When it comes to the war in Gaza, I have been far more frustrated with well-meaning, reasonable-sounding liberals than with the Hamas sympathizers flooding our streets.
You only mention the hostages twice, and in passing, as if they aren't at the heart of this war. The issue of the hostages has consumed the Israeli public. War is a contest of wills and the hostages have sapped Netanyahu's authority. A war needs clear attainable goals. This war had two goals that were directly antithetical: getting the hostages and destroying Hamas. How do you destroy an entity that you're supposedly negotiating with?
A well-crafted analysis of the micro situation in the Middle East vis-à-vis Israel and Hamas.
If we look at the macro environment, it becomes clear Hamas is a tool used by Iran/China/Russia to force a new order in ME. The recent warming of the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel and the possibility of a normal diplomatic relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia threatened to diminish the influence of Iran in ME, thereby, the influence of China & Russia.
The Hamas' incursion into Israel and the muddled reaction by Israel achieved beautifully what Iran set out to do- to break the diplomatic rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world. Netanyahu and his supporters had to engage in this brutal reprisal to salvage the image that they had created amongst the voters as the guarantors of Israeli security. Israel should have used overwhelming force and decimated Gaza if it truly wanted to eliminate Hamas. Netanyahu would have gotten away with it if the Israeli army had been able to do it in a couple of months. Western opinion was on their side. But arms supply and intelligence support from Iran to Hamas denied any victory to the tepid response of the Israeli military. The images beamed by Al-Jazeera and BBC to the West made sure Israel lost the perception battle, too.
The current war in Gaza has nothing to do with the emancipation of the Palestinians for whom nobody, Arab or the West, gives a damn. Sadly, Palestenians are nothing but collateral damage in this despicable struggle by major powers. The Western media represented by NYT, WP and BBC, whom the misguided Lefties have captured, have successfully influenced the self-righteous students at the Ivy League colleges. The students think their struggles will bring peace and security to the Palestinians. Talk about naiveté of the high achievers at Ivy League universities.
The Ukraine war has neatly weaned away the mightiest European power- Germany, from getting too close to Russia through energy dependence. Also, the war made the nations sitting on the fence rush to join NATO. As these goals have been achieved, it's just a matter of time before the Ukraine war will end with large territories seeded to Russia. This has proven a big defeat to Russians and the Chinese and stopping them in their tracks in implementing a new order in Europe.
The Russians were emboldened in their belief to force a new order in West Asia with its victory in Syria. Two years ago, Iran & Russia successfully thwarted the military takeover of Syria by forces close to the US. On behalf of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas play a vital role in keeping the Horn of Africa and Palestinian inhabited areas unstable. Iran will keep the region unstable until there is a settlement amongst Western powers and Iran/Russia/China on their sphere of influence. The West will have to vacate the South China Sea, reduce its presence in ME and the Horn of Africa and stop sanctioning Iran and Russia.
We are witnessing the indecisiveness of Western powers to provide leadership in West Asia by NOT challenging the sections of corrupt social media, which has been successfully captured by the Left and controlled to a certain extent by Iran/Russia/China, enabling them to usher in their order.
I think your argument is a a bit imprecise in ways that leave gaps in the reasoning.
For instance, here is a position (the one I happen to hold) that deals with every objection you raise.
From a pure military/strategic POV Israel's best move was to seize a buffer zone around the fence and fucking cover it in mines (using oct 7th support to push past whining about Ottawa convention) then retreat back. And if there are any targets that they've been wanting to strike do that too. Yes, I agree that this is politically very hard to sell [1] so I don't blame them for going in initially but they could have pulled out after a week -- and the idea that Hamas is deterred by inflicting losses isn't likely (unless you can get to leadership in Qatar) -- they are never going to decide they'd rather allow Israel to exist than to get bombed.
And yes, Hamas does benefit from Israel launching this kind of attack, both in international pressure and, most importantly, bc every Palestinian who losses a loved one gets easier to recruit. But just because Hamas is better off than if Israel hadn't invaded doesn't mean they are better off if Israel pushed through to the end.
Hamas does best of Israel goes 95% of the way through Gaza but leaves their command and control plus top military commanders intact. So Hamas is negotiating now because they've realized all the benefits and would like to avoid paying the price of rebuilding the military arm.
So it's absolutely true that Israel choose a path that inflicted huge casualties on the suffering people of Gaza while not helping their security but also true that at this point they probably should finish the clearing. And while Israel should have done better it's hard to imagine any other democracy would have done better. So it's still sad and unfortunate and wrong if understandable.
