overnight with by far the least suffering or bloodshed. Facilitating would be the easy part. It's allowing that's the obstacle. The vast majority would go willingly, if they were simply allowed to, without fear of reprisal or opprobrium. We could take the billions we spend on war machines in that part of the world and create an annuity that would make it more than worth their while, and vastly improve everyone's lives.
There are 3.7M Syrians living in Turkey now. Multiple more millions moved to make peace possible during the Partition of India. 2M people experience the "trauma of displacement" over the US Southern Border every year for the past two years. In the big scheme of harms, "moving" isn't all that high, particularly if the conditions are as awful as you claim. It's not nothing, but it's not that big a deal. (And don't even start with the "ethnic cleansing" canard. They'd be as "ethnically cleansed" as the New Yorkers who move to Florida, and whatever claim to a state they may have ever had, they lost decades ago after the umpteenth attempted genocide.)
The only reason people object to the Passport Solution (other than ignorance) is because (a) it means the Jews "win" and people don't like that--Arabs and NGOs, for obvious reasons, but also the hardliner policy "experts" who've insisted the only way to peace is to indulge their fantasy of a "two state solution" (or three- or four-state now, it's hard to keep track), and people really don't like to be wrong; and (b) it's strategically more convenient for neighboring countries to perpetuate the suffering of Arabs and Israelis, particularly when they're rewarded for doing so.
That's it. Those are the only reasons the fighting continues. The former is dumb and petty, and the latter is feckless and cruel. Otherwise, the conflict could end in a few weeks.
The question you should be asking (like Matt Y) is "what the point of the Cause?" And the answer is "nothing good." So end the cause, end the conflict, and everyone moves on, happier and healthier.
I believe that your deeply flawed thinking, and rhetoric, on this is so misguided it could be characterized as delusional.
It's like you have not listened to or read Hamas statements. They are emphatic that nothing short of the destruction of Israel will satisfy them. They are Islamic fundamentalists that have drilled into their members and populace the subhuman state of jews and that martyrdom is not just a positive outcome but a desriable one. Their world view is fundamentally so different from yours that you cannot believe that it is not a front. But it is true.
Since they have neverending support from the Left and from the Arab world, they have no reason to negotiate at all, never mind surrender. No defeat matters to them, because only the fight matters. They are mostly supported by the populace, BTW. They believe - as do most of their brethren - that the desire to negotiate is weakness. They understand only power and strength. The people of Gaza need to pay a heavy price for what they did. After that? A DMZ around the border. Also, their is plenty of empty land in the Sinai and in Jordan. I wonder why they refuse to take in their Palestinain brothers.
Have you ever wondered why have the Palestinian Arabs have never declared an official state within their borders - even before 1967? Because that would be a tacit admission that the territory of Israel is not theirs. Gaza is essentially a de facto state, which has committed acts of war and atriociies against its neighbor. What other nation would tolerate this? What even would a "Palestinian" state look like? What is the Muslim Middle Eastern model for this peaceful democratic state? Syria? Lebanon? Qatar? Yemen? Egypt? Maybe the UAE. But they are emphatically not interested in that. From the River to the Sea is their slogan and its meaning is clear. It's not just rhetoric.
But the point is that all this was also true before Oct 7th and there was broad consensus in Israel (except for the far Right who aren't actually serious) that it wasn't worth it to invade and depose Hamas. So what is actually different now?
That's not a rhetorical question. A metaphor I have been pondering is that you live next to Charles Manson. The police won't do anything, you can't do anything without risking dying yourself, so you hire security guards and install a bunch of alarms. One day the security guard on duty is a Ukrainian so he gets drunk and passes out and Charlie bursts in a stabs your daughter. So, now, what do you do? In a sense, nothing has changed except that you have to check up better on your security guards, and in another sense everything has.
"After that? A DMZ around the border. "
Israel used to have a policy of shooting anyone armed who approached within 300m of the fence, and anyone who approached 100m. Palestinians came up with the genius idea of the march of return: just encourage your most retarded citizens (no shortage of them) to walk up to the fence unarmed (but with rocks etc.) demanding their right to reconquer Israel. For a while Israel held firm to its original policy, but the international condemnation was all too much and we learned to accept Palestinians milling around the fence, a key component of the Oct. 7th attack. Which is to say none of these arrangements are sustainable in the long term.
"What is actually different now?"
Well, everyone now knows that Hamas is willing and able to act on this scale, in this brutal a fashion, and then tolerate the blowback. This is a new development.
Not to me, but to Israeli centrists, yes.
Well. for one thing, they have those videos they can watch forever. The videos seem like a tactical mistake on the Palestinians' part. Even the fact that the videos do not seem to trouble the vibrant young newcomers to western universities, is like a resolve-builder, it seems to me. But I hated people well before Oct.7th, for far lesser things.
