Democracy and Irony

One of the ironies of the Israel/Palestine question is that it is Israel's dual-nature that leads to this being an ongoing question. That Israel at once aids the population that sends rockets and suicide bombers into its midst, and yet won't take the real, serious steps necessary to create a true and lasting peace is a testament both to its humanity and its indecision--in a sense, to its democracy. Democracy is a fickle thing. Strong actions that are non-military are extremely hard to push through the halls of Parliament, or Congress, or the Knesset or what have you.

As Bush said, and I paraphrase: "This would be a lot easier if this were a dictatorship. As long as I was the dictator."

It's the ugly beauty of any democratic society. The masses are more easily pushed toward guns and glory. Freedom and the ability to choose our leaders gives us such a great deal of power to avoid getting anything done. Thus things are only completed to the halfway mark. Israel exits unilaterally from Gaza, yet leaves the West Bank occupied.

Half-measures are one of the curses of democracies. Then again, you run such a high risk of getting stuck with a bad leader when in any other system of governance. Watching the transition of power between Bush and Obama is testament to this. Democracy, coupled with the rule of law, is a fantastic thing. The one without the other, though.

You get Gaza.

In the comments...

In the comments below:

Max writes: "The fact remains that settlers in general hold strong anti-Palestinian sentiment, and could not be a civil component of a Palestinian state. That should be argument enough for forced removal."

TNC asks: "Is this also an argument for the forced removal of anti-Zionist Arabs from Israel? If not, why not?"

Good point.

My thoughts, off the top of my head--anti-Zionist Arabs do not present the same level of political inertia that the settlers in the West Bank can. In other words, the settlers represent an actual obstacle to a two-state solution, whereas the anti-Zionist Arabs present no such obstacle. They may, however, present a security threat, and once the two-state solution is realized, there may be a case for some forced-immigration to Palestine, though I would hope not.

The major difference, I suppose, is the Israelis are settling in the West Bank. I'm pretty sure the Israeli Arabs have been in Israel proper since 1948.

Just some thoughts.

Here's one more question: Can a Palestinian State ever become a reality with two disparate geographical regions (Gaza and the West Bank) separated by Israel in the center? Is this a possibility or merely a pipedream? Are we dealing with anything more than the geography of defeat, and do we need a new partition?

The Discussion is Like a Reflection of the Conflict Itself

What I loathe, and why I enter conversations on the Israel/Palestine conflict with such trepidation, such fear & loathing, is how the conversation so perfectly mirrors the conflict itself. You have your very loud voices on the fringes, the one claiming that Israel was part and parcel stolen from Arabs and should be given back en masse, and you have the other claiming that Palestinians should suffer because they elected Hamas, or that they should somehow just accept their position as second-class citizens without question, or just choose to live in peace with Israel, and that all criticisms of Israel are bigoted or are examples of moral relativity etc. etc. etc.

Then you have all these quiet voices in the "center" though I'm not so sure that's the right word anymore. All these quite, reasonable voices trying to piece things together, trying to dig up the truth, constantly thwarted by those in the wings, shouting them down--equating them with the other fringe.

There are apologists for terror, for war, for whatever that are part of this debate but they are fewer and louder than the rest of us.

Can't I be pro-Israel and still decry this invasion into Gaza? Can't I see a picture of an 80 year old Gazan woman, with no home, no family, sitting forlornly and alone on a pile of rubble and believe that this is just wrong. No matter what, this is wrong--it's not helping anything! Nobody has shown, proved, demonstrated how this military action is anything beyond political posturing, or how it will achieve anything at all, or how the blockade of Gaza is actually pro-Israel somehow. Just because it's anti-Palestinian does not make it pro-Israel. And the opposite is true, isn't it? Just because it's anti-Israel doesn't mean it's helpful to the Palestinians. If Syria and Iran were to make peace with Israel and stop funding terror, they'd likely to a great deal more to help the plight of the Palestinians than their current "aid" does.

How to combat these extremists, on both sides, is an open question. I'm not a "moderate" in that lukewarm sense of the word. I'm extremely upset by all of this, and I think some very strong measures need to be taken--but not to benefit the fringes, but to benefit the maintstream, in all its diverse, normal, unremarkable ways...

Two States and the Settlement Question

From discussion elsewhere, in a follow-up to this post...

Commenter:

I think you hit the mark dead on concerning the point of the idiocy of Walt's hypothetical. One point you do not discuss is the context leading up to the 6 Day War. Why was "Palestine" not founded sometime during, say, '44-48? (Lack of will and Arab assistance.) Why was land set apart for a Jewish state in the first place? (Holocaust.) Certainly Walt doesn't address this. So, you correctly squelch his premise.