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1: No country doesn't respond when attacked like this. It's the international relations version of deciding not to stop paying for your neice to attend Oxford after you catch your brother banging your wife -- a saint would do it but it's hard but after a week Israel could have pulled back and followed my plan.
Great argument. I think the one mistake Israel might have made was in not attacking Rafa early in the campaign and sealing off the border with Egypt as one of its first objectives.
Israel should have attacked the entire Gaza with devastating force and pulverized it. Now Hamas and thereby Iran, has got Israel in a terrible situation.
Interesting article (for me as someone who can be described as islamist) but few observations on some statements and assumptions:
1) Regarding the videos "These videos could plausibly serve two purposes: first, to terrorize the Israeli population and push them to consider leaving the Middle East; second, to broadcast the glory of October 7th to Hamas' allies and potential recruits." I think part of it as well can be seen as motivator to current recruits + documentations for further assaults/attacks so either make it more effective/humane (from strategy perspective)
2) "When your enemy is surrounded by allies on all sides, reallocating resources is rarely a loss." I think this argument assumes coherence/coordination between actors in this conflict, this is simply not true because of long historical data, but because even the information coming after October 7th shows there has been miscoordination with Hezabollah and other allies in the region. Further, geopolitical situation has shifted dramatically post-2011 (more powerful regimes has allied with Israel like Gulf monarchies (now funding a lot Israelis startups in technology, security and environment), while others have grown more dysfunctional (e.g. Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon) due to proxy conflicts or more authoritarian (Jordan and Egypt) as they rely on aid and closer relations for Israel (although in reality, they might be losing more grounds in their natural resources disputes).
3) I think your dismissal of option 2 is very devoid from empirical evidence, because as seen with Iran, Israel can manage precisely targeted killing (for more details, look at shadow commander by Arash Azizi) and evokes very little response from the opponents. I think you hit some truth "Isn’t this an argument to never respond to an unprovoked attack?" but again, unprovoked attack can be similarly described to Israel's attack in Syria on the building near Iranian consulate during the conflict but because this plays into how actors define themselves in the conflict (Israel made the argument that it itself is still at war with Syria or because this building is belonging to terrorists (now clearly an overstretched concept and excludes states)
4) Your conclusion about state vs non-state distinction and its impact on international order is true, but the real enemies in this system were not the terrorists (aka non-state actors), it is the big state-actors (especially US) as 1) it expanded the notion of military intervention to humanitarian intervention under R2P (from Yugoslavia to Libya) 2) it expanded the notion of self-defense legally (since starting the famous war on terror post-9/11) 3) US keeps blocking recognition of Palestinian state (while occasionally helped non-state actors legally), it is a great obstruction, plus the only the group of international organizations that recognized Palestine (like UNESCO, IFAD and etc) were defunded by US (the fees paid to rejoin is around $619 in 2023). For a good article (coming from anti-Islamist and my professor in international law check https://aps.aucegypt.edu/en/articles/1347/accountability-for-palestinian-life-lost-in-the-fog-of-law)
5) Your starting assumption (about both actors' immorality [while I reject]) makes sense, but I think overall, the argument for immorality is higher on the side of Israeli because as my professor (ba'athist) noted here that Israel never tried to exercise any soft power during the years and continue to act immorally even when concessions have made by Arabs (not even trying to build school or hospital) put here by https://orient-online.com/orient-i-2024-perspectives-on-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/ under title Carnage of Hard power (Walid Kazziha)
Immorality and amorality are two totally different things. It's a fine difference but a huge one.
Immoral means to have a sense of morality but to go against it.
Amoral means to have no sense whatever of morality.
I apologize if this sounds patronizing - I don't mean to sound like internet Karen but this is important.
Now, with respect to amorality, in its correct sense....
Any discussion of human actions, and especially war, that assume "amorality" are entertaining and superficially impressive but ultimately sterile and (sorry) fundamentally dishonest.
I'd suggest another word: pragmatic. From the Greek: "relating to fact."
Again: this is not Karening. It's trying to get at the truth. Which in this case may be that Hamas has won by controlling the emotions of its enemy.
Thank you for the correction, it is indeed my mistake that I misread the author's usage of words. Second, I think the word "controlling" indicates that Hamas is actively working to spread propaganda to control emotions, however, I think Israel might be the one doing more (in this domain) as opposed to Hamas, not because Israel is necessarily more evil (or knows that they are miscalculating/impulsive), but rather due to the fact that Hamas is much weaker institutionally, and even their backers (Qatar, Algeria, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain and Turkey [all have dangerous calculations to make in how they support specially as Middle East changes now])
Yes, words are important here so I might have put that better. It might have been better to say "Hamas has won by using tactics that they know from experience evoke a predictable response from Israelis."