I’m honestly not sure what Bibi’s goal here other than looking tough. However, someone like Gantz might argue that pursuing this operation would make a future two-state solution more likely. At the very least, it’s at least a somewhat plausible hypothesis since a weaker Hamas could mean less trouble for a future two-state solution were one to actually be achieved. But that would require a huge diplomatic push post-war, which someone like Gantz might agree to but Bibi certainly won’t. Good thing that Bibi’s political career is likely permanently over after this war ends, though.
Interesting and well-thought-out post but you seem to have a bit of a blind spot in seeing a solution in a "negotiated settlement." In the end, I tend to agree that a negotiated settlement is the only way this ends. But how is the negotiation supposed to start? How would it result in a solution even remotely acceptable to Israel? And how could Israel trust that Hamas and other counterparties to the negotiation would hold to their commitments?
The success of any negotiation depends on a number of factors including:
- the relative power/leverage of each party
- each party's "BATNA" (best alternative to a negotiated agreement) https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/batna/translate-your-batna-to-the-current-deal/
- underlying 'facts on the ground' and context
Considering each of the above factors, Israel's actions improve the likelihood of a successful negotiated solution:
- Hamas' short-term military capabilities have obviously been degraded, although given enough time and a ceasefire, they could be rebuilt (hence Israel's dismissal of calls for a ceasefire, w/o preconditions).
- Israel's leverage has increased by the simple fact that it committed to and executed a land invasion. Previously Hamas operated under the supposition that Israel may occasionally lob missiles into Gaza but would not put troops on the ground.
- Hamas' BATNA (or rather the BATNA of Hamas' leadership) looks a lot worse than before. From ~2005 to Oct 7, 2023, Hamas BATNA was continued "jihad", meaning low-level strikes against Israel, retaliated in kind, that essentially preserved the miserable status quo for Gazans while keeping Hamas in control of the strip. Right now, Hamas' BATNA is to remain underground indefinitely, or until killed or captured, wondering when the next missile hits them or someone they love. Perhaps some of Hamas' leaders are true believers and relish the chance for martyrdom. But I suspect quite a few of them, ala Nasrallah circa 2006, are thinking they overdid it on Oct 7 (https://www.opindia.com/2023/10/hezbollah-regretted-terror-attack-on-israel-counter-terrorism-2006/).
I can't being to predict how an all-encompassing negotiation would eventually play out -- but a review of the hostage situation over the two weeks since you wrote the OP shows how Israel has impacted negotiations through their actions. A decade ago, Gilad Shalit was traded for >1000 Hamas prisoners, including convicted killers. Reports shortly after 7/10 indicated Hamas expected a similar ratio for the 200+ captives just taken -- up to all Hamas prisoners being freed. But in the end the ratio went from 1000:1 to 3:1, and Israel is only releasing women and teenagers. What changed? Israel's demonstrated willingness be far more deadly and drastic then they had been this century.
"Does anybody seriously believe that, unless it obliterates Gaza, Israel has no way to prevent another October 7? This is so absurd that making such a claim should be immediately disqualifying. The fence around Gaza is only 65 kilometers long, this isn’t the Great Wall of China, so Israel could obviously prevent something like that from happening again by beefing up security around it. As everybody noted after October 7, those attacks should never have been possible in the first place and it’s clear that someone massively screwed up, so I don’t think that point should even be controversial. Of course, this would have a cost, but it sure as hell would be less costly than destroying Gaza and indefinitely occupying it."
Since Hamas violent takeover of Gaza in 2007 Israel spent billions on securing its border with it, including a new smart fence, the underground barrier, automatic guard towers, new bases, a lot of new iron dome systems. Nevertheless, Hamas and its allies in the strip managed to carry out rocket attacks and ground attacks many times, using their ability to virtually smuggle to Gaza through tunnels anything apart from really large structures like tanks. They used their regime to create a military industry in the strip and create their own attack vehicles, rockets, armed drones, RPGs and machine guns. And they also have a huge supply of manpower out of 2 millions Gazans and they invested a lot in it, training tens of thousands of fanatic youths to be qualified fighters.
So sure, there were problems with the Israeli defense in October 7 that could be better, and the manpower could be tougher, and yes you could invest another billion in creating a concrete wall of 65 kilometers or even two walls with a moat, and buy 1000 iron dome systems that would launch 10 expensive interceptors at any rocket from Gaza. We are also investing in a new laser system that could work against mortars too.
But there is a basic rule in military writing that says "the defense line will always be breached." When a dedicated enough enemy with enough preparation and equipment really want to, and if it has the initiative, then it can breach any defense. The common wisdom in Israel is that even if Hamas would have used tenth of the forces it used in October 7, maybe 300 fighters and not 3000, it would still could have inflicted a lot of deaths and kidnap a lot of Israelis. That means that Israeli defense should have been more than 10 times better then what it was to even have a chance to stop the attack, basically keep a standing army of tens of thousands of soldiers all the time around Gaza. It is impossible. And even that may not have been enough, with 2 million people in Gaza I think Hamas could have easily recruited 30000 fighters and not just 3000. The main challenge would have been counter intelligence, but if they could do it with 3000 then it's not impossible they could have done it with more.
