As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about the Amnesty International report on genocide in the Gaza Strip, I call to your attention a website created by Israeli historian, Lee Mordechai, an associate professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It is entitled “Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War.”
In his preface to the report, Mordechai says:
“The enormous amount of evidence I have seen, much of it referenced later in this document, has been enough for me to believe that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza. I explain why I chose to use the term below. Israel’s campaign is ostensibly its reaction to the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, in which war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed within the context of the longstanding conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that can be dated back to 1917 or 1948 (or other dates). In all cases, historical grievances and atrocities do not justify additional atrocities in the present. Therefore, I consider Israel’s response to Hamas’ actions on Oct. 7 utterly disproportionate and criminal.”
Further in the Preface, Mordechai directly addresses the critical questions of intent:
“The evidence I have seen and discuss indicates that one of Israel’s very likely objectives is to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip, whether in part or in total, by removing as many Palestinians as feasibly possible. Key members in Israel’s government have made statements confirming this intent, and several of Israel’s government ministries have planned or worked to facilitate such an end, sometimes by persuading or pressuring other states. Israel has already cleared significant parts of the Gaza strip by demolition and bulldozing, also attempting to destroy the fabric of Palestinian society by deliberately targeting civilian institutions such as universities, libraries, archives, religious buildings, historical sites, farms, schools, cemeteries, museums and markets. So far more than 60% of the buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or damaged.”
He goes on:
“All the evidence I have seen indicates that Israel is systematically destroying Gaza to make it unlivable in the future. In the first week of fighting, Israel dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza – over the annual total used by the US in Afghanistan.48 In the first three months of fighting Israel had destroyed over 10,000 buildings in the Strip – compared to some 4,700 buildings in Aleppo after three years of fighting. A coalition of aid groups stated in December that rebuilding the housing destroyed to that point will take 7 to 10 years if financing is available and will cost some $3.5 billion.49 According to a joint report by the World Bank and the UN, the cost of damage to physical structures alone was around $18.5 billion at the end of January (the cost during the 2014 Protective Edge was $1.4 billion).50 In mid May a UN official stated that rebuilding could cost around $50 billion over two decades.51 The amount of debris created by the destruction of residential areas (estimates ranged between 26 and 37 million tons in April) will take many years to remove.52 A top UN demining official claimed that simply clearing the debris could take as much as 14 years.53 An expert on the warfare-related destruction pointed out that the case of Gaza fits the term ‘domicide’, a massive violation of the right to housing and basic infrastructure in residential areas by making them inhabitable, which is itself a crime against humanity.48
“Israel is said to have dropped over 500 2,000-pound bombs within the densely populated urban area, despite the massive collateral damage these bombs cause (causing death or injury in a radius of up to 365 meters around the target). These bombs are four times heavier than the largest bombs the United States used when fighting ISIS in Mosul; the US dropped a single such 2,000-pound bomb throughout its fight with ISIS.54 After two months of fighting, Israel had already caused more destruction in Gaza than Syria in Aleppo (2012-2016), Russia in Mariupol in 2022, or (proportionally) the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II,55 as well as the fights against ISIS in Mosul (2016-7) and Raqqa (2017).56“
The report is meticulously documented and judicious in its language. It is definitely worth a careful read.
Amnesty International has issued a new report accusing the state of Israel with the crime of genocide in its actions against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. The crime of genocide is the most serious crime in international law and an accusation of genocide needs to meet extremely specific and demanding criteria of both actions and intent. Amnesty International is a well-respected human rights organization with a record of accomplishment that deserves respect.
It is a long, incredibly detailed report with evidence from a variety of credible sources. The report begins with an acknowledgement of what needs to be proven in order to support an accusation of genocide:
“To make a determination on genocide, Amnesty International first examined whether Palestinians in Gaza constitute part of a protected group under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention), that is a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. It then focused on three out of the five prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention: ‘killing members of the group’; ‘causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group’; and ‘deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part’. It finally examined whether Israel committed these acts with the specific ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, [the] group, as such’.”
The report then goes through each of these criteria and documents specific cases through eyewitness testimonies. I was unaware of several of these cases, even though I have tried to be as well-informed as I can on this conflict. Much of the evidence, largely from satellite imagery, suggests destruction in Gaza which can hardly be described as precision accuracy. And the degree of forced displacement is staggering. Given the scale of destruction in such a small area, it would be difficult to deny that the degree of “harm” inflicted on the population in the Gaza satisfies the first two criteria of the Convention.