(There is a whole world of meaning in that but I won't bore you with it, suffice it to say that this "response" dates back to the so-called Jibril deal, and onto the Shalit deal).
Of course Israel has choices & no entity or country "controls" what they do, except perhaps the US, for obvious reasons. But not even that.
That's actually a really good idea. Build an alternative hospital and school. The question is if Gazans would want that. Either way, trying to do so would help Israel's case..
Brilliant analysis a la Sun Tzu’s Art of War. One can deduce strategies from the book that find no place in the handiwork of those responsible for resolving the Gaza conflict .
In essence, "The Art of War" offers timeless wisdom on navigating the complexities of conflict, providing guidance on strategy, leadership, and resolution that transcends its historical context.
Hamas's objective is to mobilize Western Leftists against Israel. Sacrificing the whole Gazan population for that goal is worthwhile to them.
Western Leftists represent enough power to defeat Israel. Hamas otherwise doesn't nearly have that power.
I think it's reasonable to argue that if the Western Left wasn't so ludicrously woke, Hamas would not have perpetrated October 7 in the first place. The payoff wasn't there.
Israel had the option of going into Gaza and taking 10 times the hostages that Hamas took, and leaving it at that. The world could’ve accepted this. But as it is, they have gained little and lost a lot.
For sure the world would not have accepted that at all. Furthermore it would have been pointless because Hamas would never release their Israeli hostages for 10x as many Palestinians.
Hamas and the IDF have been engaged for long enough that each knows the other's strategies. Given several Arab countries were starting to recognise Israel and establish formal relations with it, the audacity of their October attack was likely designed to provoke a massively disproportionate response from Israel that would cause massive structural damage and massive civilian casualties - so deterring corner Arab countries from recognising Israel, increasing support for firm and their cause (even if many of their fighters got wiped out, their ideology would love on, particularly along the remaining Gazan population) and put a further nail in the coffin of the Two State Solution (which has been dead for decades: Israel doesn't really want one either, hence many of the proposals since the Oslo Accords would have been both unworkable and unimplementable, typically with the Palestinian State being a serious of largely disconnected enclaves comprising Areas A and B, with Israel retaining the bulk of Area C and controlling borders, airspace and transmissions - in effect the Palestinian State would be partially autonomous regions of Israel with no representation in the Knesset as they'd depend on Israel for access, movement between enclaves, utility supplies, plus imports and exports of prey much everything, having virtually no land to grow anything). Hamas likely regards the civilian population of Gaza as little more than expendable pawns, and it likely thought its fighters would retreat to the tunnels in areas with active IDF operations (although in reality, it seems many of them didn't). For their part, the IDF likely have an apathetic approach to the residents of Gaza: they have to give some notice of impending air strikes, but the more notice they give, the more time there is for any Hamas fighters to leave the area with all their weaponry and ammunition; while in ground operations, anyone could be a potential fighter, so it's lookalike tempting to regard anyone not wearing an IDF uniform as a potential target - hence the killing of three of their own escaped hostages and the aerial attack on the aid workers. Such killings aren't authorisation from above, but collateral damage fuelled by paranoia. Added onto which, while they don't deliberately target civilians (just buildings that had a lot of both civilians and militants in a few minutes beforehand, but they've been given notice to leave, so if any didn't make it out in time, it's their own fault), the fewer people there are in Gaza, the fewer there are who can potentially become fighters. If it could get away with it under international law, it would likely quite like to send the residents of Gaza elsewhere. Meanwhile, over in the West Bank, there's apparently been an up surge in Settler attacks on Palestinian settlements and farms / orchards, as some in the Settler community have the polar opposite ideology to Hamas (but a more subtle way of demonstrating it): Israel should be a Jewish Only State from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, so Gentiles should be encouraged / coerced to leave (and it seems that as long as they restrict themselves to property damage, they'll go unpunished).
My understanding is there are Hams leaders in Qatar who are still alive. Perhaps a targeted strike option that began with killing them would have had more teeth.
The option Israel is pursuing is doomed to failure. You cannot destroy Hamas. A new crop will simply replace those killed, unless you go for outright genocide, which they ruled out for obvious reasons.
I cannot emphasize enough how dumb this is. And I’m not blaming you because it’s clearly not reported well in the media.
