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'The by-product of this approach has been, and will surely continue to be, an endless cycle of bloodletting.' (Jehad Alshrafi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
In assessing Israel’s post-October 7 military campaign in Gaza, it helps to recall Clausewitz’s dictum that war, though horrific, isn’t ultimately about killing and destruction for the sake of it but a means for states to achieve their political goals. Seen in this light, Israel’s war has already failed. Never has the Jewish state been so isolated internationally. Never has this nation, founded following the Holocaust, had to face formal allegations of genocide at the International Court of Justice.
Worse, Israel’s standing in the United States, its most stalwart supporter, has suffered, its popular support fallen and falling. More broadly, the war has led to an unprecedented erosion in support for Israel above all among Democrats and young people, including American Jews. For the first time, an American president seeking re-election worries that his support for Israel, typically an asset in any political campaign in the United States, could contribute to his defeat. His campaign rallies have been interrupted by hecklers yelling “Genocide Joe” and berating him for abetting war crimes. According to recent survey, nearly a third of American adults believe the Gaza war amounts to genocide. And now, American university campuses are roiled by anti-war protests, which some Jewish students have joined.
More pertinently for the immediate situation in Gaza, Israel’s government appears to lack any post-war plan. And that matters. Even in the unlikely event that Netanyahu achieves all his started objectives in Gaza — freeing the hostages while also destroying Hamas seems impossible — more than nine million Israelis and more than five million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are fated to live cheek-by-jowl. Neither community plans to depart, nor can they be expelled. The dreams of the most radical Palestinian movements of destroying the Jewish state and the calls from some within Israel’s hard-Right to expel Gazans en masse are equally fantastical. So, what can we expect after the war ends?
The most likely scenario is that Israel’s leaders will continue the policy that, despite intermittent negotiations with the Palestinians, has been in place since 1967, when Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza following the Six-Day War. Often called “mowing the grass”, it boils down to the open-ended occupation and suppression of Palestinians, using massive force when deemed necessary. One example of the latter is Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009), which followed peaceful Palestinian protests that gave way to rocket and mortar attacks by Hamas. Over 22 days, the IDF killed some 1,400 Palestinians, including 300 children, its deadliest war in Gaza before the current one. Another, Operation Protective Edge (2014), left nearly 1,400 Palestinians civilians dead, including 500 children. On a smaller scale, mowing the grass features intermittent clampdowns on Palestinian resistance to occupation and dispossession. The by-product of this approach has been, and will surely continue to be, an endless cycle of bloodletting. The sole uncertainty: how much time will elapse between one phase of violence and the next and how long each lasts.
Yet mowing the grass doesn’t rely on naked force alone. To avoid directly ruling the West Bank Israel has relied on the Palestinian Authority (PA) for day-to-day governance. To replicate this arrangement in post-war Gaza, Israel will have to persuade people who enjoy legitimacy and respect in the community to serve as administrators in place of Hamas. The alternative, military rule, is a recipe for rebellions and violence that will entrap the IDF indefinitely. And the problem here is that, after the carnage and destruction in Gaza, few if any non-Hamas notables will rush to volunteer. Some eventually may, but risk being viewed as quislings and discredited as the PA has been. Aside from its corruption and ineptitude, the PA has come to be seen as Israel’s subcontractor. In a November-December 2023 survey by the Palestinian Center for Survey Research, 60% of West Bank residents said they wanted the PA dissolved.
Despite the pitfalls, perhaps local notables will agree to govern their territory, either because the IDF succeeds in destroying Hamas or because Hamas has forfeited Gazans’ support by perpetrating the October 7 that led to the pitiless Israeli bombardment in the first place. Then again, the many thousands of young men who have seen their parents and siblings killed, their homes and neighbourhoods demolished, and their own lives upended, may equally become a deep recruitment reservoir for follow-on armed resistance movements. Israel may end up creating more extremists than it has killed. Though Hamas may die, its animating ideology could live on.
Though far from homogenous, the anti-war Left that has organised around this war shares a simple ambition: Israel should jettison this “mowing the grass” model and resume negotiations aimed at a two-state solution, which has only been pursued in fits and starts since the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995. Those summits did have some concrete accomplishments: Israel’s recognition of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as the representative of the Palestinian people; the PLO’s renouncing of terrorism and accepting the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state; and the creation of the Palestinian Authority. All this was a pathway to a Palestinian state, albeit with undefined contours, encompassing the West Bank and Gaza.
That ultimate goal seemed achievable on at least two occasions: the first was the 2000 Camp David talks between PA Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, with President Bill Clinton mediating, exerting pressure, and presenting a far-reaching proposal. Then, in 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert put forward his own two-state proposal. Both initiatives envisioned Israel living in peace alongside a Palestinian state encompassing most of the West Bank and Gaza, with a corridor between the two places, the incorporation of the largest West Bank Jewish settlement blocks (such as Ariel and Ma’ale Adumim) into Israel, and the Palestinians compensated through “land swaps”. The negotiations failed for many reasons, including the status of East Jerusalem (who would control what and how) and the right of return for Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948 (how many and where).
These structural obstacles remain. But the two-state solution also becomes progressively harder to achieve so long as Israel, while mowing the grass, keeps building Jewish settlements on the West Bank and ignores the “outposts” proliferating there — along with roads reserved for Jews — despite the lack of the government’s consent. A record 23 outposts were built in 2023, and there are now 160 West Bank settlements inhabited by 520,000 people, not counting another 250,000 in East Jerusalem; add to that the outposts in which as many as 30,000 people live. Not only are additional settlements (with 3,500 homes) planned, the hard-line Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently urged the legalisation of 68 outposts. Following the Gaza War, the government also announced the appropriation of 800 hectares in the Jordan Valley to build more settlements — the biggest confiscation of Palestinian land in 30 years. In a move that further fragments the West Bank, the government recently earmarked $940 million for renovating and constructing roads for the exclusive use of settlers. Steps like these demonstrate its rejection of the two-state solution and its determination to create “facts on the ground” that will make it even harder for future Israeli leaders to achieve that goal.
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SubscribeIt’s true that there is no solution, but that’s much worse for the Palestinians than it is for the Israelis. The cartographic picture is not conducive to two states in that area. As a “Strategist” the author should acknowledge this
If a hubristic person has the audacity to kick a sleeping lion in the teeth, then they should not be shocked to find that they’ve just forfeited their leg and quite possibly their very life.
Cause and effect.
In 50 years – after they’ve finally rebuilt most of their destroyed infrastructure and possibly earned back some of their forfeited wealth – the citizens within the Territory of the Gaza Strip should strongly reconsider whether it’s wise to elect a government that takes them to war (via unilateral surprise attacks and committing War Crimes against innocent civilians)…especially with a neighboring sovereign State that is far more advanced in strategic and tactical warfare as well as wars of attrition.
Yes, but then that lion goes on to kill everyone in the street and then burn down their houses. In what kind of world would that lion not be shot?
However in this instance, the lion did no such thing.
The citizens of the Territory of the Gaza Strip chose their government.
And their government, as the voice and authority of said Territory, chose to violate peacetime when they unilaterally went to war with a neighboring sovereign State.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
“The citizens of the Territory of the Gaza Strip chose their government” in 2006. Not much of a democratic authority in 2023.
It’s the same in the West Bank. Mahmoud Abbas was elected for a four-year term in 2005.
Well, then Israel is liberating the Palestinians from their Hamas oppressors
The history of the Palestine question began on 7th October did it CM?
George – allow me to provide another analogy in response:
A parent is running errands in their car.
The parent’s two children – a boy and a girl – are sitting behind them in the second row of the car.
Whether by luck or by right, the girl is sitting by the favored window that has the better view for the trip. The boy stubbornly sits in the middle seat, sulking and believing that he deserves to sit by the favored window.
The boy, in a state of perpetual grievance, starts to secretly poke his sister. After which he receives a secret poke back in reprisal.
Eventually, the boy severely escalates the situation by punching his sister in the face (i.e. acts of war committed on October 7) since he’s not getting what he wants with the pokes. All hell breaks loose between the two siblings. The parent stops the car and demands to know what happened.
When the truth comes out that the boy ended the relatively peaceful drive, the parent doesn’t want to hear about the perceived grievances – from three weeks ago, three months ago, three years ago or three eons ago – that the boy brings up as he tries to defend himself for punching his sister.
“But she did this to me, but he did that, but that’s because she did this, that’s because he did that…”
The parent cannot right every perceived or real wrong of the far-distant past for these two children. The past has too many variables.
But the parent can and will tell the boy in the middle seat that he will need to move to a different seat since he was the one who broke the relative peace during this car ride.
The boy can continue sulking and throwing tantrums all day long, but he was responsible for the escalation that broke the relative peace in the car. Therefore, he will pay the price by forfeiting his chosen seat for a given time in order to create space and, thereby, hopefully reestablish a forced peace between the siblings.
In the case of the sovereign State of Israel and the Territory of the Gaza Strip, the Territory was the entity that broke the peace and started this war. And since there is no parent with real authority, Israel will reestablish the peace itself by creating distance, in time and space, between them and another surprise attack by their perpetually-aggrieved neighbor that has made it clear by word and deed that they will not rest until they eliminate Israel from off the face of the planet.
Fascinating.
