Don't Do What We Did
Israel has much to learn from America's screwups after 9/11. Also, touch grass ,and a top notch musical interlude.
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.
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A Word On Presidential Polling
Regular readers of Truth and Consequences know that I don’t put much stock in presidential polling a year before the actual election. So while lots of people are now saying that Joe Biden's support for Israel’s war in Gaza will cost him the backing of young voters and Arab-Americans — I can’t take it seriously. A lot happens in a year, and the point of a presidential campaign is to win over voters and mobilize your core supporters. Maybe we should give Biden a chance to campaign for those votes before writing them off.
Moreover, as we get closer to the election, it’s not hard to imagine that many of these voters will recognize the threat represented by Trump and reluctantly cast a ballot for Biden. I’m not saying that will happen (I can’t see the future), but it’s certainly a good possibility.
But here’s the larger point — and I know I’ve glancingly made this argument a few times — Donald Trump is facing four criminal indictments next year. There’s a reasonable chance he is convicted on at least one. None of us know how that will shift public opinion or if it will upend our politics. But it stands to reason that a criminal conviction of a presidential candidate could have an impact. Don’t even get me started on him being sentenced to prison. It’s tough for me to take anything about presidential politics seriously when these trials are still on the horizon.
So, all I’m saying is that a lot will happen next year that will affect voter decision-making in November 2024. In the meantime, touch grass. Don’t look at polls.
The Lessons of 9/11
As most of you know, my side gig is a project I co-helm at Tufts University looking at the history of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. This week, we had a piece in Foreign Affairs, looking at the U.S. experience in Afghanistan after 9/11 and how Israel can learn from America’s mistakes there.
The article is behind a firewall, but I will try to summarize the key conclusions here.
It’s important to start from the jumping point that significant differences exist between 9/11 and 10/7.
Hamas poses a far graver danger to Israel than al Qaeda ever did to the United States.
After 9/11, the United States declared a “global war on terror,” broadening its response to include states that gave safe haven to terrorists. Israel has made clear that its sole enemy is Hamas.
The first phase of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan relied on an Afghan proxy army, the Northern Alliance, with U.S. forces fighting mostly from the air. Israel does not have that luxury.
The U.S. war in Afghanistan met with extraordinary tactical success. In just two months, al Qaeda was deprived of a safe haven, and the Taliban were swept from power. It is hard to imagine that Israel will be so lucky.
Now, with that out of the way, there are a few lessons that Israel can learn.
The U.S. experience in the early stages of its response to 9/11 offers lessons that could be helpful to Israel today. One is the importance of planning and of setting realistic goals—don’t bite off more than you can chew. Another is the need to know one’s own strengths and core competencies, and to recognize when it might be advantageous to rely on others. Finally, for a country in Israel’s position, it is crucial for leaders to think strategically about who can assist them in achieving their goals—and about who their enemies are and what they fear and desire.
I recommend reading the whole piece at Foreign Affairs … I believe you can register to read it without fully subscribing. Though you should subscribe — it’s a great magazine!
But I want to pick out one point from the piece that I think is particularly relevant. As some of you may remember, the U.S. didn’t just go to war with al Qaeda after 9/11 — it made clear that there was no difference between terrorists and the countries that sheltered them. By doing so, Washington ensured that the Taliban, who provided a safe haven to al Qaeda, would be treated little differently than those actually responsible for 9/11—even though there was minimal common ground between these two groups and the Taliban did not know about the 9/11 attacks in advance.
By December 2001, two months after the war began, the Taliban had given up. Those around Mullah Omar told him they intended to surrender to the country’s new president, Hamid Karzai—and repeatedly tried to do so. Whereas al Qaeda terrorists often fought to the death, Taliban fighters largely threw down their weapons and returned to their villages, awed by the destructive capabilities of U.S. airpower.
Yet, the US had no interest in allowing the Taliban to escape defeat and humiliation. It wanted to teach the group a lesson and, working with the country’s rapacious tribal warlords, launched an aggressive counterterrorism mission that targeted the Taliban’s former leaders. That decision helped turn Afghans, who had initially welcomed the U.S. presence, against the United States and the Karzai government. This provided fuel for a resurgent Taliban insurgency that began a few years later.