One point I will pick with you is the issue of settlements. The stubborn Palestinian insistence upon rejecting Jews in their midst has led to even more separatism, let alone the economic consequences. If the whole world insists upon integration of Arabs into Jewish Israel, why do they not condemn Palestinians for their discrimination? Would not both of the "two nations" be better off for inclusion of the other? More discrimination will just result in more separatism. Indeed, it has with the outlawing of Arab political participation this week in Israel.

By far, Palestinians are guiltier of insisting upon separation...while still insisting upon freedom to come in and out of Israel at will...while publicly threatening suicide bombings. They are not known for their reason.

Me:

Why was land set apart for a Jewish state in the first place? (Holocaust.)

Not at all, actually. The Zionist movement and British support for it predated the Holocaust, which came later and did, indeed, spur global Jewish support (and immigration). But no, that was not why land was set aside--in fact, much land was actually bought and paid for by the Zionists, though after 48/49 the borders were re-drawn and indeed some land was stolen from the Arabs.

The reason Palestine was never founded was that Jordan and Egypt occupied the West Bank and Gaza, and now Israel does.

One point I will pick with you is the issue of settlements. The stubborn Palestinian insistence upon rejecting Jews in their midst has led to even more separatism, let alone the economic consequences.

Again, I'll have to disagree. The Israelis simply have no business building settlements in the West Bank. They have every right to defend themselves, to even (to some extent) redraw the pre-1967 borders, but until they exit the West Bank it will be literally IMPOSSIBLE to achieve a two-state solution. Find me one Israeli settler who would live willingly in a Palestinian State, not as an Israeli settler, but as a citizen of Palestine.

If you can't find any, then there is no reasonable way to assume peace can be achieved at the same time as massive and widespread settlement of the West Bank. It is counter-intuitive and, I think, comes at too great a cost.

I agree that an ideal Two-State solution would include Israeli Arabs and Palestinian Jews...but the latter is simply not practical. Israelis will never consent to Palestinian rule, and thus have to go back to Israel if Palestine is ever to be realized.

Commenter:

Yes, you are correct about the Jordan/Egypt lack of interest in the Palestinian state before Israel got possession of the land.

You think Israelis have no business in Gaza, what do you think about Palestinians living in Israel? No inconsistency there vis-a-vis long term solutions? Smarter people than I have agreed with you on the settlement issue and I have yet to hear a coherent answer to these questions.

Me:

Palestinians--well, actually Israeli Arabs live in Israel, many of whom consider themselves such, some who would rather go to Palestine if that State were created. It's not really inconsistent, as by all rights, under the initial agreement (which Egypt and Jordan broke, not the Palestinians) Israel was given a certain territory, and the Palestinians were given a certain territory. Never once, save by the law of the sword, was Israel ever permitted to settle Gaza or the West Bank.

And I would say, regarding the law of the sword, "He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

There must be a better way.

How to go about un-settling the West Bank? It's so hard to say. This is where American aid becomes so vital, I think. Israel unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza, and the subsequent FOOLISH push for elections there by the US, was such a messy affair that we ended up getting a quasi-legitimate Hamas.

In any case, anybody serious about Two States has to figure out what to do about the settlements. Terror can be fought, but these settlers have political weight within Israel. It's going to be much more difficult to find a way forward there than against the Hamas threat.

Also important to remember is many of the West Bank settlers were born there, and are not guilty of anything whatsoever. All they've known is life in the settlements. Yet they will eventually pay a price for it, guilt or no.

______________________________________________________

I thought it was a good supplement to the post, anyways. Am I wrong in my responses?

A Hypothetical Gaza

Stephen Walt has spurred much conversation and controversy with his hypothetical in which the Arabs win the 6-day-war and drive the Jews into Gaza where they are conversely oppressed until:

...a group of hardline Orthodox Jews took over control of that territory and organized a resistance movement. They also steadfastly refused to recognize the new Palestinian state, arguing that its creation was illegal and that their expulsion from Israel was unjust. Imagine that they obtained backing from sympathizers around the world and that they began to smuggle weapons into the territory. Then imagine that they started firing at Palestinian towns and villages and refused to stop despite continued reprisals and civilian casualties.

Here's the question: would the United States be denouncing those Jews in Gaza as "terrorists" and encouraging the Palestinian state to use overwhelming force against them?

Here's another: would the United States have even allowed such a situation to arise and persist in the first place?

To me this question doesn't even merit too serious a response, yet I will give it my best. The circumstances would be so utterly different. For one, Israel is already surrounded by Arab States, closed off, in a sense, from her neighbors. It is already (and was more so pre-1967) a sort of Gaza, albeit a rather strong and wealthy one by comparison. Nevertheless, it is a country surrounded on virtually all sides by hostile enemies and less hostile allies.

Had the Jews been driven into some Imagined Gaza, and suffered the same constraints the Arabs suffer in the Real Gaza, obviously much of the world would take pity on them. Surely the vast majority of humanity has a tendency to root for the underdog, after all.