Leaving aside how the sister came to be sitting in the favoured seat in the first place and the reduction of the IDF and Hamas to squabbling children whose fate is to be determined by grown ups (presumably the US), you have rather glossed over what happened after the boy “severely escalates the situation by punching his sister in the face”.
In your telling “all hell breaks loose” and the parent immediately stops the car to intervene.
and that is where your analogy breaks down. Because “all Hell breaks loose” rather obscures who is doing what. In your telling the children fight. In Gaza, the IDF is inflicting orders of magnitude more damage on the Palestinians than Hamas did on 7th October. The punch is returned with repeated hammer-blows.
At which point, responsible parents stop the car and intervene immediately without taking sides.
Has the US insisted on an immediate ceasefire? It has not. It has, in fact supplied enormous quantities of logistical and military support to the lion/little girl/Israel with the apparent hope that the boy will be rendered incapable of ever punching his sister again.
I’m all for stopping the car
George –
To clarify, all nations and individuals (including myself) are “squabbling children” when it comes to using behavioral game theory to assign words to our evolutionary tendencies. You took the analogy too far by assuming I was disparaging either side, or projecting that I was somehow placing the US in the role of a ‘parent.’ I was merely using words to explain evolutionary tendencies.
The sovereign Territory of the Gaza Strip chose to go to war with Israel rather than abide in the negotiated peace.
When a territory or country chooses to go to war with a neighboring state, they must be aware that war is asserting the supremacy of force and aggression in place of words and negotiation. In other words, winner takes all in war.
Israel will determine the fate of the Territory of the Gaza Strip. As such, Israel will create distance – in time and space – by taking away the wealth and infrastructure (i.e. capabilities) with which the Territory can conduct future acts of war against Israel.
Finally, regarding your assertion of ‘orders of magnitude’, I posted the following on another article here and I’ll share it again:
“Estimate of German civilian casualties during WWII: 1,500,000 to 3,000,000.
Estimate of American civilian casualties during WWII: 12,100.
Estimate of British civilian casualties during WWII: 67,200.
Ask any military general of the day (or today) and they’d say (a) war is messy, (b) war is never ‘proportional’ for civilians, and (c) the winner always takes all in war and then decides the fate of the losers who wait upon their knees.
As Allied Forces took Germany at the end of WWII, civilian casualties were to be minimized, yes, but not to the detriment of achieving the military aims that were necessary to win the war. Hitler and his Nazi thugs could not be allowed to win – then or at any point in the future. They had to be utterly destroyed.
No one ever said, “German civilians are being disproportionately hurt and killed in Germany relative to their British and US civilian counterparts. So let’s all put away our guns, go home and give Hitler permission to reinforce his stronghold somewhere in Germany with his remaining Nazi forces.”
Yet within frenzied minds of Hamas apologists, this is considered a reasonable path for how Israel should treat the duly-elected Government of the Gaza Strip (that is, Hamas) today.
The Government of the Gaza Strip unilaterally attacked a neighboring independent State during peacetime and committed mass extinction events while engaging in Crimes against Humanity. By so doing, they proved to the world that they are an existential threat to Israel and Israel is responding in kind.
We can all mourn civilians deaths while, at the same time, recognize that the Government of the Gaza Strip is responsible for those deaths. And that Israel must succeed.”
“The sovereign Territory of the Gaza Strip chose to go to war with Israel rather than abide in the negotiated peace.” But it was not a peace. It was a slow devouring of one side by the other, with the Palestinians subjected to relentless, grinding oppression and deprivation. No wonder they elected Hamas.
Not that I even faintly defend October 7, I nevertheless understand it. Young Palestinian men look across a barbed wire fence at land their forefathers had cultivated since the time of Saladin, now forcibly taken from them, after which they were corralled in a deprived hell-hole and constantly harassed. The beautiful, carefree, well-nourished people on the other side are doing what? They are having a party! My blood would boil. It would boil over.
The Palestinians’ most fervent supporters in the west are generally against borders, until this issue pops up & they get all blood & soil.
…
….
But you chose an analogy with an authority figure in it.
I am merely pointing out that the entities that would appear to correspond to that authority figure are not acting as a responsible authotiy figure would in your analogy – “stop fighting, I don’t care who started it” they are acting grossly irresponsibly by empowering one of the parties (the stronger one) to continue the violence.
They justify this by asserting that, if they did not – other powerful figures (Iran perhaps) might be tempted to get involved.
So I don’t think your analogy is a good one. But to the extent that it is, the role of bystanders to the conflict is to do what they can to end it immediately and minimise the violence. It is to the shame of the UK and the US, that they have not done so.
Indeed I did, but you apparently didn’t read my post in its entirety before responding. For your benefit, I’ll reiterate:
“In the case of the sovereign State of Israel and the Territory of the Gaza Strip, the Territory was the entity that broke the peace and started this war. And since there is no parent with real authority, Israel will reestablish the peace itself by creating distance, in time and space, between them and another surprise attack by their perpetually-aggrieved neighbor that has made it clear by word and deed that they will not rest until they eliminate Israel from off the face of the planet.”
Please respond in kind rather than obfuscate my post to which you responded.
George – it appears that my post to which you replied with “But you chose an analogy…” is no longer here. I’ll repost to maintain the fidelity of our conversation:
To clarify, all nations and individuals (including myself) are “squabbling children” when it comes to using behavioral game theory to assign words to our evolutionary tendencies. You took the analogy too far by assuming I was disparaging either side, or projecting that I was somehow placing the US in the role of a ‘parent.’ I was merely using words to explain evolutionary tendencies.
The sovereign Territory of the Gaza Strip chose to go to war with Israel rather than abide in the negotiated peace.
When a territory or country chooses to go to war with a neighboring state, they must be aware that war is asserting the supremacy of force and aggression in place of words and negotiation. In other words, winner takes all in war.
Israel will determine the fate of the Territory of the Gaza Strip. As such, Israel will create distance – in time and space – by taking away the wealth and infrastructure (i.e. capabilities) with which the Territory can conduct future acts of war against Israel.
Finally, regarding your assertion of ‘orders of magnitude’, I posted the following on another article here and I’ll share it again:
“Estimate of German civilian casualties during WWII: 1,500,000 to 3,000,000.
Estimate of American civilian casualties during WWII: 12,100.
Estimate of British civilian casualties during WWII: 67,200.
Ask any military general of the day (or today) and they’d say (a) war is messy, (b) war is never ‘proportional’ for civilians, and (c) the winner always takes all in war and then decides the fate of the losers who wait upon their knees.
As Allied Forces took Germany at the end of WWII, civilian casualties were to be minimized, yes, but not to the detriment of achieving the military aims that were necessary to win the war. Hitler and his Nazi thugs could not be allowed to win – then or at any point in the future. They had to be utterly destroyed.
No one ever said, “German civilians are being disproportionately hurt and killed in Germany relative to their British and US civilian counterparts. So let’s all put away our guns, go home and give Hitler permission to reinforce his stronghold somewhere in Germany with his remaining Nazi forces.”
Yet within frenzied minds of Hamas apologists, this is considered a reasonable path for how Israel should treat the duly-elected Government of the Gaza Strip (that is, Hamas) today.
The Government of the Gaza Strip unilaterally attacked a neighboring independent State during peacetime and committed mass extinction events while engaging in Crimes against Humanity. By so doing, they proved to the world that they are an existential threat to Israel and Israel is responding in kind.
We can all mourn civilians deaths while, at the same time, recognize that the Government of the Gaza Strip is responsible for those deaths. And that Israel must succeed.”
Just as a point of fact, you seem to have omitted Russian casualties from your estimates. Which is odd since they made up the vast majority in the allied side
Britain and the U.S. inflicted “orders of magnitude more damage” on the Third Reich than It had ever inflicted on Britain and the U.S. By your argument, this put Britain and the U.S. in the wrong and they should have been stopped from doing so, presumably at the price of keeping Hitler in power. I would counter that when you “punch your neighbour in the face”, you don’t get a veto over how much damage they can choose to inflict in return. The appropriate measure is: what degree will be sufficient to prevent Hamas or Hitler from punching you in the face again. Or is it only where Jews are one of the warring parties that you raise objections?
Don’t be silly. That’s not what I’m saying.
I said that it was telling that CMs analogy put such emphasis on the Palestinian escalation on 7th October and obscured the subsequent (and much larger) Israeli escalation that followed.
George – when a self-governing Territory steps outside the existing co-created framework of peaceful negotiations and dialogue with a neighboring sovereign State to commit pre-planned military surprise attacks upon said sovereign State, such actions are acts of war and are indeed a dramatic escalation from the prior negotiation phase.
These fact are not in question.
With this being clear, I can emotionally (if not rationally) understand why the government of the Territory of the Gaza Strip (and their supporters) is now begging to obtain a mulligan ‘reset’ to a time before they committed their acts of war, now the outcome of the war is no longer in question. And I can emotionally and rationally understand why the Territory’s government now opts for a full-time gaslighting blitz of the foreign press, even as their government’s military capabilities continue to dwindle.
But we would be remiss not to note in the annals of history that the die of war was first cast in jubilation and glee by the Territory government’s very own hand…and, as we now see, to their own detriment and dismay.
It’s not an escalation on the part of the Israelis, it’s “going to War”. And so far, by definition, it’s a Limited War…
Maybe more people could start with the genocidal terrorists giving back the civilians they kidnapped as one of many concurrent, actual, War Crimes?
