so I am out of touch for a few days, and yet again some damn fool goes and starts a war...
I don't want to rehash the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I realised 25 years ago that resolving it was beyond me (though one of my cousins still might...); and I don't particularly care "who started it" for the current round...
What I do not understand is Israel's strategy here?
The airstrikes, while heavy and targeted, in as much as they can be, are not enough to destroy or decapitate Hamas.
They can damage Hamas infrastructure and command&control, but if Hamas is half as competent as Hezbollah was, they will retain combat and retaliatory capabilities and substantial distributed training and command infrastructure.
So, Israel has called up a couple of brigades of reserves and massed ground troops.
But not enough to do much.
Going into Gaza with moderate force just invites Israeli Army casualties and a little messy progress, with a lot more politically damaging Palestinian casualties.
The Palestinians, literally, have nowhere to go. I don't think the Israelis can push them into Egypt, and they can not occupy Gaza.
So is this just extra strong lashing out, while they still can?
With no actual strategy for a military or long term solution?
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"I don't think the Israelis can push them into Egypt, and they can not occupy Gaza."
Why not? What happens to the Israelis if they do either of these?
"So is this just extra strong lashing out, while they still can?"
What's going to stop them from retaliating in the future if Hamas shells them?
"With no actual strategy for a military or long term solution?"
I don't know -- Olmert's a fool -- but simply killing Hamas and breaking their stuff helps, because it imposes a cost on them for shelling Israel. What alternative did the Israelis have?
"What's going to stop them from retaliating in the future if Hamas shells them?"
Obama. Israel can't start a major offensive without first talking about it with the USA.
"What alternative did the Israelis have?"
Extremists can operate only if they have the support of the population. This support is to remove the source of grievances or ethnic cleansing. So far, Israel policy has only been to slowly erode Palestine and to stop the natural change in demographics. Israel can have a Jewish majority or to be democratic, but not both.
"Obama."
Don't count on him. So far, all the staff he has selected are strongly pro-Israel.
I don't know, but I would think the answer is likely to be found by not considering Israel as a unitary entity. Disaggregate it into plausible factions, and you will have too many explanations, not too few.
What Israel is doing right now degrades Hamas' capabilities to launch attacks on Israel, in the short term, it may exacerbate the problem in the medium term.
While the Israel air attack in retaliation are much larger than the tit-for-tat retaliation tactic, they are not enough to destroy Hamas (if Hamas has any sense about distributing resources and C&C).
But, the ground forces Israel has assembled are, again, apparently the wrong size - too large to hold in place, but too small to actually overwhelm Gaza - they'd go in, do some damage, take some casualties then leave.
Then it starts all over again.
It is likely that there is a perception that the Obama administration would be more likely to impose some significant political penalties on Israel for such things, I do not know that they actually would.
So... the residual explanation is that Israel is lashing out. Hitting back. Making Hamas hurt.
Not because of grand strategic gain, or movement towards long term solution, but because they can and it feels good.
Which is all well and good, but a stupid way for a nation to behave.
"Don't count on him. So far, all the staff he has selected are strongly pro-Israel."
I would just like to comment/complain how 'pro-Israel' means blindly supporting the most hawkish right wing portions of their government. 'Pro-American' does not mean only the neo-cons (although, they would like you to think it is so). Remember that it was Sharon who (it seemed) by sheer force of will and political gravitas started the unilateral pull back (and took on some of the settlers). Rabin was killed by aforementioned right wing for having plausibly effective peace talks. Olemert has supposedly been seriously thinking about giving the Golan Heights back to Syria. I'm not sure you really want to say these men are not 'pro-Israel'.
There are four possible end endgames here, 1) everyone makes nice 2) all the Palestinians are killed (I hope the world (in particular the people who can order men with guns around) won't stand for this one) 3) all the Israelis are killed (not going to happen) 4) whole region is turned to nuclear glass.
2-4 are rather negative, leaving 1. Does anyone really think that the Palestinians can be beaten in to playing nice? The sooner they stop shooting and start bribing the sooner this will all be over.
Which is all a round about way of saying, supporting negotiations over the military option does not exclude one from being 'pro-Israel'. (I blame AIPAC)
see: http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/12/an-eye-for-an-e.h…
for comments from someone far smarter and more eloquent than me.
i already tried (Palesrael) but nobody listened. Guess they are too busy playing.