However, and here's the sticking-point, Palestine would never have come into being, so the presupposition that somehow the hard-liners in this Imagined Gaza would not recognize the "State of Palestine" is simply an absurdity too great even for the hypothetical.

Had Israel actually lost the Six Day War, and been driven from Israel, then the outcome would have been a divided Palestine, wherein Egypt, Syria, and Jordan all took slices. Likely enough, Jerusalem and the West Bank would have gone to Jordan (which would perhaps once again take on the mantle of Transjordan) and the Holy City, if anything, would occupy a greater global scrutiny than the questions that Walt asks.

Even likelier, the Jews would not have been plotted off in a Gaza-like region, but forced into yet another Diaspora. Many would likely have been massacred by the various Arab factions, whose leaders have never blanched at massacring their own and would likely not bat an eye at killing off the defeated Israelis.

Even were Palestine somehow to have emerged as a Sovereign Nation, certainly no Arab Government there would ever tolerate rocket-fire into its borders, or truck in aid to its citizens, and would respond without doubt more harshly than Israel has responded to the Gazans. This is not in any sense a justification for the Israeli actions, or blockade, or the policies of its Government, which have often been stubborn, intransigent, and foolish. But I see no historical evidence that would allow for any more humanitarian treatment should the tables be turned.

So back to Walt's questions:

Here's the question: would the United States be denouncing those Jews in Gaza as "terrorists" and encouraging the Palestinian state to use overwhelming force against them?

Hard to answer since this situation would never have occurred under an Arab conquest of Israel. Had it, somehow defying all evidence to the contrary, I'm sure it would be denounced by much of the world. Then again, the Arabs started the 67 war, so not only would they be the victors, but also the aggressors. Digging deeper into Walt's point, I agree that the US should do more to constructively criticize Israel. After all, the one-sided outlook hasn't helped anybody, and at some point the US will have to help save Israel from itself--largely by denouncing the settlements in the West Bank. However, no excuse for Palestinian terrorism need be given. The terror, from either side--and there were, in the lead-up to Statehood, many Jewish terrorist groups as well, not to mention British officers acting as terrorists, and of course many Arabs playing that role from the earliest days.

I digress. Back to Walt:

Here's another: would the United States have even allowed such a situation to arise and persist in the first place?

Did the United States intervene in '67? Likely we would have let Israel fall at that point, and would have done very little to prevent the ensuing massacre. Had the Israelis actually been cordoned off into Gaza (Arabs do live in Israel proper, by the way) then I suppose it would depend on the situation as it unfolded. Like I said above, I simply don't believe that a Palestinian State would have emerged, so the comparison is almost impossible to make. Had it happened, though, I think America would certainly denounce both sides, though quite likely the Arabs more.

Does this confirm the notion of a too-strong Israel Lobby in the United States? I don't think so, though sometimes I wonder if our politicians are too short-sided. I think the Imagined Palestinian State that would have emerged would seem as foreign to us as the other Arab States in the region, whereas Israel feels a great deal closer to home. We should never underestimate cultural affinity. It has great power to sway public opinion, to shape policy, and to inform how we view the world at large--how we interact globally and across cultures.

Besides that, Israel/Palestine is an oil-free zone. There isn't much more beyond affinity, and trade, that binds us. It is also unlikely that without that cultural affinity we would have formed a trade relationship with Palestine It's hard to imagine a similarly healthy economic or political relationship would have ever developed.

So perhaps the final answer to Walt's question is that this story would have gotten very little Press or global attention at all, and would hardly merit much attention from the US, had all the tables been turned. It would be another in a long litany of terrible world circumstances, from Africa to the Middle East to East Asia that we only spend half a second at a time on.

Little quagmires. Little ripples on the global scene. A speck of dust in our collective conscience. Just another plight to overwhelm our empathy.

Further Reading:

Alex Massie

Daniel Larison

Megan McArdle

Ross Douthat

Peter Suderman

Joe the Plumber Update

I have updates here on PJM criticism of the choice to dispatch JTP to Israel.

From what I've seen of Joe's dispatches, I wonder how any of them can still defend the choice. PJTV should have sent Sarah Palin. At least she has a journalism degree. She could have asked some "gotcha" questions, a la Katie Couric...

some good reading, listening, watching, etc.

Jon Schwenkler of Upturned Earth has an interesting piece up at Cutlure11 on Father Neuhaus. It's a nice, short piece that touches on the good and bad of the man. So many obits and reflection pieces abound right now, from harsh critiques by Andrew Sullivan, to plenty more graceful rememberances.

Jon and Scott Payne and Freddie deBoer have a dialogue on Same-Sex-Marriage at Scott's blog. Well worth the listen. (Freddie links there from his supposedly dormant blog...)

Tony Jones talks about gnosticism at his blog. He has a nice line: 'There's nothing secret about Christianity. There never has been. Let's make sure there never will be."