The world remains silent about them, those poor people abducted and abused, by inhuman scum. Somehow they want to focus on only Israeli actions. Hmmmm I can’t imagine why?
Politics and war is not nice and seldom obeys any principle of morality. More common throughout history has been the old adage that might makes right, and the winners write the history. At some point, one has to recognize that these people are going to fight until one side or the other is destroyed or completely defeated. The violence won’t stop until one of the two is utterly annihilated. The US doesn’t need to do anything or even declare their support for either side. The Israelis can handle their business. At some point, the conflict will end and then the western media with its short attention span will move right along and forget about it. So will most of the young protesters. Journalists can wring their hands about the unfairness but they may as well be shouting at clouds.
Quite right. As for the protesters, whilst I cannot claim certainty that they were the same group of people who so recently were protesting under the banners of, firstly, BLM and subsequently trans rights, I’m confident in assuming a large amount of overlap. Observation of local events suggests the same crowd perennially attend the protest du jour.
I assume, therefore, that they’ll eventually move on to the next fashionable cause of which they are largely ignorant but deeply impassioned.
Downvoted but no reply? Too funny. Truth hurt much?
Driving them into Sinai is a viable option. The arabic nations and other supporters can give them resources to build a nation there. If the west bank wants to join them that would be possible.
Ridiculous.
There’s a reason Sinai is pretty much empty and always has been. It’s a desert. It’s also part of Egypt – who definitely will not allow this.
Arthur. You are of course aware that driving a population off their land and into a desert (which belongs to another state) is as clear an instance of ethnic cleansing as you could possibly need to see.
True. But ethnic cleansing has been a prelude to peace deals in other places. There was the ‘population exchange’ between Greece and Turkey, and the mass expulsion of ethnic Germans from much of Eastern Europe after WWII. That does not make it any nicer, but it is at least open to debate how much enduring peace there could have been in either Turkey or Eastern Europe without it.
That is certainly true.
You might also argue that the Trail of Tears was another such resolution of a difficult inter-ethnic conflict leading to the lasting settlement upon which the modern United States is built.
The problem is that it is now contrary to International law and defined as genocide.
So they can’t have it both ways. You can’t pretend to be a champion of international law and the “rules-based international order” whilst simultaneously using genocide as an instrument of foreign policy.
If the US and the UK want to abrogate international law, seeing it as a hopelessly idealistic anachronism and an impediment to (ahem) lasting final solutions then they should be honest that this is what they are doing. They can then see where it gets them with the voting public and their international allies.
The trouble comes in if both sides of a conflict aim to use ethnic cleansing to achieve their aims. For the fighting to stop you need to make it to a point where neither side sees it as worth while to start fighting again. If that is not achievable short of ethnic cleansing then you either break international law or just let the war go on forever. I hope someone will find a solution, but I do not see what it might be.
My view as well. Also, once the Gazan governnent enacted Oct 7th, they lost any claims to international law or negotiations. They have to go, and expelling them from being able to do any significant future harm is the best option. Egypt may protest, however, but if they don’t want to support them in the Sinai, they can find homes for these barbarous people.
Why would Egypt want a load of trouble makers deposited in its territory? It would lead to the destabilisation of the Egyptian state and a new opportunity for Hamas to batten on its population like the parasite that it is.
George. I am aware. It is the most merciful response to what the Gazans enacted on Oct 8th.
Maybe if the Gazans / Hamas took the aid money and tried to building a functioning mini-state instead of tunnels and weapons, they could have made a case for an independent country in Gaza. It has contiguous borders and a sea coast. If Hamas’ plan is to repeat October 7th again again until there is no Israel, how should Israel deal with them.
Here in the US, it has become fashionable to be anti-Israel, and anti-Jewish on campus. Someone wears a star of David? Keep him out of the classroom. Where keffiyehs to hide your identity and have real power with no cost. Notice in these protests there are no American flags, only Palestinian ones with maybe a Hezbollah banner thrown in. Many of these protestors are pro-Hamas and by extension support how Hamas runs things. They want the same rule here in the US and UK. Scary stuff. The war is only beginning.
Before you criticise people for wearing masks or keffiyehs when protesting Israel’s genocide you need to read-up about The Canary Mission. Also being kicked out of uni there also means being kicked out of their accommodation and losing access to healthcare.
Yeah, it’s important that Antisemites keep their healthcare.
You are extremely active in your ongoing antisemitic and anti Israel posts, I say Bravo to your persistence!
Did you find any evidence yet of the genocide, by the way?
Right! The article is just so much nonsense. You don’t get a 2 state solution by complaining and bombing Israel, you get it by just getting on with building a state in the territory you control. But the Palestinians are just lazy cry-bullies, always hoping that one day they’ll be able to destroy Israel.
It’s not just some of the students at Columbia who are pro-Hamas. A visiting professor appointed in January this year with a “warm welcome” was on record saying earlier of Oct 7 that he was “with the muqawamah (the resistance) be it Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.” This professor is an encampment regular and, President Safik says, still grading papers.
People at these protests should be removed to gaza where they can help the struggle directly.
There is an odd overlap between Pride, BLM and similar groups and pro Hamas groups. I haven’t seen the Hamas policy on gay rights but I think that I could make a pretty good guess.
“the many thousands of young men who have seen their parents and siblings killed, their homes and neighbourhoods demolished, and their own lives upended, may equally become a deep recruitment reservoir for follow-on armed resistance movements.”
This is naive, classical Western sentimental, leftist logic.
The extremists are not being created by Israel. When Israel left Gaza in the mid 2000s the Gazans became, if anything, more extreme. The extremism is baked into their educational system and into a Palestinian business model that:
1) requires violence in order to secure world attention and the engagement of NGOs, and the UN who will continue to funnel resources into Palestinian areas.
2) Provides an alibi to surrounding Arab countries who wish to distract from their own misgovernance.
Not entirely. And not necessarily “leftist”.
Many of the comments here seem to be based on the assumption that the Gazans will – or rather should – think and behave just like us. The US came up with a name for this in Vietnam – “mirror imaging” – when some of them noticed this assumption simply wasn’t true.
Also worth noting that the Palestians may have fallen victim to the sunk cost fallacy and cognitive dissonance here – now that they’ve paid and lost so much, writing it all off, admitting the error and starting again is too painful to contemplate. We all suffer from these thinking delusions at times.
The entire Israel-critical analysis of this problem is based on the premise that the Palestinian Arabs are two-dimensional cartoon characters who have no agency and, therefore, no responsibility for their actions. Their entire role in the narrative is to prove, by their reaction and their “anger” (what is it with ‘Arab anger’ being the eternal Phlogiston that excludes their actual human agency) that Israel is bad.
Totally orthogonal to my point. Not sure why you posted this here. There’s nothing “Israel critical” in my words. Nothing about Israel at all.
Just because somebody replies to your post doesn’t mean they disagree with you.
So Tertullian’s 1800 year old observations of what gets watered by the blood of martyrs was naive, classical Western sentimental, leftist logic? I wonder what he’d have thought of that.
I know that taking them at their word and referencing a Church father talking about persecution of Christians sounds smart, but it’s not. If you want a more salient authority it would be Jim Jones of the People’s Temple.
But even that’s not salient enough to be helpful. In no sense is a random Arab, who’s just raped and murdered his way through a South Israel settlement and who gets eliminated, a martyr.
You may recall that the Church Fathers didn’t go in for that kind of thing.
Were there 30,000 of those alleged rapists swarming across Israel on October 7th? Were some of them children? Those are the victims I’m talking about.
Presumably you know by now that these are Hamas statistics. Notwithstanding, this is an urban war. As urban wars go, even 30,000 dead of which even you will accept a large number are Hamas, is a relatively low ratio of civillian dead to armed militants.
What I don’t get about this oh-my-God-thousands-of-innocents-are-dying that is the refrain of every hand-wringing liberal across the West is the surprise it embodies.
Given what happened in October it was reasonable for Israel to invade. Given that Israel invaded to destroy Hamas it was to be expected that pursuing a militant force, breaking every law of war by embedding itself in the population, would lead to loss of civilian life. Given that you have no cause to be surprised by this you certainly have no cause to see it as a decisive reason for Israel to give up now.
I can sense the riposte forming in your mind along the lines of “How many deaths do you think are acceptable for Israel to gain its objectives” as if I, feeling embarrassment would just give in to emotional blackmail.
So to save you the trouble, here’s my answer.
Maybe 100,000. But that’s just a guess. It’s really a matter for Israel. It’s war. War is awful. But this war needs to be fought and won.
Happy?
Would you care this much if it was Jordan or Lebanon attacking Gaza?
If I recall my history, those early Christian martyrs weren’t butchering or raping their Roman persecutors.
Reminding us of the first “war” between Israel and Gaza, in 2009, the author writes “Over 22 days, the IDF killed some 1,400 Palestinians, including 300 children”, linking to an Amnesty tally. At the time of the war, the IDF put the Palestinian toll at 1000, of which 700 Hamas fighters, whereas Hamas only acknowledged 49, the rest being supposedly civilians. However, a year later, Hamas put the toll of its fighters killed at 695 (presumably they were forced to acknowledge the Hamas militants killed while fighting Israel to honor their families). It is worthwhile to remember this now, when much of the pressure on Israel is based on a Hamas-provided death toll, and when Hamas doesn’t even acknowledge 49 dead militants …
Good point. Menon’s omissions reveal his agenda and expose his bias. Impartial “analysis” does not cherry-pick “facts” you find favourable, and hide one’s you find inconvenient. That this is acceptable practice at Columbia speaks volumes about its lack of academic integrity.
