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So I’m still planning to answer all your questions … but I need more of them! And easier ones! Most of the questions submitted so far were thoughtful and detailed and dealt with the situation in Gaza and anti-Semitism in Israel. I would love to get a few more about politics, so keep them coming. (Comments are open to all subscribers, so you can either leave questions there or email me by replying to this post).
The Situation In Gaza
I will have some longer thoughts about the situation in Israel/Gaza in my Q&A session, but here’s a quick take.
The ongoing release of kidnapped Israelis, along with a temporary cease-fire, is an altogether good thing, though it has increased momentum for permanently extending the lull in fighting. I’m skeptical that will happen because Israel has not come close to meeting its military goals. However, Hamas has every incentive to keep dragging out the releases. Unlike the hapless Palestinian Authority (PA), Hamas is getting results — freed Palestinian prisoners. And by negotiating with Israel, it makes them look like the critical Palestinian powerbroker. There is a reason, after all, that they are putting out these glossy videos of the hostage transfers. It’s appalling, but there’s little doubt that Hamas has won a considerable PR victory in its hostage-taking endeavor.
At some point, though, Israel will go back on the military offensive, and that’s where things get very complicated — and the problems from its current political leadership are magnified. So far, Israel has largely pacified Northern Gaza, but in doing so, it has caused enormous physical damage, and tens of thousands of civilians have died. Yet, according to a report in the Guardian, “Israel’s military estimates that during the assault on Gaza, it has killed between 1,000 and 2,000 Hamas fighters out of a military force it believes is about 30,000 strong.” So, even if these numbers are off by several thousand, and one takes into account possible desertions, we’re still talking about a significant fighting force.
That means this war is not close to a conclusion, and the next stage of the conflict will likely include an Israeli incursion into Southern Gaza. What happens to the civilians who are currently trapped there? Will they be allowed to return to the North? Considering the international outcry over Israel’s earlier bombing campaign — and the likely significant loss of life in the South, which is packed with civilians — I assume that Israel will fight from the ground and not the air. That will lead to increased Israeli casualties — and, of course, more Palestinian deaths. International condemnation and domestic pressure notwithstanding, I tend to think Israel can weather that storm. However, one should not underestimate the potential for pressure on Israel to grow and come not just from adversaries but also from friends (i.e., the United States)
But what is more challenging is the question of Israel’s ultimate goals in this operation.
It’s not realistic to think that Israel can kill every member of Hamas, so what does victory look like? Is it a severely weakened Hamas? Is it the elimination of the group’s political and military leadership? And what is the political arrangement in Gaza after the fighting ends? It’s very hard to see how Israel can end the war and withdraw troops if the result is that Hamas is still in charge in Gaza. Israel has staked its claim on eliminating the threat from Hamas. If that happens, it means a return to the pre-October 7 status quo, albeit with Hamas in a weakened military position. So, anything less than victory will be a political non-starter. But, up to now, the Israeli government has said little about their definition of victory in Gaza other than absolutist goals like destroying Hamas.
The other major complicating factor is that the current Israeli Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu, has zero incentive to end the war because once that happens, the reckoning on the intelligence and military failure that allowed October 7 to occur will begin.
What needs to occur here is that Israel must match its military offensive with a political offensive. Yesterday in Ha’aretz, Anshel Pfeiffer persuasively argued that Israel needs to use its border crossing with Gaza to bring in humanitarian aid and alleviate the suffering of the civilian population. This is a potentially fraught exercise because there is not necessarily support in the current government for such a move — and I’m skeptical that it will do much to move international public opinion. But it will appease the US government and make it look like President Biden, who has unwaveringly supported Israel since October 7, is getting results for the humanitarian situation in Gaza. As Pfeiffer suggests, it’s a smart confidence-building/PR measure that should be a “no-brainer.”
In addition, the Israeli government needs to speak more forthrightly about the Palestinian Authority administering post-war Gaza, and they need to throw the PA a bone in the West Bank — with, say, a crackdown on settler violence or other moves to lessen the more humiliating aspects of the occupation. In other words, Israel needs to show the world — and the Palestinians — that the war in Gaza is against Hamas, not Palestinians, and they recognize the need for a long-term resolution to the conflict. But this government, led by Bibi, can’t take those steps. His leadership position is already hanging by a thread. Any moderation on the Palestinian issue will lose him the support of his right-wing coalition members and, potentially, lead to the toppling of his government. And Netanyahu is fearful of that happening because if he’s out of power, he is at risk of going to jail in his ongoing fraud trial. Israel’s current leader is far more focused on his own future rather than the country he leads.
This is, in a sense, Israel’s major conundrum about the war in Gaza: it has the right and responsibility to prosecute it. No country that suffered the loss of life we saw on October 7 could realistically abstain from the use of military force — especially as rocket attacks continued and Hamas made clear its intention to plan future attacks. But even with a functioning government, Israel would still be in a difficult position — to conduct a war that, at least from a domestic political standpoint, they must fight, but without any clear sense of what an exit strategy looks like.
Unfortunately, they have a government that is so fatally flawed — and so self-interested — that it’s hard to see how its prosecution conflict won’t leave Israel in a potentially worse position when it’s over (if it’s ever over). I have little doubt that Israel will continue to wage war in Gaza, but I’m far more pessimistic about its chances of success as long as Netanyahu is in charge.
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Are Israel's goals in Gaza even possible? I was taught in High School the "You can't bomb and idea". If one could, after the devastation wrought by Allied bombers on Nazi Germany, there should be no Nazis left. How are we doing with that? This is the 2nd time Israel has tried to eliminate Hamas. They claimed to have defeated Hezbollah in Lebanon, but they are still a threat. As far as catching Hamas leaders, with the extensive tunnel system they have developed, the leaders can probably leave at their leisure whenever they want. It would seem that part of the Hamas leadership is already in Qatar holding negotiations. As for Netanyahu, if one thinks about "following the money", or who gains from a situation, Bibi has certainly gained from this one. (Not to say that Hamas has not also gained from the war.) Before the Hamas attack, half of Israel was in the streets and the parts of the military were refusing to report for duty in protest of Bibi's attempt to take away the Israeli High Court's independence. War has united the country behind him and perhaps given him a respected place in Israeli history. The story of a national leader who puts his own interests ahead of his country's is all to familiar for us. Which leads me to wonder if Bibi didn't have a finger in the "intelligence failure"? It is interesting to look back in our own history at instances where vicious attacks on our country have been successful because of intelligence and/or communication lapses, thereby helping our leaders at the time achieve ends that were impossible before the attacks. (Some of those "ends" in hindsite were quite important.)