Mike Pontera thinks Obama, unlike his predecessors, has some "breathing space." We shall see...

And Max Socol has an interesting write-up on the question of cease-fire in Gaza. Jason Corley thinks we should "give war a chance" and while I think the phrasing is a little on the brash side, (though clever) the general idea that Israel ought to finish what it starts is certainly a good one. Different perspectives are always good to have...especially when it is not the ends, but the means that are in question...

Max:

Hamas may ultimately be destroyed by a Gaza takeover. But long after they're dead, it will be Israel that has to live with a new occupation.

It's therefore in our interest to make the ceasefire workable, before a messy invasion. Israel ought to concede to allowing Hamas to maintain oversight of its borders, alongside Israeli forces on their respective border, and international forces along the Egyptian border. I don't know what harm there could be in such a concession, as long as non-Hamas monitors still have access to everything coming in and out. And in exchange for this concession, Israel can demand that international forces be stationed within Gaza, rather than Egypt. Egypt, (which has nearly as much of an interest in concluding this mess, as it is nothing but a daily public relations disaster for Mubarak) for its part, should exert serious pressure on Hamas to accept this trade. And if it is unable to do so, Egypt should accept a multinational force in the Sinai, as a good faith gesture to make up for Hamas's intractability.

In exchange for the total cessation of rocket fire from Gaza, Israel should agree to a formalized schedule for lifting the blockade. This is in any case in Israeli interests, as many have pointed out that miserable conditions in Gaza have done nothing to damage Hamas, and may in fact have strengthened the organization.

Jason:

The message is a clear one. This is the price you pay when groups like Hamas are elected. This is the price terrorist organizations pay when you endanger the lives of citizens of other countries. The lessons and results may be more binding and constructive then permanent evacuations or cease fires that only secure the status quo and, ironically enough, contributes and guarantees more suffering and death in the future.

The region deserves peace and the people of Gaza and Israel deserve to live quietly and securely. I think its time we give war a chance.

It's hard to say what will actually achieve peace. I do hope Israel secures Gaza at least to the point that a lift of the blockade will become possible. I hope, also, that Egypt will find some way to clamp down on smuggling over their borders--not bread, but bombs and rockets and machine guns.

War between democracies?

Does this current conflict count as a war between democracies?

One could also argue that both World Wars had democratic elements to them. After all Germany was a democracy, if an extraordinarily imperfect one, as were the Allied nations. The First World War is a tougher sell, but even so, democratization had occurred to such a point that the war and war effort became almost populist--a dangerous development especially in regards to war and peace.

In any case, to my mind, while democracy is the worst option save for all the others, it is utterly useless without the rule of law, and similarly it is ineffectual at best, and likely temporary, without, as Havers puts it, "the triumph of western liberalism, or the reasonable toleration of minorities within a majoritarian democracy."

This is one of the huge flaws in the philosophy of democracy spreading. It's one thing to spread the ability to vote, but quite another to ensure elections are fair; quite another to ensure that a majority population doesn't just use their democratic advantage to extinguish all opposition.

Our understanding of democracy is flawed because we exist within it--not as outside observers. We exist within a functioning democratic society wherein the rule of law still, for the most part, holds fast. We have not used our powers of empathy enough when considering just how alien democracy must seem to inhabitants of the Middle East--or how opportunistic people in positions of power can be, and what a weapon anarchistic democracy can be. And that's what it is prior to the rule of law, security, etc. It is anarchistic, essentially a ballot box and a void. And as with all voids, something has to fill it--so you see this happening with fledgling democracies. They quickly become totalitarian States, or are overrun by militants or terrorists or authoritarian religious groups.

Remember, unlike our Founding Fathers, the Iraqis and the Palestinians did not have the Magna Carta in their history, nor Parliament, nor a sense even of "taxation without representation" and so had not fostered similar minds or mind-frames as our Founders were blessed with--who saw democracy as a dangerous thing that must be checked and balanced, tended to like a fire and just as deadly and intangible, with great power to do good or ill.

The fact is, democracy settled into American history organically. It was the natural conclusion to centuries of European political evolution and the geographical and technological realities of the day. Such is not the case, not even marginally, in the Middle East.

And so we see two democracies at war. One is that hollow version of democracy, that cheap generic "exported" variety that America thinks can be foisted on all the underdeveloped nations of the world, true. The other is a young, embattled democracy with great potential and great divisions. But they are both democracies, and it does appear that they are at war...

more Palestine geography

I've been writing about the geography of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and have a longer format essay in the works on this question, when I moments ago stop by The Dish and found this gem.

So the settlements appear less like Islands and more like cracks in a windshield, or the burrowed mines of ants. Either way, I imagine settling there is claustrophobic. This certainly illustrates just how difficult it would be for Israel to actually un-settle the West Bank, and similarly how difficult a two-state solution really is.

On settlers etc.