Or you could argue that Israel has won the pyrrhic victory of demonstrating how much enthusiastic hatred of Jews can be stirred up internationally.
The author writes that in the light of the lack of political goals achieved, the Gaza war is already a failure for Israel. I believe a more correct analysis is that Israel lost the war already on October 7th, and that all it could do afterwards is to try to limit the damage. The invasion of Gaza and the dismantling of Hamas was not a matter of choice. It must be measured against the alternatives – doing nothing, or token retaliatory bombings which would eventually have been criticized also – which would have emboldened Hezbollah, the West Bank Palestinians, and Iran to increase their attacks against an Israel seen as having lost the will to fight for its survival. That the invasion of Gaza was going to be a brutal affair was made certain by the tacit support of UNWRA in allowing Hamas to build up Gaza as a fortress using UN funds – which emphasizes the utter hypocrisy of Western criticism of Israel’s actions.
That said, I agree with the author that the unwillingness of the Netanyahu government, under sway of its extreme right wing, to propose a political solution for the day after, is only making a bad situation worse. But make no mistake: under any scenario, after allowing October 7th to happen, Israel could only be in damage control mode.
What an oddly one-sided piece, for a “Director of Grand Strategies”, though perhaps, given that you’re a “Senior Research Fellow” at Columbia, you didn’t want to be attacked by the anti-semitic, terror-sympathising mob that has taken over your university?
Your casualty figures appear to have come from Hamas and the PLA – yet you disingenuously link to Amnesty Intl?
You write: “The Netanyahu government rejects a two-state solution, which won’t even entertain even the thought of it….” Post Oct 7th can anyone who is morally serious blame them? Maybe your anti-Israel bias would have been marginally less obvious if you’d mentioned the truth of it. That Israelis have offered a two state solution on multiple occasions, and who was it who rejected it? The Palestinians.
Hamas has never come close to accepting a two-state solution. You also gloss over the fact that Hamas regularly and unequivocally reiterate their goal of killing every last Jew in Palestine.
Israel has tried to give land to the Arabs in return for peace on multiple occasons – each time rebuffed by those who wish them driven to extinction.
Palestinians were offered a two-state solution in 1936, 1947, 1967, 2000 and 2008 – and each time TURNED IT DOWN. Israel agreed to abide by a two state solution on each of those occasions … Whereas the Arab League came to negotiations with their famous “Three No’s” : “No peace with Israel. No recognition of Israel. No negotiations with Israel”.
Their successors in the shape of the Muslim Brotherhood, the PLO, Fatah and Hamas were no more conciliatory.
Honestly, through the last 100 years who do you think has been the impediment to peace? Jews who want a homeland, or their neighbours who wished to see all Jews exterminated? There really should be no moral equivalence here, none.
If Gaza is, as the ignorant pro-Palestinian anti-semites on your campus like to claim, “an open-air prison” then ask yourself, “Who are the damn Jailers”? Gaza, with its port on the Mediterranean, could have easily become a commercial hub and a thriving tourist destination. An outcome that would have served the interests of Israelis and Palestinians alike. There was nothing to stop Palestinians choosing peace and prosperity – except that, when given the option at elections, they chose Hamas, a terror organisation that wanted death and destruction of Jews above all other considerations.
Your sub header blames Israel for “stoking a cycle of violence” Really? You think Israel is to blame? You want a ceasefire? Well, there was one. It was broken on Oct 7th and NOT BY ISRAEL.
“Hamas has never come close to accepting a two-state solution”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/5/2/hamas-accepts-palestinian-state-with-1967-borders
That was from 2017 if you don’t fancy opening the link.
And aren’t you glossing over the fact that Netanyahu built his entire political career on resisting the two state solution? One way to do so was by continually offering a resolution of the negotiation on terms that he was aware that the PA could not accept without losing popular support (and potentially their lives).
Imagine your house is subject to cumpulsory purchase and you are negotiating about the price. If the purchaser keeps offering less than 20% of the fair market value of your house then it’s a bit odd for them to complain that you are being unreasonable by refusing to accept the terms offered.
Remember that prior to 1947 almost all the land belonged to the Palestinians and Jews made up a fairly modest minority – 10-20%.
The 1967 boundaries are a fraction of historic Palestine. And yet, the PA/Fatah and Hamas have broadly accepted them.
From your linked-to article:
Once all refugees (and their descendants) return to their homelands, Israel will be a majority Muslim country with a Jewish minority. As they also say:
This is not a peace proposal, it is just an alternative road to conquest.
If you don’t see the resolution of the right to return as a legitimate claim on the part of the Palestinians (who became refugees with the last 75 years) then I am at a loss to understand how you legitimate the state of Israel itself. It is, after all an entity predicated upon the return to an ancestral homeland that the returnees’ ancestors might have left many centuries ago.
I’m not saying it’s easy, I’m saying that if you aren’t grappling with that question then you aren’t sincere in your efforts to solve the problem.
I’d say it is reasonable and justified for Jews to demand a homeland there they feel safe – and that you could make a decent argument that Israel is in part a successor state to the Ottoman Empire. Of course it is *also* very much reasonable and justified for the Palestinians to demand that they get their own country, and that they get back the territory that they were driven out of by force. Unfortunately they cannot both et what they want on the same piece of land, so I do not really see how it helps to look at whose claim is legitimate. If we want peace we need to get to a point where both sides stop fighting and feel safe in what they have. And, regrettably, the right of return is not compatible with that outcome, however much it may be justified.
Israel gained land by right of conquest. It was under attack from all the Arab states until Egypt agreed a peace deal with Israel.
Saudi Arabia was willing to sign a trade agreement with Israel which would have done more to establish peace in the region than any unrealistic notions of right to return. Iran – as Israel’s most bitter and hard line enemy – didn’t want this to continue, hence the atrocities carried out by Hamas on 7th Oct knowing full well that their actions would provoke full scale war.
It’s about time that Iran was put firmly in its place as a failing state ruled by a bunch of no account theocrats – and that the so-called right of return, underwritten by a corrupt and ineffectual UN was finally consigned to the dustbin of history where it belongs.
George,
Surely you don’t take that at face value, do you? You cannot be that naive.
Prior to 1947, certainly prior to the holocaust, most European Jews thought the idea of a Jewish State in Israel was laughable. The majority had no desire to travel to the Middle East to try and build a new life in a desert. But after several generations of European Jews had been exterminated in the camps, many of the survivors realised that there was no other way of protecting themselves from the abiding and centuries-long hatred of Jews, than to build a nation that Jews, themselves, could defend. They could no longer pretend the era of pogroms was past – they could no longer rely on anyone but their own to protect them.
Genuinely, no decent human being, whatever their sympathies for Palestinian refugees and Gazan children, can look at the history and fail to see that the Jewish people faced (and still face) a unique and abiding hatred, and they have a right to protect themselves, a right to live.
Any civilised person must be able to recognise that there is an inarguable, undeniable reason for a Jewish homeland to exist. If you do not, then Shame on you.
The problem that Palestinians (and much of the wider Arab world) have with Israel is not about land. It is not about borders. It is not about resources. It is because it is a Jewish State.
No amount of trading away land for peace would resolve the problem – it’s been tried by the Israelis many times – because the problem is with the very existence of Jews.
Anyone who talks about the disputed ownership of the land being the cause of the problem is either ignorant or is being dishonest. The problem is entirely because they are Jews. No two state solution is possible in such a scenario.
Nobody wishes for innocent Palestinian civilians to be caught up in the fighting as human shields, but it is Hamas not Israel that is responsible for the danger they are in.
What other options do the Israelis have? It is not possible to be morally serious and suggest peace negotiations with Hamas – who could possibly trust any truce with genocidal terrorists who make no pretence of their aims?
Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas leader, is explicit that “We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times. The Al-Aqsa Deluge (the Hamas code-name for the Oct 7 pogrom) is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth,” …“Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.” There’s no negotiating with that. It would suicidally irresponsible to even think it possible.
It can’t be the UN – a wholly corrupted organisation that literally defines ‘Zionism’ as ‘Racism’ and thus denotes the very existence of Israel as a crime.
So, can we expect other Arab nations to help achieve a solution? Supporters of Israel might hope so, but mere hope is a fool’s ally.
So, how to resolve it? The genocide of Jews has long been the Arabs’ preferred solution – so maybe we need to look at this problem not from the perspective of History, which can be – and has been – too easily distorted and disputed, but from the perspective of Geography.
Israel, despite its enormous implications for world peace, comprises a tiny strip of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Israel is smaller than Wales. It is bounded on 3 sides by Muslim Arab countries.
To offer a sense of scale, Israel is approximately 8 thousand square miles in total area. By contrast the Arab world – the al-ummah al-ʿarabīyyah – is well over 5 million square miles larger! Vast open areas of uninhabited lands and with oil wealth beyond calculation. Massive mega-city projects are currently under construction all through the Gulf region. Is it really so inconceivable to suggest that the solution to the problem might include any of these other nations? Is it really Israel’s problem alone?