The Hamas leaders in Qatar are figureheads. Puppets. They run Hamas like Iranians and Russians have free and fair elections. Even if killing Hamas leadership would suffice for Israel to reclaim deterrence (it wouldn’t), killing Haniyeh and the Qatar-based leadership wouldn’t even accomplish that.
Sinwar and Deif run Hamas now. End of story. And they’re in Gaza, underground, surrounded by Israeli hostages as human shields.
I suspected that. So why is the US supporting Israel and Saudis? What do we get out of this? Why don't we just leave and wash our hands of the whole thing?
Iran is a theocratic authoritarian psycho regime arming terrorist proxies everywhere and aligned fully with Russia and China? That should be good enough but to top it off, Saudi and Israel are actual allies, and blowing off your allies when they need help is a recipe for simply not having allies, and ceding world hegemony to China. And suffice it to say, a world under Chinese hegemony would be very unpleasant for people accustomed to American freedom.
Saudi Arabia is a theocratic authoritarian regime, whose wealthy citizens support Sunni terrorists, such as those who attacked us on 911. And it was Saudis who led the embargo against us in 1973.
As for Israel, backing them is what got us the embargo and 911.
Saudi Arabia and UAE have engaged since 9/11 on a de-radicalization process of their populations. Attempting to de-Islamisticize (if I can invent a word) them: have them focus more on economic development, global integration, to some extent socially liberalize, and in particular to turn away from Islamism: forcing austere Islamic practices on population and fighting wars abroad in the name of Allah. Idk how thorough these efforts are, or if the rulers imposing are too corrupt/incompetent to truly succeed. But it strikes as most successful/best sort of effort around, certainly better than the West's Democracy Now agenda or demanding whatever social liberalism is en vogue in the West at a given moment.
The Saudi leader is a thug, same as Putin and the Iranian leadership, and a dictator like Xi. Furthermore, the relationship with all these Middle East regimes is one sided, they want stuff and offer nothing in return.
The US is no longer the unipower. Chinese military potential is far greater than ours and will over time be converted into actual power. The US needs to follow the example of the emperor Hadrian and pull back from flashpoints that can only drain our strength.
It makes sense to oppose Russia in Ukraine because our European allies, are ponying up more than half of the support going to Ukraine. Furthermore, Ukraine *wants* to join the West and already has a Western-style republican-style government. They can serve as a Western ally well positioned wrt the Russian heartland. I've argued that the US might be able to strike a deal with Russia, whereby they withdraw back to pre-2014 borders and agree to a non-aggression pact for 5 years, and the US leaves NATO and withdraws entirely from Europe over than 5 years. This is a win for Ukraine, a win for Putin (this has been a top goal for him and would make the war worthwhile in the eyes of his peers). Europe can easily afford a military to deter a future attack, but without the US is far too weak to threaten Russia offensively.
You can destroy those tunnels though, and you can make the war so miserable that the new crop gets second thoughts about how soon they want to start the next one.
Sherman in the Civil War said his goal was "to make them [the Confederates] so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it."
Yep, destroy the tunnels, control the border. Without imports of weapons and materials, Hamas can't build the tunnels and can't launch the rockets. That would solve the problem permanently.
Make who miserable? Ordinary Palestinians, about whom Hama doesn't give a shit? Or Hamas grunts, who may well welcome death as their ticket to paradise, and about whom Hama leaders don't give a shit either.
The US does this over and over again. They assume that non-democratic leaders can be persuaded to alter their political strategy by making their common people suffer. It is cruel, doesn't work, is hence supremely stupid.
The only Hamas members whom one might make miserable as a form of deterrence would be the leaders of the movement living lives of luxury outside of Gaza. Nothing Israel does militarily in Gaza directly affects them.
The Hamas grunts, yes, and the middle management that lives in Gaza instead of Qatar. It's about sapping their enthusiasm for future warfare by making present warfare as miserable as possible.
As for the leaders in luxury hotels, ideally they would be assassinated, but that's a separate campaign.
It's certainly false that Israel has "leveled most of Gaza". 50% of Gaza City buildings were destroyed or "damaged", but for sure most of Gaza is not leveled. Israel is only targeting legitimate military targets, after clearing civilians as much as possible. Since Egypt will not take refugees (unlike every other war where refugees leave the area) there is no chance of ethnic cleansing.
You only mention the hostages twice, and in passing, as if they aren't at the heart of this war. The issue of the hostages has consumed the Israeli public. War is a contest of wills and the hostages have sapped Netanyahu's authority. A war needs clear attainable goals. This war had two goals that were directly antithetical: getting the hostages and destroying Hamas. How do you destroy an entity that you're supposedly negotiating with?