So, the only way to stop such attacks, from military point, is to do what Israel does in Judea and Samaria. Keeps the initiative with raids and arrests every night of any person of interest, and of course demolishing any military industry that tries to get build. Another important thing is the total control of the border, in Judea and Samaria the IDF control the Jordan border and prevents almost all smuggling, unlike the Gaza Egypt border.
That doesn't mean there isn't terrorism at all in Judea and Samaria, but there are no rockets and no military style units of terrorists and no heavy arms. That is the goal in the current operation in Gaza to, as far as I understand. Basically the goal is to demilitarize Gaza after Hamas militarized it. The Hamas would never agree to demilitarize Gaza and no army apart from the Israeli army is willing to get inside there and do that work.
Could this goal be achieved with much less bombings from the air? Sure, Hamas doesn't have air force so in theory you could destroy it's military without air force too. In Judea and Samaria there are no air bombings. But for that there would be a high cost in Israeli soldiers lives, and that is a cost the Israeli public flatly refuses to pay. Could a stronger international response change the Israeli calculus on that matter? Possible somewhat.
I just don't see what other choice any Israeli govt that expects to remain the Israeli govt would have besides a military retaliation of some kind. Room for choice on scale and details I imagine, but I am not informed enough to say what the feasible parameters were.
It would have been better to react differently, but no government in the world, be it democratic or not, can refrain from a heavy-handed reaction if 1400 of their citizens are slaughtered. Yes, many Palestinians who were not directly supportive of the 7th October activities will be punished, but as the Israeli reaction was foreseeable and inevitable, the moral responsibility is with Hamas and those supporting Hamas (arguably, a considerable share of the Gazan population).
In the middle run, Israel may have to build a wall around Gaza which is much more secure than the previous one. Rocket attacks should be responded to almost automatically with retaliatory strikes. If at some point the Palestinians get tired of fighting Israel, the border could become more open, with Gazans getting work permits for Israel.
"Rocket attacks should be responded to almost automatically with retaliatory strikes."
That was already the policy after 2005, but Israel had to back down on it because it results in too many pictures of Gazan people crying by bombed-out buildings.
The basic dynamic is that the Palestinian strategy works like this:
(1) Attack Israel
(2) Bitch and moan and bitch and moan and bitch and moan until the international community impose a ceasefire
(3) Wait a bit and go back to (1)
There is no way to break this cycle. If Palestinians are given more territory, they will use that to launch more attacks, if they are given more territory, they will use that to attack too. Even if Israel gave the entire occupied territory, plus some extra, they would use that to attack, and when they do, the international community will give Israel 3-6 weeks to respond (depending on how bad the attacks were) and then demand a ceasefire.
Fact is the Palestinians are just playing this game better. Israel is not a long-term viable project. Of course, they do this at the cost of making themselves one of the most repulsive cultures in human history, but they seem to quite like it.
I am curious about your statement that Israel is not a long-term viable project. If that is the case, what is the end-game? How do the structural tensions at the heart of Israel resolve themselves in the long run?
"Automatically" I meant quite literally. Similar to what Robert Aumann had suggested, i.e., a system that would retaliate without human input, using the logic of the "doomsday device". This would make it (more) difficult to blame Israel for casualties of the other side. I agree that also this option is not really enticing because it is offputting to be in a permanent state of war. What is your suggestion?
I have toyed with such ideas, but if we had an army that could think this far out of the box, I don't think we would be in this mess in the first place.
It's nonsense. Every such system can be turned off, and other people would expect it to be turned off. Playing such games only works on a very narrow field, ultimately this is a decision: Israel needs to *decide* to act in advance and attack *first* when it feels it needs to regardless of pressure.
Thanks for writing this. I think you have summarized many important points very well, but there appears to be some tension in the argument being made here. While Hamas might not be an existential threat in a vacuum, neighboring states might well become existential threats if they perceive weakness and vulnerability on Israel's part. If the point of the retaliation is to send these neighbors a message, then they are plausibly fighting against a real existential threat with a large display of force. Other approaches, like a bigger fence or additional negotiation, might deter Hamas specifically or recover some hostages (with a costly swap, possibly displaying additional weakness given the history with Shalit), but these will not make anyone think Israel is stronger than it was on October 6th
"I think they are delusional because no country will agree to welcome Palestinian refugees except in mostly symbolic numbers and the only result will be international outrage"
How do you know this? They didn't confiscate the ships of rescue organizations bringing Africans into Europe