There are 21 Arab countries in the broader region and a single Jewish state. The only Jewish state in the whole world. 8 of those Arab countries have openly started and fought wars to eradicate Israel, several others have funded those wars and decades-long terror campaigns against Israel. Yet Liberals claim it is Israel that is the aggressor?
As much as protestors might pretend it is not a call for genocide, Palestinians will happily tell you that “From the River to Sea” is a call for that tiny strip of land to be cleared of Jews from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. That Jews should be ethnically cleansed from their ancestral land. Again, many ignorant Liberals of the West will claim that they are not Anti-Semitic but merely anti-Zionist. Okay, so can any of them point to any other country they wish to dismantle? What other nations on earth should be “cancelled”, should be declared illegal, should be dissolved? If it is Israel alone, if it is the world’s only Jewish state and no other, then maybe realise your anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.
Their “I’m just an Anti-Zionist” get-out-of-jail-free card is exposed for what it is, pure sophistry, they are Anti-Semites and should own up to it.
I’d be delighted to see Arab nations step up and agree that this is a conflict that destabilizes the entire region and that they should have a hand in solving it – but popular opinion among their own people means they’re unlikely to do so overtly, when a majority among Palestinians would prefer to see an extermination of, rather than an accomodation with, the Jews. Not to mention that any Arab nation that has previously hosted Palestinians has deeply regretted it and spent decades ridding themselves of the problem.
At that point I don’t see what other option Israel has but try and root out the terrorists themselves whilst they can. Frankly, anyone who claims to support either Israel or the non-combatant Palestinians should be calling for Hamas to be hunted out of Gaza and Qatar, and captured or killed. Preferably killed.
Not only does Israel have the right to destroy Hamas, they have a duty to – for the good of their people, the Palestinian people and the wider world.
As it happens I don’t believe that an attempted genocide of European Jews can only be resolved by granting Jews their own ethnostate. That is an attempt to solve the worst excess of ethnic nationalism with a different kind of ethnic nationalism.
Jews in Europe are safer than Jews in the ethnostate created to protect them. Jews in Israel are less safe than they would be otherwise because they have attempted to create an apartheid state on land that belonged to others and to exclude the indigenous population from full participation the governance of that state.
The hostility of the regional powers towards Israeli stems primarily from the behaviour of Israel towards the Palestinian people it displaced, not from some ancient animus towards Jews as Jews.
That history is distinctly European. I’m not saying that there was no inter ethnic tension in pre Balfour Palestine, you can see that in sources from TE Lawrence all the way back to Josephus, I’m saying it was not unique to Jews – see also, the druze or the yezidis – and manageable.
I’m also not saying that the creation of Israel was a mistake that was bound to end in the current calamity. I’m saying that the choice made by the Western powers to provide uncritical support for Israel even as it violated international law (settlers in the West Bank) has progressively made a complex political puzzle into a moral quagmire and led us to the current calamity.
“The hostility of the regional powers towards Israeli stems primarily from the behaviour of Israel towards the Palestinian people it displaced”
Your grasp of history is eye-wateringly weak, or coloured by a shameful antipathy towards Jews, if you think you can justify such a statement!
For all its faults, the Ottoman empire was primarily Islamic but culturally diverse.
The shameful history of Jewish persecution in Europe is completely distinct from the inter-communal frictions of the Ottoman empire.
I have no antipathy towards Jews but I can distinguish an ethnic group from a political project.
As to my grasp of history being weak, perhaps you’re right but at least I don’t justify my arguments with free floating moral assertions such as, the unique history of the persecution of European Jews could only be addressed through the creation of an ethnostate in a different region without the consent of or compensation for the indigenous population.
Why on earth shouldn’t the Jews have their own country? And if you truly believe that they shouldn’t, why then are you so adamant on Palestinians having one? Israel is only 8,630 sq. miles in size and they were willing to share it with peope who despise them. Surely those who hate Israel should be the ones to go?
For the same reason that the white Afrikaaners shouldn’t have one – because they could only get one by violently appropriating the land from others.
Imagine that the Trump administration decided that the Haitians had been very badly treated by the succession of dictators the US had installed and maintained. In a fit of remorse, the orange one decides to do something aobut it but but he doesn’t want to permit unlimited migration into southern Florida so he simply creates a legal right for Haitians to take up residence in another island that happened to be their imperial possession – Britain!
And then imagine that a bunch of Haitians came over, chucked everyone out of their homes, packed 80% of the rest of us into Wales and then blockaded Offa’s d**e for 50 years.
If you are saying that Jews would have been safer if they had stayed in Germany, Poland, Russia, Yemen, Noth Africa … you will find that they themselves strongly disagree, but you at least have an argument. If you are saying that Jews would have been safer if all Arabs ‘between the river and the sea’ had had full voting rights in Israel you are living in a dream world. Arabs attacked Jewish Israel the moment the British had left. Arabs spoke and prepared for war up till 1967, and attacked in 1973. Arabs kept doing cross-border raids and terrorist attacks from 1948 onwards, long before Israel had occupied the West Bank. Arabs in Israel may not be full citizens, but their property, their lives and that of their children are safe. Jews in Muslim Palestine would be fools to expect anything as good as that. Whatever Israelis should rely on to protect their own safety it cannot be just the good will and forbearance of their Muslim neighbours.
It is quite likely that an Israel that had not made the settlements and had kept the door open for a deal would have been safer now. But it is no less true that a Palestinian side that had been willing to offer a reliable peace (without right of return for millions of Palestinians) would have made such an Israeli policy immensely more likely.
Why did the Arabs attack as soon as Britain left?
Because the creation of Jewish Israel had been achieved at the price of creating hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees.
Was there intercommunal tension before? Sure, nowhere near as virulently as in Europe but sure. However the scale and brutality of the Nakba made enemies of all the arab states in the region – many of whom had been parts of the same Ottoman empire until quite recently.
If China planted an unpopular colonial outpost in the middle of Europe, if the colonists were then to displace hundreds of thousands from their homes, and going to the extreme of blowing up Chinese offiicials in order to dispossess more locals more quickly, and if China got fed up with this behaviour and withdrew from its colony, how would Europe respond? By making immediate peace – or by attempting to scrub the colony off the map?
I am not surprised that the Arabs are angry – and for all that the Jews deserved a homeland it it hard to argue convincingly why they should have got it at someone else’s expense. But we need to get some clarity here, just so we know what we are discussing:
If you are saying that Palestine is Arab and only Arab and the Jews ought to be expelled, I disagree with you, but you are perfectly consistent.
If you are saying that Israel should allow the Arabs to return en masse and vote, and that this would lead to peaceful co-existence, you are talking nonsense.
Please come off the fence: Which is it?
Personally I would hope for peace – some kind of two-state solution where both sides accept that this is all they get and stop fighting for more. Unfortunately it is hard to imagine how either side, but particularly the Palestinians, could be convinced to go there. If war it is to be, then I take sides and would prefer to see Nakba-2 to Holocaust-2. I expect that there will be fewer deaths that way.
I don’t agree with either of those.
I don’t believe that anyone has an inalienable right to an ethnic homeland if they can get it only at the expense of others. Glad we agree on that. But that is what happened. Right? And that places the establishment of Israel on a shaky foundation if we don’t think that people should be treated differently on the basis of ethnicity.
That doesn’t mean that it is automatically untenable – it just means that we need to acknowledge what’s going on.
I do not say that Palestine should be exclusively Arab nor that Jews should be expelled. I say that it is morally wrong for one group to displace another and then to refuse a right of return to the displaced whilst offering unlimited inward migration to the displacing group. In any other context, we would call it racist because it ascribes different rights to different people on the basis of race.
I recognise that, if all the refugees were permitted to return and vote and nothing else happened that it would be unlikely to lead to peaceful co-existence. Sorting out one of the most intractible conflicts in the world is going to take time and compromises and investment and a process of building trust. I am open as to how this is best achieved – through a two state solution or as a single state which represents the interests of all its people but which therefore has to give up some of its exclusively Jewish character.
Fair to point out that not one of the surrounding Arab states is or ever has been willing to assimilate their notionally subjugated co-religionists. Surely that wouldn’t suggest a strategy for keeping the conflict “live” and keeping Israel harassed, would it? (I personally think that would be the likeliest working hypothesis.) And lest anyone forget, the “hosting” of the Palestinian leadership by Lebanon in the 1980s didn’t end up being so very harmonious on either side. So much for religious brotherhood.
George,
Almost nothing you have written is correct, at all.
I’ve responded to your comment – with which I totally disagree – at some length, but for some reason I’m cast into pending limbo.
Is that the same AlJazeera that’s funded by Qatar, which also hosts Hamas leaders and funds Hamas terrorists? Hmmm! Not sure I wholly trust their reporting in terms of accuracy or independence.
Al Jazeera isn’t worth even using as toilet paper.
You shouldn’t wholly trust anything you read. BBC, NYT, Breitbart, Al Jazeera, Pravda, the Economist, whatever. You should read them all critically.
But Al Jazeera is perfectly capable of transcribing a press release which Western media orgs mostly didn’t bother to cover.
Not covering things is the original and most obvious form of spin, which is why you should get a varied media diet.
One of the issues there is that Palestinians didn’t even exist in 1947. They were invented in the late 60’s with Arafat openly stating so.
Hate it when the facts get in the way of a good lie!