How confident are we that the hostages are still alive at this point?
Haven't a clue but... I'm not very.
A well-crafted analysis of the micro situation in the Middle East vis-à-vis Israel and Hamas.
If we look at the macro environment, it becomes clear Hamas is a tool used by Iran/China/Russia to force a new order in ME. The recent warming of the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel and the possibility of a normal diplomatic relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia threatened to diminish the influence of Iran in ME, thereby, the influence of China & Russia.
The Hamas' incursion into Israel and the muddled reaction by Israel achieved beautifully what Iran set out to do- to break the diplomatic rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world. Netanyahu and his supporters had to engage in this brutal reprisal to salvage the image that they had created amongst the voters as the guarantors of Israeli security. Israel should have used overwhelming force and decimated Gaza if it truly wanted to eliminate Hamas. Netanyahu would have gotten away with it if the Israeli army had been able to do it in a couple of months. Western opinion was on their side. But arms supply and intelligence support from Iran to Hamas denied any victory to the tepid response of the Israeli military. The images beamed by Al-Jazeera and BBC to the West made sure Israel lost the perception battle, too.
The current war in Gaza has nothing to do with the emancipation of the Palestinians for whom nobody, Arab or the West, gives a damn. Sadly, Palestenians are nothing but collateral damage in this despicable struggle by major powers. The Western media represented by NYT, WP and BBC, whom the misguided Lefties have captured, have successfully influenced the self-righteous students at the Ivy League colleges. The students think their struggles will bring peace and security to the Palestinians. Talk about naiveté of the high achievers at Ivy League universities.
The Ukraine war has neatly weaned away the mightiest European power- Germany, from getting too close to Russia through energy dependence. Also, the war made the nations sitting on the fence rush to join NATO. As these goals have been achieved, it's just a matter of time before the Ukraine war will end with large territories seeded to Russia. This has proven a big defeat to Russians and the Chinese and stopping them in their tracks in implementing a new order in Europe.
The Russians were emboldened in their belief to force a new order in West Asia with its victory in Syria. Two years ago, Iran & Russia successfully thwarted the military takeover of Syria by forces close to the US. On behalf of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas play a vital role in keeping the Horn of Africa and Palestinian inhabited areas unstable. Iran will keep the region unstable until there is a settlement amongst Western powers and Iran/Russia/China on their sphere of influence. The West will have to vacate the South China Sea, reduce its presence in ME and the Horn of Africa and stop sanctioning Iran and Russia.
We are witnessing the indecisiveness of Western powers to provide leadership in West Asia by NOT challenging the sections of corrupt social media, which has been successfully captured by the Left and controlled to a certain extent by Iran/Russia/China, enabling them to usher in their order.
I think your argument is a a bit imprecise in ways that leave gaps in the reasoning.
For instance, here is a position (the one I happen to hold) that deals with every objection you raise.
From a pure military/strategic POV Israel's best move was to seize a buffer zone around the fence and fucking cover it in mines (using oct 7th support to push past whining about Ottawa convention) then retreat back. And if there are any targets that they've been wanting to strike do that too. Yes, I agree that this is politically very hard to sell [1] so I don't blame them for going in initially but they could have pulled out after a week -- and the idea that Hamas is deterred by inflicting losses isn't likely (unless you can get to leadership in Qatar) -- they are never going to decide they'd rather allow Israel to exist than to get bombed.
And yes, Hamas does benefit from Israel launching this kind of attack, both in international pressure and, most importantly, bc every Palestinian who losses a loved one gets easier to recruit. But just because Hamas is better off than if Israel hadn't invaded doesn't mean they are better off if Israel pushed through to the end.
Hamas does best of Israel goes 95% of the way through Gaza but leaves their command and control plus top military commanders intact. So Hamas is negotiating now because they've realized all the benefits and would like to avoid paying the price of rebuilding the military arm.
So it's absolutely true that Israel choose a path that inflicted huge casualties on the suffering people of Gaza while not helping their security but also true that at this point they probably should finish the clearing. And while Israel should have done better it's hard to imagine any other democracy would have done better. So it's still sad and unfortunate and wrong if understandable.
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1: No country doesn't respond when attacked like this. It's the international relations version of deciding not to stop paying for your neice to attend Oxford after you catch your brother banging your wife -- a saint would do it but it's hard but after a week Israel could have pulled back and followed my plan.
Great argument. I think the one mistake Israel might have made was in not attacking Rafa early in the campaign and sealing off the border with Egypt as one of its first objectives.
They were hoping Egypt would take Gazan refugees.