Max responds to my confusion over the intent of settlers. There are extremist settlers, most certainly, but...

settlers are also Israelis of no particular ideological bent, who bought homes in settlements because they worked low-paying jobs, and couldn't afford to live in a city. These people live in places like Gilo and Har Homa, well-established communities whose crimes, while still very relevant to the future of a Palestinian state, are now 30 or 40 years in the past. Enough time, in other words, so that we must now grapple with the idea of second-generation settlers, guilty of nothing more than being born in the wrong place. These people deserve to be resettled fairly, and it should be the duty of Israel and the international community to look out for them just as carefully as we will look out for Palestinian refugees who have to be resettled outside of Israel.

This is a good point, and I know this has been faced on a smaller scale with the Gaza withdrawal, where certainly second (and third?) generation settlers were being removed from their homes, often to massive protests. The West Bank would surely be more difficult.

I like Max's take on the Israel question--and value it especially since he's there, in Israel, and leveling this message at Americans:

"We've been trying to tell the American electorate all along that there are better ways to be a friend to Israel than to give it a blank check and a license to kill -- but nobody listens until there's more blood in the street."

In regards to the impossible contradiction of West Bank settlements and a Palestinian State, Max agrees, and also notes that:

"maintaining such a contradiction has been in the interest of Israeli politicians for many years now, in no small part because of the United States' simplistic, dumb support of this little country."

I think it's good to hear this sort of thing coming out of Israel. And one wonders at the fact that if, as Max states, the Israeli moderates have been humming this tune now for years, why the American public seem so deaf to the message (and I've no doubt that's exactly what moderates have been saying for years, either...). It's possible that the so-called pro-Israel hard-liners are successful because there actually is and has been a very vocal anti-Semitic element to this debate, and they are able to crowd out honest critics of Israeli policy by playing the bigot card.

But I've seen where this sort of "blank check" leads and it tends to be in circles. Bloody circles, endless violence, and heaps and heaps of denial on both sides of the debate.

Just take a step back and read some posts from hard-liners on either side. One thing you won't find is empathy, and another is nuance. I'm afraid those qualities plus a whole lot of creative thinking are going to be necessary to solve this mess.

Oh, and another thing Max mentions in the post is that Israeli moderates are by and large realists when it comes to foreign affairs. In this age of rash neo-imperialism (global trade backed by military might and a rush to lay claim to energy resources) we need all the realists we can get.

Americans need to start supporting Israel the way they would their own country--by asking the tough questions, and demanding a higher level of accountability and common sense. It's our business because it has to be. It's been our business for decades now. Real live people on both sides of this conflict rely on a balanced broker in the US, and it's time they had one.

Oh, and further reading on the subject: Richard Spencer thinks this incursion into Gaza is A Damned Foolish Thing:

When Israel invaded Lebanon two and half years ago, the campaign was, by all conventional measures of military matters, a resounding success. The only problem was that Israel was fighting an asymmetric war—that is, an established nation-state (think F-14 firing missiles) was taking on an amorphous, state-like social charity and terrorism organization (think screaming poor person with a grenade launcher). The funny thing about this kind of conflict is that the little guy usually wins by losing, and the big guy is usually ruined by his success. On CNN International, Israel looked like a horrible monster, and on the proverbial “Arab street,” Hezbollah got cred for standing up to the “Zionist entity.” Hamas, which at the moment is much smaller and less well organized than Hezbollah, will undoubtedly benefit greatly from losing a war to Israel and will soon be rewarded with an enlarged donor base, new recruits, and a reputation for toughness. Getting attacked by the Israelis is good for organization branding.

I recall Max (and others) writing on how this was a push to gain enough security capabilities to actually re-establish pre-1967 borders. Hard to say, but I suppose this is a possibility. Then again, isn't it rather like the cart before the horse?

geography and fear

I keep thinking about this Israel/Palestine conflict in terms of geography. I think there's something here that goes beyond religion or nationalism and gets stopped up on something far more rudimentary--earth and water and the distances between places...

Max writes:

On the first day of the war, there were a few violent protests, not only in the territory but also East Jerusalem and the Old City. But I'm told that they fizzled quickly, and after eating lunch at my favorite place in the Muslim Quarter a few days back, I'm confident in that assessment.

That news is striking in and of itself, but it becomes downright portentous when you recall that, not a week ago, top Hamas officials were calling on West Bank Palestinians to initiate a third intifada. The proclamation alone was enough to send a collective chill through Jerusalem. (I began standing a few extra feet away from fellow bus and taxi travelers, to protect against stabbing. A friend confessed to me that she had gotten herself so worked up that she actually got off a city bus four or five stops early.)

