Israel's Arrogance

Surprising many nations leaders, Israel has not only initiated a massively imbalanced attack on a largely civilian section of the Gaza Strip, its forces intend to continue the attacks. The Palestinians have suffered more than 280 dead and 600 wounded, as compared to one Israeli citizen dead from a rocket attack on Saturday. At what stage do we need to ask, what the hell are you doing, O Israel?

After the sharp shock of the massive air assault that took Hamas by surprise on Saturday, Israel appeared to be setting in for a longer haul. The government on Sunday approved the emergency call up of thousands of army reservists in preparation for a possible ground operation as Israeli troops, tanks, armored personnel carriers and D-9 armored bulldozers amassed at points all along the border with Gaza.

Speaking before the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the army “will deepen and broaden its actions as needed” and “will continue to act.”

At dusk Israeli fighter jets bombed over 40 tunnels along Gaza’s border with Egypt. The Israeli military said the tunnels that were attacked, on the Gaza side of the border, were used for smuggling weapons, explosives and fugitives. Palestinians and Israeli officials say there are hundreds of tunnels running beneath the border. Gazans also use many of them to import consumer goods and fuel in order to get around the Israeli-imposed economic blockade.
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Israel has said that its goal is not to reoccupy Gaza, which it left unilaterally in 2005, but as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert put it on Sunday, to “restore normal life and quiet to residents of the South.”

Hamas is sworn to Israel’s destruction. It won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 and forcibly took control of Gaza the next year. An Egyptian-brokered six-month truce between Israel and Hamas, always shaky, began to seriously unravel in early November and expired altogether ten days ago.

I understand that Hamas is not helping by its stupidity in continuing the rocket attacks and refusing to back off its goals of destroying Israel. However, Israel's deliberate slaughter casual disregard of noncombatant deaths, aimed to ensure that its southern citizens can sleep easy at night, is equally idiotic. And of course, our government plays the fool by blaming Hamas for Israel's overreaction. It's not enough for the Bush administration to have failed in stablizing Iraq, engaging Iran, assisting Lebanon, and negotiating with Syria - it has to fail throughout the entire Middle East region.

If Obama had any sense, he'd tell the Israeli government to cease operations or face the immediate end of all US financial aid to its government - civil, military, whatever. Its continued and deliberate failure to make any progress on the two-nation solution is abismal. It's about time our government stop aiding and abetting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and start stabilizing the Middle East region.

UPDATE: Hilzoy more articulately expresses my point of view. Rob Farley also hits the nail on the head.

UPDATE 2: Edited based on Jay's comment (thanks, Jay).

Comments

[Jay]

Deliberate slaughter of non-combatants? Are you suggesting Israel is willy-nilly targeting civilians? Or are you suggesting that Hamas embeds their launch sites within the civilian populace so that any retaliation by Israel will result in civilian casualties? Wikipedia has combined rocket/mortar attacks from Gaza at 3000 for this year.
I think Israel is making a mistake but how about a little bit of balance here, J.

[daskro]

Also important to note that reports are saying that the IDF sent text messages to civilians living in Gaza to abandoned residential areas that may contain weapons, rockets and launchers. It seems for all the talk of slaughter and insinuations of deliberate attacks against civilians that actions such as these would not have taken place.

Also this point of cutting off military aid comes up over and over again in these discussion but rarely does anyone take note that this aid is based largely on the Camp David Accords, a peace treaty that would end the frequent wars between Egypt and Israel. Cutting off military aid to Israel would create an imbalance in military aid in the region and Israel will see an apparent and real enemy across the canal. Such a perception and the actions taken because of it will be out of the hands of the US and up to instead the unilateral acts of a nuclear state. My condolences to the plight of the Palestinians but I'd rather much see them in a state of disarray than total war engaged between Israel and Egypt.

[J.]

"Cutting off military aid to Israel would create an imbalance in military aid in the region and Israel will see an apparent and real enemy across the canal."

Maybe that was true in 1978, but that hardly represents the current state of affairs. If we are giving $1.3 billion a year to Egypt and $3 billion a year to Israel because of a 27-year old accord and we still have the same conditions as then, maybe we ought to re-examine the aid packages right now. Clearly something isn't working, and throwing money at the problem (while easy and the typical US govt solution) ought not be continued.

[Sam]

I love the various statements different organs of our government are putting out regarding the current phase of the Arab/Israeli conflict, as well:

From the White House:

"Asked if the administration believes it permissible for Israel to launch attacks in Gaza, Johndroe said: 'The United States understands that Israel needs to take actions to defend itself.'

"'Hamas has once again shown its true colors as a terrorist organization that refuses to even acknowledge Israel exists," he said."