Israel should have attacked the entire Gaza with devastating force and pulverized it. Now Hamas and thereby Iran, has got Israel in a terrible situation.
Interesting article (for me as someone who can be described as islamist) but few observations on some statements and assumptions:
1) Regarding the videos "These videos could plausibly serve two purposes: first, to terrorize the Israeli population and push them to consider leaving the Middle East; second, to broadcast the glory of October 7th to Hamas' allies and potential recruits." I think part of it as well can be seen as motivator to current recruits + documentations for further assaults/attacks so either make it more effective/humane (from strategy perspective)
2) "When your enemy is surrounded by allies on all sides, reallocating resources is rarely a loss." I think this argument assumes coherence/coordination between actors in this conflict, this is simply not true because of long historical data, but because even the information coming after October 7th shows there has been miscoordination with Hezabollah and other allies in the region. Further, geopolitical situation has shifted dramatically post-2011 (more powerful regimes has allied with Israel like Gulf monarchies (now funding a lot Israelis startups in technology, security and environment), while others have grown more dysfunctional (e.g. Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon) due to proxy conflicts or more authoritarian (Jordan and Egypt) as they rely on aid and closer relations for Israel (although in reality, they might be losing more grounds in their natural resources disputes).
3) I think your dismissal of option 2 is very devoid from empirical evidence, because as seen with Iran, Israel can manage precisely targeted killing (for more details, look at shadow commander by Arash Azizi) and evokes very little response from the opponents. I think you hit some truth "Isn’t this an argument to never respond to an unprovoked attack?" but again, unprovoked attack can be similarly described to Israel's attack in Syria on the building near Iranian consulate during the conflict but because this plays into how actors define themselves in the conflict (Israel made the argument that it itself is still at war with Syria or because this building is belonging to terrorists (now clearly an overstretched concept and excludes states)
4) Your conclusion about state vs non-state distinction and its impact on international order is true, but the real enemies in this system were not the terrorists (aka non-state actors), it is the big state-actors (especially US) as 1) it expanded the notion of military intervention to humanitarian intervention under R2P (from Yugoslavia to Libya) 2) it expanded the notion of self-defense legally (since starting the famous war on terror post-9/11) 3) US keeps blocking recognition of Palestinian state (while occasionally helped non-state actors legally), it is a great obstruction, plus the only the group of international organizations that recognized Palestine (like UNESCO, IFAD and etc) were defunded by US (the fees paid to rejoin is around $619 in 2023). For a good article (coming from anti-Islamist and my professor in international law check https://aps.aucegypt.edu/en/articles/1347/accountability-for-palestinian-life-lost-in-the-fog-of-law)
5) Your starting assumption (about both actors' immorality [while I reject]) makes sense, but I think overall, the argument for immorality is higher on the side of Israeli because as my professor (ba'athist) noted here that Israel never tried to exercise any soft power during the years and continue to act immorally even when concessions have made by Arabs (not even trying to build school or hospital) put here by https://orient-online.com/orient-i-2024-perspectives-on-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/ under title Carnage of Hard power (Walid Kazziha)
Really appreciate you engaging constructively. I'll process in a bit and respond.
Immorality and amorality are two totally different things. It's a fine difference but a huge one.
Immoral means to have a sense of morality but to go against it.
Amoral means to have no sense whatever of morality.
I apologize if this sounds patronizing - I don't mean to sound like internet Karen but this is important.
Now, with respect to amorality, in its correct sense....
Any discussion of human actions, and especially war, that assume "amorality" are entertaining and superficially impressive but ultimately sterile and (sorry) fundamentally dishonest.
I'd suggest another word: pragmatic. From the Greek: "relating to fact."
Again: this is not Karening. It's trying to get at the truth. Which in this case may be that Hamas has won by controlling the emotions of its enemy.
Thank you for the correction, it is indeed my mistake that I misread the author's usage of words. Second, I think the word "controlling" indicates that Hamas is actively working to spread propaganda to control emotions, however, I think Israel might be the one doing more (in this domain) as opposed to Hamas, not because Israel is necessarily more evil (or knows that they are miscalculating/impulsive), but rather due to the fact that Hamas is much weaker institutionally, and even their backers (Qatar, Algeria, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain and Turkey [all have dangerous calculations to make in how they support specially as Middle East changes now])
" controlling the emotions of its enemy."
Yes, words are important here so I might have put that better. It might have been better to say "Hamas has won by using tactics that they know from experience evoke a predictable response from Israelis."
