Changing Israel’s self-destructive course
Israel is on a dangerously self-destructive course. The brutality of the Gaza campaign is antagonizing allies and making it difficult for regional players to continue normalizing relations. The prospects for a durable peace are dimming at the same time that the policy of military supremacy that provided a modicum of security over the past two decades looks increasingly unsustainable.
Netanyahu clearly deserves much of the blame for what is happening, but it is important to recognize that he is acting with the support of many, likely most, Israelis.
Why is this? What accounts for the Israeli public’s support for a self-destructive policy? One factor is that Israeli television doesn’t show pictures of dead and wounded Gazans and bombed-out neighborhoods. Another more intractable cause is that Israelis are acting out of anger over the October 7 attack and are simply unwilling to think about making peace. This has been an ongoing problem since the intifada. Like the Hatfields and McCoys, the Israelis and Palestinians are caught in a cycle of violence and revenge that is self-perpetuating.
Any change in the current equilibrium will require pressure from third parties, notably the United States. Unfortunately the United States has maintained the fiction that peace must be negotiated between two parties that are much more interested in killing each other than in burying the hatchet.
In addition to bringing outside pressure to bear, the United States needs to work to shape Israeli public opinion. Recent stories highlighting the potential failure of the Iron Dome system in the event of an attack by Hezbollah need to get lots of airplay. This is a vulnerability that may well get worse as weapons evolve.
Critics of the Netanyahu government tend to focus on moral criticism of the war in Gaza, but moral arguments will not sway members of the Netanyahu coalition. Americans and left of center Israelis need to focus on arguments that will appeal to the fearful and angry Israeli majority. This means telling them loudly and clearly that their actions are self-defeating and endangering the viability of Israel.
US is giving the bombs, missiles, and guidance kits, as well as shells not given to Ukraine. Spare parts also are rushed free to IDF.
The mass murders units would have been out of bombs in late October!
Kramer
what you say is mostly true. but after you convince the Israelis that their actions are self defeating, what are you going to tell them the next time their peope are murdered?
Of course the rest of us know that not all Palestinians are terrorists, but I don’t think any country that finds it’s people being killed by members of an identifiable “other” have ever managed to separate the innocent from the guilty, or even the soldiers from the babies.
Meanwhile, how are you going to convince Hamas, for example, that what they are doing is self-defeating? They know exactly what they are doing….sacrificing thousands of their own people to bait Israel into “crimes against humanity” in order to gain world opinion…to the extent they give a damn about world opinion…but mostly to gain power in their own countries.
so yes, we have a cycle of violence, but Netanyahu is not the only one who will not be persuaded by moral arguments.
I don’t know that Netanyahu “deserves much of the blame…” He has a different idea of how to protect his country than we have, “but it is important to remember that he is acting with the support of many, likely most, Israelis.” for some reason.
That difference of opinion suggest we should not be arming Netanyahu’s government.
Jackd
suggests. if only the world were so simple. a victory by Hamas would have consequences. Ultimately it would be we who are bombing innocent civilians. Come to think of it, we have been doint that since Vietnam in my memory.
As long as Israeli defense policy is to eliminate Palestinians, you will make more angry people to do things like 7 October.
IDF is the greatest recruiting tool for terrorists from Casablanca to San’a and north to Tashkent.
Neither Israel nor U.S. care for millions of Palestinians descended from the dispossessed of 1948.
Turnaround Tel Aviv playing Berlin 80 odds years later.
Palestine is to Israel what Ukraine was to Germany!
Russia/Ukraine to Israel/Palestine
Current Israeli military posture is grounded in the “iron wall” security model. On the evidence, that is a prescription for endless violence.
The Hamas atrocities are best understood in the same context as the al Qaeda attacks in the US; asymmetric warfare to trigger an over-reaction. bin Laden was successful in that the US took the bait, even though it came at the expense of hundreds of thousands of innocent Afghan and Iraqi lives, to which bin Laden was indifferent. Hamas is indifferent to the cost of its terrorism to innocent Palestinian life, they just want Israel to over-react and suffer. So far, their plan seems to be working by that metric; Israel took the bait.
bid Laden was great for the military industry complex.
Since 9/11 US has been spending for war like Ronald Reagan.
paddy
not a big fan of war myself, or even “bloated military spending.” but as recent events might have taught us, being prepared for war might be the best way to prevent one.
it also “helps the economy” unless you really think all those weapons designers can get jobs in health care.