A very well thought out comment! Murderous, religion obsessed terrorists with a martyrdom wish cannot really be dealt with by negotiations. Where does one begin, when Hamas have nothing to discuss?
I’m an UnHerd Reader, as is noted above, the name’s David Eades.
David, were you by any chance a broadcaster?
Why has practically the entire thread now been “disappeared”?
This is happening much too often. Please will the Unherd team rethink whatever commenting protocols they have in place. It is ruining the “user experience” and makes any reasonable back-and-forth quite impossible
A PLEA TO THE EDITORS…..
Okay, the missing comments appear to have been reinstated, but removing them for several hours has denied your readers and subscribers the opportunity to engage.
I really enjoy this site, but you badly need to re-think whatever commenting policies are leading to the unexplained disappearances, the weird zeroing of upvotes, and the re-ordering of comments so that threads become an incoherent colection of non-sequiturs.
PLEASE.
Seconded. And also please make a dark viewing mode for the website and app.
Quite sensible – but it would be nice to hear more about what the Palestinian side is willing to offer to get peace. Will a majority of Palestinians actually give up their goal of getting all the land back? If they have a chance of starting another war and getting what they want, will they hold back? How will they suppress the (let us hope) minority who will keep fighting, killing and terrorising like Hamas whatever the situation? Does the ‘right of return’ not imply the right to turn Israel into a Muslim-majority state – or at the very least a state no longer capable of democratically sustaining an army that can keep the enemies out?
If Israel is supposed to accept a deal of ‘land for peace’ (as the wording used to be), surely they would need a reliable guarantee that they would actually get the peace? If you cannot get peace, moving the grass and gradually expanding the settlements does look like the least bad option.
The Palestinians actually accepted a deal that represented about 20% of the land of Palestine some years ago
Did they? When? Link? As I remember, then closest it got was in 2000 or 2008 (as the article says). And, as it says,
Again, as I remember, the Palestinian side would not accept to give up the right of return (important Palestinian voices claimed this was an individual right that no government or negotiator had the power to give up). And as long as Palestinians claim the right to return to Israel and vote there, there will not be peace. Either they return and vote – and Israel becomes majority Muslim – or they are prevented from returning or from voting – in which case they can claim that Israel has broken the deal by denying them their rights.
I was referring to Hamas’ acceptance of a two state solution in 2017 (see above) but, of course, the PLO accepted Israel’s right to exist far earlier in the Oslo accords. It renounced political violence and accepted the 1967 borders (ie 20% of the mandate of Palestine)
That deal fell apart because of objectors on both sides. (Baruch Goldstein firing on muslim worshippers at the cave of the patriarchs, Hamas conducting a series of suicide bombings, and, of course, the assassination of Rabin by a settler).
My point is that it was extremely hard for both sides to find the necessary compromise to make the two state solution work and it is disingenuous to suggest that the Palestinians (and only the Palestinians) keep rejecting workable settlements.
Netanyahu built his career on his rejection of the Oslo accords.
Certainly both sides refused to accept a deal, and both sides need to be willing to go an extra mile. But given that Israel has a legitimate government and strong civil society that could enforce a solution (and the Palestinians do not), that Israel has indicated willingness to live alongside a Palestinian entity whereas Hamas is not willing to accept the Zionist entity – and that I think the right of return is not compatible with a stable peace, I’d say that the onus on the Palestinians is bigger – as well as much less talked about.
The Palestine Liberation Organization was formed in 1964 when Arabs had complete control of the West Bank, so clearly the “Liberation” meant, and still means for many, taking all of Israel. Simples.
As this tragedy unfolds, perhaps to hold in mind that the State of Israel was created in 1948, the same year the National Party came to power in South Africa and started putting in place its policy of Apartheid. Two trajectories.
Many states were created around 1948, including many Arab states. Isn’t it extraordinary that the Arab citizens of Israel are the ones that enjoy the most civil rights, are the best educated, and are (outside the oil sheikhdoms) the wealthiest of all?
“Then again, the many thousands of young men who have seen their parents and siblings killed, their homes and neighbourhoods demolished, and their own lives upended, may equally become a deep recruitment reservoir for follow-on armed resistance movements. Israel may end up creating more extremists than it has killed.”
May?
This is the most orthodox and unremarkable of insights imaginable.
And perhaps no people on earth has a such a pronounced culture of drawing strength from historic injustice.
What is the informal motto of the IDF? “Masada shall never fall again” that’s a 2,000 year old grievance right there.
What is the fatalistic summary of almost every Jewish holiday? “Someone tried to kill us, they failed, let’s eat”
You cannot pacify a population through violence. There are only two options: make a just peace or kill so many that they can never rise again. It is, in part, because everyone knows this and because Israel shows no sign of wanting to make any sort of viable peace, that we may infer that genocide is the intention.
The premise that you cannot pacify a population through violence is questionable to say the least. In any case, pacifying through kindness doesn’t seem to work either: ask Vivian Silver (used to drive Gaza patients to medical treatments in Israel; killed in Be’eri on October 7); or Eyal Waldman (used to employ Gazan programmers in his start-ups, and built a new wing in a Gaza hospital; his daughter was killed at the Nova music festival on October 7th). I could go on.
BTW Mr. Waldman still employs West Bank Palestinians, and still (!) believes in eventual coexistence. However he is adamant that Hamas must first be removed from a position of influence in the Palestinian society. This can only happen through violence, unfortunately. After the atrocities of October 7th, failing to exact a heavy price from Hamas would only empower them and help them recruit, not pacify them.
You clearly didn’t see the point I was making.
Did centuries of violence agianst Jewish people cause them to abandon their desire to live as full and equal citizens? More specifically, did their determination increase or decrease after the holocaust?
Are Palestinians different? Should they be?
As to thefailure to pacify Gaza through kindness, do you consider the actions of Vivian Silver and Eyal Waldman, generally characteristic of the treatment of Gazans by Israelis? Or do you accept that those actions are both exceptional and necessitated by the general tenor of treatment (including economic blockade, arbitrary deterntion etc.). Feel free to refer to the phrase “mowing the lawn” in any answer.
How do you reason with someone who will go on to enjoy heavenly paradise after killing you, your relatives, and all others that you hold dear?
Can someone explain why my comment pointing out that you cannot permanently pacify a population through violence gets sin binned whilst another, explicitly advocating ethnic cleansing the Gaza strip by driving the population into Sinai stays up?
I don’t advocate the latter being taken down BTW, I am simply asking what the moderation standard is and how it comports with the fact that UnHerd went before Parliament less than fortnight ago to complain about censorship.
Q: How many social workers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: SIx. One to hold the light bulb, and five to convince it that it wants to change.
If a population refuses to be permanently pacified unless and until it is given the land it wants, what solution would you propose?
Perhaps, if you consider that the question could be phrased like this, the answer would be clearer.
If a population refuses to be permanently pacified unless and until it is given [back] the land [that Israel has appropriated and continues to appropriate in violation of international law] what solution would you propose?
I’d say that your formulation makes a difference in theory, but not in practice. If you give them back the land (how much of the land?) would they then leave Israel in peace – or would they use it as a stepping stone to get more? Once they were in a position where they had a good chance of taking all they want by force, would they really refrain? And what guarantees would they give that the Israelis would dare to rely on?
After all, giving the Palestinians the West Bank and Gaza, with open borders and no interference from Israel, would put them in a position where they could bring in heavy weapons and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and rerun October 7th in spades. If not win an outright war of conquest. Giving them full right of return would make Israel into a majority-Muslim country, at which point any peace agreement would be moot – the Muslim Palestinians would be in control on both sides of the negotiating table.
If you believe that the Palestinians have a moral right to be put in a position where they can conquer all of Israel and expel the Jews if they feel like it, you may or may not be right. But it is pretty clear that you could not build a peace on that foundation.
The ideal solution to the Gaza war is for enough common ground between Israel and Saudi Arabia to be maintained that will save the normalisation process that the war halted. It is Iran that is the winner, so far, from this war. A victory against Hamas is therefore not the best victory available to Israel, it is the victory against Iran that completion of the Abraham Accords represents.
Presently, Saudi Arabia wants the two-state solution as a condition for this, which Israel understandably sees as a climbdown, but I find it hard to believe that a commencement of talks wouldn’t enable some pragmatic ideas and concessions to emerge.
On a final note, the reference to the genocide charge at the ICJ is meaningless: it’s political theatre and if it ever goes to trial, which it won’t, Israel will prove quite easily that genocide never actually occurred. The western voters who think it’s genocide are simply uninformed, that’s all, Israel has had to put up with their brand of stupidity for decades, and it won’t make any difference to the war.
Is the author aware of the fact that Israel has made repeated offers of peace and concessions (not just the three mentioned) and the stupid, genocidally-inclined Palestinians have rejected all of them? If not, he should be.
”Research fellow” at Columbia. Dismissed.
There is no solution to Gaza now for exactly the same reason that there has been no solution ever since 1947 – those in charge of the Palestinian population are not interested in any solution that includes a Jewish state from the river to the sea. There have been plenty of compromise solutions put forward over the years and the Palestinian leadership has rejected them all.
There could be a permanent ceasefire tomorrow, all Hamas needs to do is surrender and hand back the remaining hostages. They would never do that.
71% of Palestinians support the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. That’s a higher level of support than comical-moustache-man had in WW2, and roughly double that of what Biden or Trudeau enjoy currently. Don’t imagine that Hamas does not represent the goals of the Palestinian people, which are, broadly, the death of Israel.