(There is a whole world of meaning in that but I won't bore you with it, suffice it to say that this "response" dates back to the so-called Jibril deal, and onto the Shalit deal).
Of course Israel has choices & no entity or country "controls" what they do, except perhaps the US, for obvious reasons. But not even that.
Hamas knows what they're doing.
That's actually a really good idea. Build an alternative hospital and school. The question is if Gazans would want that. Either way, trying to do so would help Israel's case..
Brilliant analysis a la Sun Tzu’s Art of War. One can deduce strategies from the book that find no place in the handiwork of those responsible for resolving the Gaza conflict .
In essence, "The Art of War" offers timeless wisdom on navigating the complexities of conflict, providing guidance on strategy, leadership, and resolution that transcends its historical context.
Interesting analysis, Vaishnav.
This was mine, published some months ago in a peacebuilding/ conflict management newsletter: https://beyondintractability.substack.com/p/newsletter-191?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=797931&post_id=140234905&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=2pal6b&triedRedirect=true
Just read your piece. Loved the prescriptions for peace building that you end with - on the money.
Hamas's objective is to mobilize Western Leftists against Israel. Sacrificing the whole Gazan population for that goal is worthwhile to them.
Western Leftists represent enough power to defeat Israel. Hamas otherwise doesn't nearly have that power.
I think it's reasonable to argue that if the Western Left wasn't so ludicrously woke, Hamas would not have perpetrated October 7 in the first place. The payoff wasn't there.
Thank you.
Israel had the option of going into Gaza and taking 10 times the hostages that Hamas took, and leaving it at that. The world could’ve accepted this. But as it is, they have gained little and lost a lot.
For sure the world would not have accepted that at all. Furthermore it would have been pointless because Hamas would never release their Israeli hostages for 10x as many Palestinians.
Very helpful! Thank you.
Hamas and the IDF have been engaged for long enough that each knows the other's strategies. Given several Arab countries were starting to recognise Israel and establish formal relations with it, the audacity of their October attack was likely designed to provoke a massively disproportionate response from Israel that would cause massive structural damage and massive civilian casualties - so deterring corner Arab countries from recognising Israel, increasing support for firm and their cause (even if many of their fighters got wiped out, their ideology would love on, particularly along the remaining Gazan population) and put a further nail in the coffin of the Two State Solution (which has been dead for decades: Israel doesn't really want one either, hence many of the proposals since the Oslo Accords would have been both unworkable and unimplementable, typically with the Palestinian State being a serious of largely disconnected enclaves comprising Areas A and B, with Israel retaining the bulk of Area C and controlling borders, airspace and transmissions - in effect the Palestinian State would be partially autonomous regions of Israel with no representation in the Knesset as they'd depend on Israel for access, movement between enclaves, utility supplies, plus imports and exports of prey much everything, having virtually no land to grow anything). Hamas likely regards the civilian population of Gaza as little more than expendable pawns, and it likely thought its fighters would retreat to the tunnels in areas with active IDF operations (although in reality, it seems many of them didn't). For their part, the IDF likely have an apathetic approach to the residents of Gaza: they have to give some notice of impending air strikes, but the more notice they give, the more time there is for any Hamas fighters to leave the area with all their weaponry and ammunition; while in ground operations, anyone could be a potential fighter, so it's lookalike tempting to regard anyone not wearing an IDF uniform as a potential target - hence the killing of three of their own escaped hostages and the aerial attack on the aid workers. Such killings aren't authorisation from above, but collateral damage fuelled by paranoia. Added onto which, while they don't deliberately target civilians (just buildings that had a lot of both civilians and militants in a few minutes beforehand, but they've been given notice to leave, so if any didn't make it out in time, it's their own fault), the fewer people there are in Gaza, the fewer there are who can potentially become fighters. If it could get away with it under international law, it would likely quite like to send the residents of Gaza elsewhere. Meanwhile, over in the West Bank, there's apparently been an up surge in Settler attacks on Palestinian settlements and farms / orchards, as some in the Settler community have the polar opposite ideology to Hamas (but a more subtle way of demonstrating it): Israel should be a Jewish Only State from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, so Gentiles should be encouraged / coerced to leave (and it seems that as long as they restrict themselves to property damage, they'll go unpunished).
My understanding is there are Hams leaders in Qatar who are still alive. Perhaps a targeted strike option that began with killing them would have had more teeth.
The option Israel is pursuing is doomed to failure. You cannot destroy Hamas. A new crop will simply replace those killed, unless you go for outright genocide, which they ruled out for obvious reasons.
I cannot emphasize enough how dumb this is. And I’m not blaming you because it’s clearly not reported well in the media.