From the State Department:

"We are encouraging all the nations in the region to take an active part in rebuilding the cease-fire so that we can return to the relative calm that was enjoyed in the region over the past six months," [State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid] told reporters. "We are working for a cease-fire now where Hamas must stop its rocket attacks on Israel. All sides then need to respect the ceasefire."

So, point #1: Hamas is a terrorist organization and Israel is completely justified in waging war against them in Gaza.

Point #2: It is therefore critically important for security and peace efforts in the region that the war stop in Gaza.

Look, I almost don't care which signal we send anymore--either Israel should fight Hamas, or they shouldn't--but can we at least send a single clear and concise signal of our diplomatic stance on the issue? Of course we've failed to advance the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians over the past eight years: no one can tell whether we're actually in favor of peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis or not.

[Sven Ortmann]

Hamas: Looks to me as if they NEED an external foe to rally their people, to maintain power despite a miserable living in Gaza.

Israel: It seems to be the same to a lesser degree, but the bigger reason for its behavior seems to be that they simply cannot hold back for years during a very minor harassment.

The military reactions of Israel (and this includes all since the end (cease-fire) of the Yom Kippur War) are detrimental to its security and interests.
They seem to be unable to do the right thing - show the other cheek. They proved that military reactions cannot end the very minor harassment, so there's really no good reason for the military actions at all.

At this point I say that Egypt should take over Gaza - and foreign moderators in the conflict should exert the necessary pressure (incentives and threats) on Egypt to do exactly that.
Jordan isn't powerful enough to regain control of West Bank, but Egypt could easily swallow Gaza. That would eliminate Hamas and there would again be a state responsible for Israel's security at that border.

I don't buy the 'Israel can justify its (counter-)attacks' line of many comments in politics and media. That's too short-sighted, primitive.
Even self-defense isn't justified if it makes only matters worse (even for the defender).
Any violence that worsens the situation is despicable and illegitimate.

[daskro]

Perhaps the Camp David Accord does need to be re-examined, but at the same time there are policy circles who view the threat of conflict between Egypt and Israel much more likely than with Syria or Iran. I view Obama as much more of a realist than Bush and suspect that he will surely take into consideration the larger impact a military void would create in the region if funds were cut off from either party.

[Anonymous Is A Woman]

You do realize that Hamas opposes a two state solution and the majority of Israelis support a two state solution? Do you also realize that a long time tactic of Hamas, and allies like Hezbollah, is to launch its missiles, house its leaders, and set up its headquarters in heavily populated civilian areas, using its own citizens as human shields?

None of this is either new or undocumented.

[Sven Ortmann]

The "human shield" accusation is more often wrong than correct.

It's not human shielding if you fire from a residential area, even not if you fire from the top of a school.

"Human shielding" is when you take civilians/POWs to militarily especially relevant locations. To transport POWs /hostages in a train just to protect the train against guerrilla bombs would be human shielding.
Cities have been and are legitimate places for combat even if not evacuated.

Btw; about half of the Gaza strip is residential area, pretty much everything else is open fields. They're not dumb. Camping in the open is unacceptable.

[Freddie]

I still don't think anyone here "gets it". There will never, ever be peace in that region as long as Israel exists. The Palestinians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese, and Syrians are against the existance a Israel as a state; numerous times, political and religious leaders from these countries have made statements calling for ousting the Israelis.

BTW, has anyone picked up a history book and researched the splitting of the Arab lands in the 1920's? You'd be surprised to learn the Arabs gave absolutely no thought to the "palestinians" when the Arabs split the land. The "palestinians" are an excuse for muslims to raise hell.

[Sven Ortmann]

The Arabs will indeed most likely consider Israel as an alien thorn in their flesh forever (and eventually succeed to remove it just like they removed the crusaders after several generations).

Israel's grand strategy should be keep its ties to the Western World on which it depends entirely as strong as possible.

Barbary of all sorts and ignoring UNSC resolutions cannot be part of such a grand strategy - this stuff is contra-productive for them.

[J.]

Freddie, I acknowledge that the Arab nations are clearly not friends of the Palestinians and certainly there is no unified Arab position on the issue. However, given that we had an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on a two-state solution, is there any doubt that both Israel and Hamas are screwing it up beyond all recognition?

I'd like to think that I am clear-eyed enough to appreciate that Hamas has no good intentions toward a peaceful co-existence with Israel. That doesn't excuse the Israeli tactics of blockades to starve off the legitimate enterprises in Gaza, allowing illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and generally taking actions that only increase the swamp that breeds terrorist recruits.

If Israel spent half the money it uses in subjugating Palestinians on projects to increase its infrastructure and trade opportunities, it would be far more likely of success and perhaps even establishment of a more responsible Palestinian government. But that opportunity is all shot to hell right now.