Now not to dodge the point of his post, but I'd like to spend a minute remarking on the nature of geography and fear. Max notes that as a resident of Jerusalem, he's basically surrounded on three sides by the West Bank. Essentially, he lives in an Israeli peninsula that juts out into hostile territory, all of which brings me to the question of West Bank settlements and their unique geographical conundrum. See the map below:

What strikes me about this map is that Max notes the fear of Jerusalem residents who are surrounded on three sides by Palestinians. Settlers in the West Bank are literally dry-land islanders. They are totally cut-off from Israel proper.

How must they feel when calls are made for a West Bank intifada? I can't imagine, but judging by Max's description of Jerusalem reactions, I think the feeling must be fear. So I have trouble understanding the point behind settling the West Bank at all. I can try to relate it to my own ancestors' sense of manifest destiny but I think it comes up short. For one, the American West represented limitless possibilities, new freedoms, cheap land. I don't think that the West Bank represents all of that. I assume much of the motivation is religious--a sense of historical rights or obligations.

Still, it doesn't strike me as practical, or even really sustainable. It seems to me that the settlements really do make a two-state solution impossible. I simply can't reconcile the existence of two-states and settlements.

The alternatives to a two-state solution are both one state solutions. Either one mixed state, or one Jewish state and a whole lot more Arab expulsions to....where?

So maybe someone who understands this better than me can explain the point of having all these islands in the West Bank, and how they can ever do anything but prevent a real, lasting peace. Is it a matter of limited space for Israelis? Can't that be solved in other ways? Through innovative urban development? Israel is renowned for its technological and scientific savvy. I believe that the Israelis can come up with a brilliant solution to almost any problem out there if they want to badly enough. Their brilliance, though, comes up short when it comes to settlements. So far the policy has been stubborn and short-sighted.

Hamas Should Stop...But Probably Won't

Mark Thompson responds and expands on this.

I had stated that "in the case of Hamas, while I would not presume to know their every intent, I would say that the continued firing of rockets into Israel, instead of meeting Israel's soldiers in combat alone, shows that they are not soldiers, but terrorists, intent upon provoking this sort of reaction from Israel."

Mark goes on to explain the intent in terms of perception of victory over Israel. In sum:

The fact is that Hamas is fully aware it is severely outgunned by Israel both in terms of manpower and in terms of weaponry. Thus, it has no possibility, ultimately, of winning a military victory over Israel - a fact of which they are most certainly aware. However, it can nonetheless legitimately declare victory if the Israelis are unable to achieve that which they nominally set out to achieve - which is in large part the cessation of the rocket attacks. So as long as Israel is unable, by sheer force, to put an end to the rocket attacks, Hamas will appear the victor to its constituents, as well as to its supporters in the rest of the Middle East and South Asia. Meanwhile, the continued rocket attacks don't have too much of an effect on international opinion because they are rather ineffective at actually killing people - this guarantees that the casualty figures for Israeli civilians will continue to dwarf the casualty figures for Palestinian civilians.

I honestly have very little to add. It's a spot-on analysis of the situation, and I really am still left wondering why Israel took the bait. Do they honestly think they will be able to end the rocket attacks? Do you think they have the resolve or political will to carry this mission out to the end?

I'm the consummate skeptic on this matter. Israeli resolve is almost an oxymoron.

For more on the subject of Palestinian intent, read the rest of Mark's post, and then head over to Chris Dierkes's latest at Culture11. A gloomy sample:

Even were Israel to break Gaza's government, Hamas will continue to have its social agencies, its shadow government of loyalty on the street, and its paramilitary. Any alternate government (a reinstalled Fatah?) imposed in the aftermath of an Israeli invasion will lack legitimacy. How could it not? A Hamas ejected from power might actually become more powerful, gaining greater standing in the eyes of the populace. No matter the end result — short of complete annihilation — Hamas will declare victory. If even one Hamas member remains left standing as the Israelis pull out, the banner of victorious resistance will be raised and new recruits will flock to the movement.

I'm not entirely in agreement, but only because I'm not entirely sure about anything in this current conflict. As I'm wont to say, "The more I know, the less I know" and so I keep trying to dig up as much information on the matter as I can.

The more I know, the less I know...

Hamas Should Stop

I was thinking about this on the way to work. Hamas is under an all-out Israeli attack. Israel is moving into the denser urban areas, taking out Hamas targets as they go. They're leveling buildings with massive air strikes...

...and Hamas is retaliating by lobbing more rockets into Israeli towns. They're spending time, men, and ammunition firing at women and children rather than at the soldiers at their doorstep.

Freddie has a good post about intentionality up at his blog. He writes, somewhat glibly, that the

intent of countries is never uniform, is unknowable, and ultimately can't be a panacea against culpability for acts of aggression, or we lose any meaningful ability to judge the behavior of nations. Intentionality, also, becomes a maneuver used to absolve our country or preferred states from sin, and it again rests on pure assertion: the United States and its favored nations never intend to kill civilians, while the antagonists of the United States always do.