And so it’s no wonder that any attempt at a two-state solution means one state working toward the elimination of the other. The best Israel can do in response can be summed up in Churchill’s dictum, “When you’re going thru hell…. keep going”.
And hope that someday the Religion of Peace loses ground in Palestine, as it is doing (slowly) in Iran.
“And the problem here is that, after the carnage and destruction in Gaza, few if any non-Hamas notables will rush to volunteer.”
That’s not the problem at all, which is that any “non-Hamas notables” who volunteer will be quickly murdered by Hamas, probably along with their families. Because terrorism, that’s why.
Israel wants peace. The arabs doesn’t. It up to them if they want to continue prune their own population.
Israel should use the arab states fear of Iran to help them subdue the arabs in the West Bank and Gaza in return for coverage of Israels overwhelming military power and nuclear umbrella.
Ghaza and the West Bank should be left to the international community that cares so much about it. No muslims can be in charge as that will only lead to a repetition of 7th October. Next time Israel probably won’t be so gracious as to only ”mow the lawn”.
When one side wants the other to be wiped out, no, there will be no solution. There have been numerous attempts to create a sovereign Palestinian state, each one scotched by the Arabs. That’s the fact of the matter. So is that no one had ever heard of a “Palestinian” until the 1900s.
Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and other Muslim nations have solved the riddle of being on the same planet as Israel. One group refuses to do that. It’s why the other Arabs want nothing to do with that group. Yet somehow, here we are – the bad guys are the ones whose residents include the freest Arabs in the Middle East.
A two-state solution would lead to endless warfare; the Palestinians have long insisted that they want all of it and that the Jews must leave. More than just demented nationalism, this is a matter of faith for them.
A one-state solution would lead to endless political warfare, with a full scale civil war to follow.
The situation that existed before Oct. 7 at least gave the Israelis some control. Once they regain that we can all start that silly one-state/two-state dance again.
But the bottom line is this: If I were a Gazan with a wife and kids I would be doing anything I could to get us out of there.
Mr. Menon doesn’t even mention that option.
Any Gazan with brains and initiative will already have left and be doing well in their adopted country.
There most certainly IS an answer! Al that is needed is for the Arab and other Islamic countries to recognise the state of Israel and stop threatening it with destruction. It’s not hard to understand. In fact, you have to be either ideologically blinded or plain stupid not to see it.
Palestinian abuse has always been at the hands of their fellow Islamic Arabs. The refusal of Hamas apologists, and their colleagues, to admit this, is as much a barrier as any. From the get go, those who were forced to be Palestinian martyrs and pawns, refused any succor by their neighbors, isolated in camps, used until they joined their users and became their own worst enemies, like electing a Hamas dictatorship, have like wise refused any solution that does not eliminate Israel.
To suggest that until frustration drove them to October 7th, they were blissfully living in deprivation on top of tunnels built of what might have been a successful future, is mind boggling. These are the people who sabotage their own succor: a free, aid delivering pier. Commercial independence will never be allowed by the brutes who use them. Gaza has had 20 years to build itself, but no one on “their” side wants that. And Israel is to blame. Right.
This mess will remain intractable as long as the Arab (mostly shia) world wants. No so called solution has ever been accepted in the final hour of negotiations by the “Palestinians”. There’s always “right of return” to fall back on, as did Arafat, to scuttle any chance. You are familiar with replacement theory, so denigrated by the left? Right of return is exactly that; the right to replace the Jews in Israel.
Arab demographics will overwhelm Israel eventually. In 1948, there were 11000 bedouin remaining in Israel. Nows there’s over 300000. Gaza has gone from half a million to two and a half in less than 60 years. Egypt from 12 million to 120 million in the last century. Israel hasn’t a chance (mind you, Europe probably doesn’t either)
The Oct 7th attacks were the equivalent of boxing trash talk. The aim being to rile your opponent and get them to expend their resources ineffectively.
Not quite that simple, I am afraid. Trash talk you can neutralise as long as you are able to keep your cool. Massacres are a different matter. Rather (like, I suspect, a lot of warfare) it was about putting Israel in a situation where they would suffer no matter what they did. Let Hamas get away cheaply, and you prove that Israel is unable to protect its citizens, and Hamas can kill with impunity – which they would then make use of to kill more people next time. Maximum retaliation, as Israel did, proves that attacking Israel is expensive, but comes at a major diplomatic cost. Hamas wins either way – since they have no problem with having 30000 fellow Palestinians killed in return for weakening Israel’s position.
Not nice to say the murder of 1200 and horrible sexual violence is just “trash talk.”
“Though far from homogenous, the anti-war Left that has organised around this war shares a simple ambition: Israel should jettison this “mowing the grass” model and resume negotiations aimed at a two-state solution, which has only been pursued in fits and starts since the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995.”
Except that’s not at all what they are organized around. The rhetoric and messaging are not at all about a two state solution, it is about the annihilation of Israel. Back in October, ignorance about the cause they had signed onto might have been excusable. Any ignorance still remaining is wilful.
This is the crux of the challenge that the west needs to get its head around. We are not all talking about the same conflict. Among most reasonable people in the west and among those seeking peace in Israel, the focus is on addressing enduring issues from the 1967 war, in particular the occupation of the West Bank, Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem, and the blockade of Gaza.
The consensus resolution for this is the infamous two state solution, to separate the populations of the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem from Israel into a Palestinian state, along with the population of Gaza, from which Israel withdrew in 2005.
The problem is that Hamas, most Palestinians, and those who say they support them around the world aren’t fighting that war. They are still fighting the 1947-48 war that culminated in Israel’s independence, and are fighting today against Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish state. A two state solution doesn’t resolve this conflict, not without a massive shift in public opinion, strategy, and even national identity on the part of the Palestinians.
It’s cute how the author dances around the notion of a one state solution as not being realistic because Israelis don’t support it. Yes, such an approach would go against the very basic argument for a Jewish homeland, but it also would ignore the very real history of Jewish minorities in every other Arab majority state being expelled or having to flee in terror, along with the dismal experience of every other religious and ethnic minority group in each of Israel’s neighbours. Understandably, Israelis have no interest in their home becoming another Lebanon or Syria.
Ultimately there are three big choices one has to make: 1. You agree with Israel’s legitimacy as a home for the Jewish people, as secured by the Zionists after a campaign of more than 50 years, even if you may not agree with all of the choices Zionists made along the way. 2. You disagree with Israel’s legitimacy in terms of how the country came to be, but accept that Israel is a nation of nearly 10 million people who are here to stay. Or 3. You reject any legitimacy for Israel at its formation, AND you reject its legitimacy and existence today.
For #1 and 2, there is hope of a resolution to be found to the conflict. For those committed to #3, there is no resolution to the conflict until one side wins total victory . In backing Hamas, the protesters are aligning with that camp.
Senior research fellow at Columbia …that tells me something….the only thing more damning would be that he a contributor to Guardian or NY Times. There is so many assertions in this that are hollow…where to begin…’the pitless” bombardment for one. I ‘ll tell you pitiliess: Hamas, Basar Al Assad, Putin, zi Jeng Ping, that Un guy in N, Korea….The PA is part of of the Oslo plan…the Gaza de-occupation by Sharon is too. Both cases the Arabic speaking Muslims have created totalitarian kleptocracies that keep the Zionist boogyeman alive for their unhappy populations. Israel has made mistakes…none worse than putting any trust in “Palestine partners.” If the moderated Emiratis, Moroccans and the police state in Egypt are involved some kind of guaranteed autonomy in West Bank and gaza….perhaps they can achieve what Kurdistan has settled for as part of Iraq …at least in name. If they can do that…they can have peace and justice and lives free from hamas hezbollah fear.
The biggest obstacle to peace is the bunch of assorted thugs and rabble rousers that currently rule Iran.
As long as Iran has as its goal the entire destruction of Israel, it will continue to fund terrorists and the attacks will continue.
And if I was an Israeli I would be highly distrustful of Palestinians, and wouldn’t want any of them living anywhere within striking distance of my home.
Problem no. 1 here, “Clausewitz’s dictum that war, though horrific, isn’t ultimately about killing and destruction for the sake of it but a means for states to achieve their political goals.” = Israel is not fighting in either category so this dictum is inapplicable.
Problem no. 2, Israel absolutely is not obligated to accommodate people in their nation who are not wanted. This is seen throughout the 2nd and 3rd worlds and increasingly is accepted in the 1sr world. Gazans should be welcomed in any of the neighboring nations to Israel.
I think the author is mistaken about support for Israel within the US.
Yes, there are people on the progressive left that are up in arms, but the vast majority of the country still is willing to support Israel. The same in Europe.
Many of those protesters on US college campuses are going to have criminal records and many will be expelled. They overplayed their hand by a long shot.
There is a backlash building against the progressive left all across the west. Trump is likely to win in November.
As I told a friend of mine yesterday, the radicals of the 60’s became the Yuppies of the 80’s. Trump is no Reagan but he is the portent of something that will follow.
Israel will probably take all of Gaza and hold it. They are never going to allow Hamas to rise there again. If Israel pulls out then Iran will just refinance another proxy. Ultimately, I suppose that Israel will need to absorb Gaza and its people.