While the analogy is not exact, Israel can take a lesson from this mistake in its dealings with the Palestinian Authority (P.A.), which governs part of the West Bank.
The PA may not be happy with Israel’s offensive in Gaza and will publicly condemn it, but it can be of potential assistance in dealing with the aftermath of the war. Israel should do everything it can to avoid turning the PA—which has recognized Israel and pledged support for a two-state solution—into an enemy. The PA’s limited authority, and its rampant corruption, will make this difficult, but there are public steps that can be taken to build goodwill.
Unfortunately, Israel is doing the exact opposite.
Before October 7, there was a rising tide of settler-led violence in the West Bank, and this has only increased over the past three weeks. Israeli leaders are willfully ignoring this violence.
Those who have read my pieces since October 7 know that I am generally supportive of Israel’s military efforts in Gaza. But that support does not translate to what is happening in the West Bank. It is a moral abomination to allow armed settlers to attack Palestinian towns and push their residents out of their homes. It’s also just plain dumb. Israel will not get P.A. support for help in administering postwar Gaza if it continues to allow settlers to attack Palestinian villages and their residents with impunity.
So, while we argue in the piece that Israel could adopt “confidence-building measures, including announcing limitations on settlement growth, allowing more permits for Palestinians from the West Bank to work in Israel, releasing tax revenues that Israel collects for the PA, and freeing Palestinian political prisoners” the violence in the West Bank must stop immediately. Period.
Moreover, once the war in Gaza is over and Hamas has been severely weakened, “Israel must address the underlying and legitimate grievances that drive support for Hamas … Just as the United States should have accepted that the Taliban had a role to play in Afghanistan’s future, so, too, must Israel make tough political choices to end its conflict with the Palestinians. Ultimately, it is the only way to guarantee the country’s safety.”
Also (and this can’t be said enough), this can only happen if Benjamin Netanyahu is out of power. He has spent years villainizing and humiliating the PA, and there is no trust for him on the Palestinian side. Truth be told, not many Israelis trust him either. He needs to go,
I attended a talk last night with my old friend Dahlia Schiendlin, and, oddly, one of the takeaways I had from a presentation that could hardly be described as upbeat is that there is a pathway for both sides in the conflict. If Hamas is destroyed; if Netanyahu resigns; if Israelis realize that the status quo with the Palestinians cannot be maintained; and if the PA steps up to the plate … one can faintly imagine a scenario in which peace becomes possible. I’m not saying this is likely to happen, but if the dominoes fall a certain way, it’s not outside the realm of possibility. Much of this will depend on Israeli public opinion (it always does).
Here, I think President Biden, currently beloved by Israelis, can play a role. But, one thing that is not helping is all the calls for a cease-fire. There is simply no hope for progress if Hamas continues to run Gaza. Israel can’t accept it, and if Hamas survives, it will continue to find ways to undermine any tentative steps forward on peace. If pro-Palestinian voices want to be helpful, they’d be better off keeping their powder dry on Gaza and instead pressuring Israel on the settlers in the West Bank and what takes place after the war. Obviously, that won’t happen, but it would make a difference. Israelis believe they have a right to respond to October 7, and when they are being told by the world, “You don’t,” it only increases the already omnipresent siege mentality in Israeli society.
Still, Israel can learn much from our failures in Afghanistan — and none is better and more important than the best time to make peace … is at the end of a war.
What’s Going On
Fred Kaplan says Israel must do more to crack down on settler violence.
John Fetterman has run out of f***s to give.
Hussein Ibish says Palestinians should be as pissed at Hamas as they are at Israel.
This video report on the Maui wildfire is an extraordinary piece of journalism.
Musical Interlude
I think your first two bullet need more nuance.
Graver danger?
Our response to 9-11 changed the USA for the worse. The patriot act is an abomination that gave rise to a more militarized surveillance state. Whatever war we had with Al qaeda we lost.
While Gaza is still a prison. Where nothing gets in or out unless the guards fall asleep.
Sole enemy?
Israel is bombing Lebanon and Syria.