I understand and agree that we cannot know every intention of every actor on the world stage, let alone in our own office building or home. Freddie goes on to use Georgia and Russia as examples and I think these are fair examples. I have long wondered what the hell Georgia was thinking, and understand Russia's reaction whether or not I agreed with it.

However, in the case of Hamas, while I would not presume to know their every intent, I would say that the continued firing of rockets into Israel, instead of meeting Israel's soldiers in combat alone, shows that they are not soldiers, but terrorists, intent upon provoking this sort of reaction from Israel.

And, of course, Israel took the bait.

Marc Ash, at truthout, writes

There is a false and misguided notion that the rocket attacks or other random acts of violence are not really that significant to Israeli citizens. Nothing could be farther from the truth. These attacks, all attacks, on Israeli targets, both military and civilian, are viewed by the Israelis in the most serious light....

Hamas's current strategy of firing rockets into southern Israel is not just "fighting back" against an oppressor; it is a step that Hamas knew full well would provoke a major Israeli military response. This plays in turn to the interests of the Israeli right wing.

Israel can be moved to a cease-fire, but never with Hamas rockets incoming.

This seems like an obvious conclusion, but one wonders if it is practical. Israel has to decide what's best for it now that it has bumbled into Gaza, regardless of the cessation of rocket-fire. While that would be a good move by Hamas, it probably won't be taken in good faith, given their track record.

However, it might give the moderates in Israel more of a chance, and give a blow to the hawks and further enable some dismantling of settlements, an obvious necessity if we're ever going to achieve peace in the region.

Geography and borders

It's extraordinary to me every time I look at a map of Israel/Gaza/Palestine. So much of the problem in this conflict seems to be mere geography. I wonder, had the partition worked out differently, had the borders been drawn in some other manner--say North and South, with Jerusalem, of course, at the epicenter (or perhaps East and West...) would this conflict have gone differently? It certainly seems that having only one region (say, just the West Bank, no Gaza) to worry about would have been much simpler. The current version of the partition is not the same as the several proposed initially (which the Arabs refused) though I am in no position to claim they may have worked any better.

But just envision your own State, and now imagine cutting it up in the fashion Israel is divided. How would this work? It seems enormously difficult...

Then, too, there was the land seized when Israel became a State, changing even the final UN plan:


And of course post-1967 we have basically the same geography as today, minus the Sinai which Israel gave back to Egypt in exchange for peace.

Another important point to make about the above maps. After 1949 Palestine didn't come into being merely because Israel seized the purple areas. Egypt seized Gaza and Jordan took the West Bank. Palestine didn't exist because of Arab intervention, not Jewish. Israel didn't take those lands for almost twenty more years--and once again, it was provoked by Egypt and Jordan.

Still, the ball is now in Israel's court.

Israel Gaza Cost Benefit Analysis

Conor writes, in regards to Hamas and their daily bombardment of Israel:

Repeatedly firing rockets into populated areas hoping to kill as many Israelis as possible seems like a pretty intolerable provocation to me! Can anyone think of any country that wouldn’t consider it so?

It's true that this has been the question often raised by those advocating the strike (and I know Conor is very middle-ground on the whole thing, much as I am). The other side then complains of disproportionate warfare, civilian casualties etc. which are also all valid points.

In the end it seems to boil down to cause and effect, though.

The question really doesn’t seem to be whether or not Israel is rightfully prickled by these attacks, or whether the defense or even proportionality of response is “right” or not. The question ought to be limited to reaction and backlash. Does this operation have any chance at success? Will it lead to greater security, or heightened threat? Does it lead toward peace or away from it? Will the backlash be worth the effort?

Everything else is an argument of abstraction, bound up in immense controversy. However, sticking to cause and effect can at least bring us into the realm of logical speculation, sans emotion or bias.

It's sad to boil this down to a cost-benefit analysis, but that's the most realistic thing to do. Do the costs here outweigh the benefits? If so, what is the purpose of this attack? I think Peter Hitchens is right:

The operation’s real purpose is to improve the standing of two politicians, Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak, in impending elections. Nobody should die for such a motive.

I'm not even so sure the motive is important--it is the results that matter most at this point, and I fear that the results will be bad. This is a repetition of Lebanon in 2006. The Israelis do not have the resolve to finish this sort of mission. This will embolden Hamas, of course. The suffering will be most felt by innocent Palestinians, and innocent Israelis.

I'm not going to get into better alternatives in this post. There is no easy way through this mess, of course. I hope I'm wrong.