The Hamas leaders in Qatar are figureheads. Puppets. They run Hamas like Iranians and Russians have free and fair elections. Even if killing Hamas leadership would suffice for Israel to reclaim deterrence (it wouldn’t), killing Haniyeh and the Qatar-based leadership wouldn’t even accomplish that.
Sinwar and Deif run Hamas now. End of story. And they’re in Gaza, underground, surrounded by Israeli hostages as human shields.
I suspected that. So why is the US supporting Israel and Saudis? What do we get out of this? Why don't we just leave and wash our hands of the whole thing?
The Israel lobby in the U.S. almost entirely controls its Mideast foreign policy.
Iran is a theocratic authoritarian psycho regime arming terrorist proxies everywhere and aligned fully with Russia and China? That should be good enough but to top it off, Saudi and Israel are actual allies, and blowing off your allies when they need help is a recipe for simply not having allies, and ceding world hegemony to China. And suffice it to say, a world under Chinese hegemony would be very unpleasant for people accustomed to American freedom.
Saudi Arabia is a theocratic authoritarian regime, whose wealthy citizens support Sunni terrorists, such as those who attacked us on 911. And it was Saudis who led the embargo against us in 1973.
As for Israel, backing them is what got us the embargo and 911.
These aren't allies, they're clients.
Saudi Arabia and UAE have engaged since 9/11 on a de-radicalization process of their populations. Attempting to de-Islamisticize (if I can invent a word) them: have them focus more on economic development, global integration, to some extent socially liberalize, and in particular to turn away from Islamism: forcing austere Islamic practices on population and fighting wars abroad in the name of Allah. Idk how thorough these efforts are, or if the rulers imposing are too corrupt/incompetent to truly succeed. But it strikes as most successful/best sort of effort around, certainly better than the West's Democracy Now agenda or demanding whatever social liberalism is en vogue in the West at a given moment.
The Saudi leader is a thug, same as Putin and the Iranian leadership, and a dictator like Xi. Furthermore, the relationship with all these Middle East regimes is one sided, they want stuff and offer nothing in return.
https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/friedman-writes-another-love-letter
The US is no longer the unipower. Chinese military potential is far greater than ours and will over time be converted into actual power. The US needs to follow the example of the emperor Hadrian and pull back from flashpoints that can only drain our strength.
It makes sense to oppose Russia in Ukraine because our European allies, are ponying up more than half of the support going to Ukraine. Furthermore, Ukraine *wants* to join the West and already has a Western-style republican-style government. They can serve as a Western ally well positioned wrt the Russian heartland. I've argued that the US might be able to strike a deal with Russia, whereby they withdraw back to pre-2014 borders and agree to a non-aggression pact for 5 years, and the US leaves NATO and withdraws entirely from Europe over than 5 years. This is a win for Ukraine, a win for Putin (this has been a top goal for him and would make the war worthwhile in the eyes of his peers). Europe can easily afford a military to deter a future attack, but without the US is far too weak to threaten Russia offensively.
You can destroy those tunnels though, and you can make the war so miserable that the new crop gets second thoughts about how soon they want to start the next one.
Sherman in the Civil War said his goal was "to make them [the Confederates] so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it."
Yep, destroy the tunnels, control the border. Without imports of weapons and materials, Hamas can't build the tunnels and can't launch the rockets. That would solve the problem permanently.
Make who miserable? Ordinary Palestinians, about whom Hama doesn't give a shit? Or Hamas grunts, who may well welcome death as their ticket to paradise, and about whom Hama leaders don't give a shit either.
The US does this over and over again. They assume that non-democratic leaders can be persuaded to alter their political strategy by making their common people suffer. It is cruel, doesn't work, is hence supremely stupid.
The only Hamas members whom one might make miserable as a form of deterrence would be the leaders of the movement living lives of luxury outside of Gaza. Nothing Israel does militarily in Gaza directly affects them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatari_support_for_Hamas
The Hamas grunts, yes, and the middle management that lives in Gaza instead of Qatar. It's about sapping their enthusiasm for future warfare by making present warfare as miserable as possible.
As for the leaders in luxury hotels, ideally they would be assassinated, but that's a separate campaign.
It's certainly false that Israel has "leveled most of Gaza". 50% of Gaza City buildings were destroyed or "damaged", but for sure most of Gaza is not leveled. Israel is only targeting legitimate military targets, after clearing civilians as much as possible. Since Egypt will not take refugees (unlike every other war where refugees leave the area) there is no chance of ethnic cleansing.