For today the author is right. For the past, many huge and powerful countries fell like USSR and Yugoslavia. For tomorrow, we do not know yet.
This is a terrible article — simultaneously unoriginal (‘they’re creating more terrorists than they’re killing!’) and curiously blind to the lies it takes at face value. The Palestinians argue that settlements breach international law? Well, are the Palestinians faithful in deferring to international law when it’s not to their advantage? Of course not. (Neither are the Israelis, because international law has no moral authority. But don’t invoke it as if it proves the Israelis are at fault.)
In addition to parroting cliches, he also ignores the actual path to resolution that has been explored at length in commentary and actual diplomacy over the past decade… continuing the work of pressuring Palestinians through their network of supporters. Camp David brought the Egyptians more or less on side, Trump made great progress with the gulf states via the Abraham Accords, and the rivalry with Iran was pushing the Saudis in that direction, too.
The problem of Palestine will ultimately be resolved through the self interest of bigger players… it’s not the Palestinians but the people who support and fund the Palestinians who will ultimately bring peace to Palestine.
I agree with the Palestinians that they were screwed but what choice does Israel have? Not only is there no solution to the Gaza War but there is none, nor will there be, a peaceful solution to the State of Israel in the Middle East. Israel’s population is 10 million and is 16 times smaller than Germany. The only real solution is to create a new state of Israel in Europe. How do you think that would go down? My great-grandchildren will be reading this same shit and until we actually have competent leadership in the West and Middle East the only thing that will occur is innocent civilians of both side being killer on a irregular basis.
But there is a solution. The un needs to stop supporting terrorist governments.
The UN won’t stop supporting its terror-supporting member states until it’s dissolved.
“The only real solution is to create a new state of Israel in Europe?”
How is that now? Europe why? More than half of Israel’s 7.2 million Jewish citizens trace their roots through Jewish communities expelled/driven from countries of North Africa and the Middle East since the 1940s – not Europe. Israel’s 2 million Arab citizens consistently tell pollsters they would prefer to stay in Israel than emigrate or be part of a Palestinian state.
So, “The only real solution is to create a new state of Israel in Europe?”
It all falls into place now. Rajan Menon is a senior research scholar at the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. That perfectly explains why student protesters refuse to engage in debate – because they can’t. And that’s because they’re being taught be an agenda-driven intellectual inadequate who reveals his bias and poverty of thought in the first sentence, where this “expert” in global conflict writes: “It helps to recall Clausewitz’s dictum that war, though horrific, isn’t ultimately about killing and destruction for the sake of it but a means for states to achieve their political goals.” This is beyond facile. Britain’s in WW2 was battling for its very survival against an existential threat. Is that a “political goal?” Further on in the first para he writes: “Never has this nation [Israel], founded following the Holocaust, had to face formal allegations of genocide at the International Court of Justice.” This is a misrepresentation. Israel hasn’t had to face “formal allegations of genocide,” as ICJ president at the time, Joan Donoghue explained to the BBC, saying: “It did not decide – and this is something where I’m correcting what’s often said in the media – is didn’t decide that the claim of genocide was plausible… The shorthand that often appears – which is that there’s a plausible case of genocide – isn’t what the court decided.”
All of this is just Menon’s first paragraph. With that quality of analysis and teaching it’s no wonder the student protesters refuse to engage in debate or support their arguments beyond football terrace chants for Intifada, shouting “We don’t want no two-state, we want it all,” as well as a student leader who has called for “Death to Zionists.” Additionally, another professor at Columbia described Oct 7 as “awesome” and “incredible.” Columbia president Minouche Safik’s response to that was that he had been “spoken to.” Clearly Columbia is a place that does not foster thought, but rewards unthinking tick-box ideological dogma, and favours indoctrination over education. Menon’s trite and agenda-driven “analysis” above has deliciously exposed this echo chamber of confirmation bias that denies students access to opposing ideas or the means to explore them. That’s not education, it’s indoctrination.
This whole argument would be much better if the Israelis choose to start this war. As it was thumping Hamas is about all they can do seeing as a lasting peace in the mandate is as far away as it has always been. The un should look at their actions which led to this blood bath. Propping up a terrorist state. What could possibly go wrong. “Aid” organizations have all of this blood on their hands.
Menon studiously ignores the true reason why the two-state solution is – and always has been – impossible. It is that the Palestinians are not actually interested in a state of their own, a state whose interests might play off those of a neighbour Jewish state in at worst a zero-sum game but at best a co-operative nonzero one. The only interest they might have in a state of their own is if that state could provide a stepping-stone to their real purpose, which is the destruction of the Jewish state set up in 1948. This is not a quarrel over land at all. It is a quarrel about the very existence of the Jewish state, and that is why it is irresolvable while both Israel and Palestinans exist. (I speak here of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, not of those who remained in Israel as it was between 1948 and 1967, who have made their peace with Israel and are blessed to be full Israeli citizens with full rights)
The situation is asymmetrical: Jewish identity goes back millennia, as everyone is well aware, and having seen off Pharaoh, Babylon, Rome, Christendom and the Ottomans, Jews have no need or inclination to build Palestinians into their sense of who they are. Palestinian identity on the other hand is entirely constituted by the thought of the great injustice done to them in 1948 and fuelled by the apocalyptic hope of destroying their perceived oppressor. For there were no ‘Palestinians’ in the modern sense before 1948; ‘Palestinian’ was a term used for any and all of the inhabitants of the region, Jewish as well as Arab. What are now called Palestinians were just Arabs who lived in Palestine, sharing much of their culture with their co-religionists in TransJordan, Syria and Lebanon. The entire Palestinian identity as it has evolved since 1948 is parasitic on the thought of this very specific Other: the wicked scheming oppressor Jew. If Hamas were to get its wish and exterminate Jewry entirely from the land of Israel in a genocidal bloodbath, Palestinan identity as it exists in the West Bank and Gaza – and hence the Palestinians themselves as an imagined community – would disappear like a will-o’-the-wisp or a bad dream.
The crusader state of Outremer lasted from 1098 to 1291 though Jerusalem itself was retaken by the Muslims sooner. Modern day Israel may eventually clear Palestinian resistance and become a secure, powerful Jewish state. On the other hand Arab nations and the Palestinians may succeed in destroying Israel as, I recall the emperor Hadrian did. We do not know, but as the author observes, it looks as if the fight will go on. My sympathies are with the Jews.
Mr. Menon writes that the one-state solution “contradicts the fundamental principle underlying the zionist project, namely that Jews must have their own homeland,” and that it would “require Israelis to abandon deeply rooted conceptions of self and nation…”
An additional stumbling block, one that doesn’t originate in the stubborn ideals of the Jews, is that the Palestinians have made clear that they won’t rest until Jews are eliminated from the entirety of the land currently known as Israel.
That pesky little problem might make a one-state solution challenging for Jews who want their children to continue to walk the earth while drawing breath.
The Settlers quote the Bible (Old Testament) but they do not or do not want to read what is written there. It is quite clear that the promise of the land is CONDITIONAL upon obedience to God’s revealed laws (keeping the Covenant) and that several areas of land now taken were directly forbidden to them.
The new ‘religion’ in Israel is Jewish Nationalism – at any cost to others! – and has little if anything to do with Orthodox Judaism.
Easily the best, most objective analysis I’ve seen on this issue at UnHerd. Enlightening!
No mention of what Hamas did on October 07th stoking the cycle of violence? It seems that Israel is the only country in the world that is expected to put up with constant attacks on its citizens and do nothing about it.
Just heard on the BBC that unlike the Palestinians who are trapped, the Jews have started doing the chicken run from Israel, Portugal apparently a favoured bolt hole for refugee status. A sign of little or no confidence remaining in Netanyahu and his religious maniac government.
Maybe it’s another sign of Columbia University’s decline that Menon, one of its professors, focuses on public support gauged by survey without regard for the bloodthirsty ideologues who perpetually attack Israel. Most Westerners are oblivious to the religious conviction of hard-line Muslims (“Islamists” is the favoured term now) that denigrates all non-Muslims, especially Jews, and wants to eradicate us if we don’t convert. Israel faces it directly and now understands that Hamas and their ilk must be removed from power for peace to be possible.
Anyone lobbying for a “two-state solution” is delusional in thinking that anything approaching a Palestinian state is possible before Palestinians in general want it. We’re nowhere close to that situation, and ignoring that, as Menon does, undermines his analysis. Israel can’t afford to be limited by ill-informed foreign opinions.
What an unashamedly one sided piece of propaganda you have written. Shameful that it was published.
Amongst the litany of lies and misinformation we can call out the fact that it was the Palestinians that turned down a land deal in 2008 where they were offered over 97% of what they requested. The reason, of course, being they never wanted peace at all.
And to somehow suggest it is the Israelis’ sentiments as the basis for a single state solution not working is simply antisemitism. It already has 2 million Arabs living in Israel with full rights. The reason a one state solution doesn’t work is because one side has an openly stated genocidal threat against the other, and that isn’t the Israelis for those who can get off TikTok to find the truth.
Utterly disgraceful article by an author thinking they’re being independent….
The author misses the main obstacle to peace: the Palestinian people themselves. They rejected two states in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s and thereafter engaged in terror. If you asked all Israelis whether they would push a “magic” button that would result in two state living side by side in peace, nearly 100% would push it even if it meant giving up territory. If you asked the Palestinians the same questions 80%+ would say no.