A Better Option

Daniel Larison disagrees with many in the "pro-Israel" camp (specifically Rod Dreher) who believe Israel is justified in the ongoing campaign against Hamas in Gaza because the Gazans voted for them, and thus deserve collective punishment (as though we are all responsible for George Bush's follies...) There are, Larison writes, other alternatives to all-out-war:

What else could the Israeli government have done? It could have lifted or ameliorated the siege, or better yet never imposed it. If we grant that cutting off Gaza was actually a blunder, remedying that blunder would be a first step. It is not certain that ending Gaza’s isolation would weaken Hamas, but its isolation has done nothing but strengthen Hamas’ position. Short of an extremely difficult and risky urban war aimed at destroying the organization entirely, which would cause massive dislocation and suffering, that seems the best means of weakening Hamas politically by forcing it to (mis)govern Gaza under relatively normal conditions. There will undoubtedly be a core of support for the group that will remain, but surely the political goal that Israel wants to reach is to have a majority of people in Gaza grow disillusioned with Hamas and to drive wedges between the group and most of the population.

I think this is very good advice, though I have one concern. If Hamas were to be pushed out, would it necessarily be Fatah who took their place? Or would Hamas 2.0 take over, much in the same way Hamas replaced Fatah?

The other possibility is that Hamas goes further mainstream, and actually does do a good enough job at actual governance--whereupon, can we expect a more radical element to simply replace them? Both options potentially lead to the same cyclical outcome, though that potentiality is not reason enough to dismiss Larison's argument.

Another outcome is Hamas becomes, over time, discredited and the two parties actually move toward reconciliation. In the current climate, reconciliation is impossible, and in fact has become less likely than ever. Hamas is responsible for provoking this response from Israel, but to invoke that argument is like saying of your younger sibling, "He hit me first!" and expecting that alone to be just cause or wisdom, or both...

A Sense of Proportion?

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in the comments

Commenter Wellsy writes:

I think in this situation you have 2 worlds: the world outside the conflict, where people debate statistics, records, and events, maybe from the comfort of their homes on the internet, and the world inside the conflict, where people are trying to live their lives and survive. Their homes might be in ruins.

The reality is that any good idea that may be hatched in the first world will probably wither and die when it makes the transition to the second world. Peace has to arise naturally in the region or else it won't hold. And it's not going to arise naturally unless Israel, obviously in better shape than the ragged "Palestine," decides to take the lives of Palestinians seriously. Israel's not exactly trying to win over Palestinian moderates here.

Anyway, ideas from the first world might not fare well when the rubber hits the road, but international support for peace, especially from America, is a step in the right direction. This means sometimes rapping Israel's knuckles and treating the Palestinian government as if it is completely sovereign even though, in reality, it may not be.

I can understand why objectivity may be hard for those that are directly involved, but for many in the blogosphere, I just don't understand why its lacking.

It is interesting how these two tumultuous worlds mirror one another--or rather how the "world of ideas" mirrors the conflict on the ground--becomes so divided and bitter and polarized. One thing is that in an online or television or even print format there is this dissociation from those with whom you conflict. It's pretty easy to get riled up and call names on an internet forum, or shout on some television pundit's show, or write something scathing about somebody else when you know, in this day and age, nobody will call you out on it and demand pistols at dawn.

Thankfully, I do see some true bi-partisan efforts emerging. I'm not too hopeful, as this conflict is older than any member of the commentariat, but I like to be the eternal optimist...

Three for the price of one

More proof that Iraq was not a war that benefited Israel.

More proof that Iraq was not a war that benefited the United States.

More proof that democracy in and of itself is dangerous and combustible, and should not be "spread" without a good deal of contemplation--or by organic means...

Settlements, continued...

Matthew Yglesias is among the many calling for US pressure on Israel to halt settlements:

Under the circumstances, throwing up our hands and saying “it’s too hard!” isn’t an option. We can decide we don’t want to be involved, which would mean unwinding the ties of collaboration and assistance between the US and Israel, or we can try to play a constructive role in bringing an end to the conflict. I’m not personally sure of how you do that. But I’m quite certain that the first step would be pressing Israel — hard — to stop expanding settlements in the West Bank and start dismantling them. To show to Palestinians interested in a two-state solution (perhaps including some Hamas people or perhaps not) that there’s credibility on the other side. I think Israelis wouldn’t welcome such action by us, but ultimately it would be in their own best interests. On the other hand, those who really do think the best thing for the United States is to just wash our hands of the whole mess have an obligation to really stand behind that belief and urge us to wash our hands of the situation. But just proclaiming a pox on both houses while in practice heavily subsidizing one side isn’t a viable option.

That's the first step we can make, but the Arab states in the region can make a step also, and that is to denounce terrorism and stop funding Hamas and Hezbollah. So yes, there's things people can and should do, and a role to play in the East and the West to come to a solution. Also, I think Yglesias is partially wrong about Israelis welcoming the US pressure. I think some would actually agree pretty strongly, but feel their own voices drowned out by the settlers...

It's not as though all Israelis are happy to have their military bombing Gaza, but many of them I think are confused, feel helpless, and are confounded by a mix of feelings on the issue. Just like a lot of Americans--and probably a lot more Arabs than we would imagine.