The significantly more difficult question to answer is whether Israel intends to “destroy, in while or in part, [the] group, as such”. People have intentions; governments have intention; it is questionable whether “states” have intentions. In today’s US Department of State Press Briefing, members of the press questioned the matter of intent:
“QUESTION: Because now we have Amnesty International. Before that, we had Human Rights Watch. We have all the UN organizations, all the human rights organizations probably throughout the world, B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, every other organization saying that Israel is committing genocide. And depends – I mean it says – I know that genocide depends a great deal on intent, and it says – it bases its conclusion on statement time and time and time again by Israeli commanders, by Israeli officials, by certainly the president of Israel, by many, many other people that said they are committing genocide. I mean, we see that they have killed 44, 45 thousand people, 17,000 children. It deprives it food from going in, it deprives anesthesia from going on. CNN reported yesterday that Israel disallowed anesthesia from going into Gaza.
What is it going to take for you – for the United States of America that really holds the moral high ground on these issues, on human rights issues – to say what is happening is genocide? Because you are – what we see today, what we witness in northern Gaza is basically starvation by intent.
MR PATEL: Said, that’s an opinion. And you’re certainly welcome and you are entitled to it, as are all the organizations that you listed. They are entitled to make their own analysis of the situation and come to their own conclusions. What I can say as a spokesperson of the U.S. Government and as a spokesperson of this administration is that the findings of – the accusations of genocide, we continue to believe those to be unfounded. That does not change and that does not change the prioritization and the stress and the emphasis that we are placing on ensuring that there is appropriate access to humanitarian assistance, ensuring that every possible measure is taken to protect civilians, ensuring that we’re doing everything possible to bring this war to an end.
QUESTION: So —
MR PATEL: People, organizations, groups are entitled to draw their own conclusions. The U.S. conclusion is that these allegations of genocide are unfounded. There are and there continue to exist a number of avenues within the U.S. Government in which we are looking at what’s happening on the ground, where those assessments continue to be ongoing. But I don’t have any update to provide as it relates to that.
I sincerely doubt that there are many Israelis who wish to see the Palestinian people exterminated, even after the atrocities of 7 October. But does the government of Israel wish to see the Palestinian people exterminated? According to Amnesty:
“The offensive on Rafah was launched a week after Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, a member of Israel’s security cabinet, explicitly called for the city’s destruction by referring to a well-known Biblical story of absolute vengeance in which an entire nation – the people of Amalek – is ordered to be destroyed: “There are no jobs half done. Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat, destruction! Blot out the memory of [the people of] Amalek from under heaven,” he said at a public event on 29 April 2024. In fact, Minister of Finance Smotrich and Minister of National Security Ben-Gvir, who also made some of the most explicit calls for the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, threatened to quit the government coalition if Prime Minister Netanyahu abandoned plans to attack Rafah. Minister of Finance Smotrich’s statement came months after Prime Minister Netanyahu first referred to the story of the total destruction of the people of Amalek in the first week of Israel’s ground offensive in late October and early November 2023. He used it to garner support for what was, at the time, a new and highly destructive phase of the conflict. As Israel’s highest office-holder, who oversaw the offensive on Gaza, Prime Minister Netanyahu would have most certainly known that his words would be understood by soldiers, particularly those affiliated with the settler movement and religious nationalist parties led by the two ministers, as calls for the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza.”
The Israeli Government has explicitly rejected the report. The US has not rejected the report, but has rather found it to be “unfounded”. There really is no way to determine what the intent of the destruction on the people and land of Gaza was or is. But the future will give us an answer. If the Palestinian people cannot repopulate the land because of Israeli occupation or sovereignty, then the intent to remove the Palestinian people will become clear. If the world wants to know what Israel’s intentions truly are, then the world should demand that Israel clearly state that the Palestinian people will be able to return and to live in the Gaza Strip as part of their own homeland, Palestine.
Last Tuesday, the Israeli Defense Force announced that its current plan is for the complete evacuation of Palestinians from north Gaza. The Guardian summarized the announcement:
“Israeli ground forces are getting closer to ‘the complete evacuation’ of northern Gaza and residents will not be allowed to return home, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said, in what appears to be the first official acknowledgment from Israel it is systematically removing Palestinians from the area.
“In a media briefing on Tuesday night, the IDF Brig Gen Itzik Cohen told Israeli reporters that since troops had been forced to enter some areas twice, such as Jabaliya camp, ‘there is no intention of allowing the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes’.
“He added that humanitarian aid would be allowed to ‘regularly’ enter the south of the territory but not the north, since there are ‘no more civilians left’.”
With that announcement, it is clear that Israeli military actions against the Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran no longer qualify as “self-defense” unless we decide to include ethnic cleansing as an act of self-defense. Indeed, the IDF tactic is similar to the horrific acts committed by the Serbs and Croats in Bosnia in the early 1990s. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum characterized these acts as war crimes:
“On April 5, 1992, the government of Bosnia declared its independence from Yugoslavia. The creation of an independent Bosnian nation that would have a Bosniak majority was opposed by Bosnian Serbs, who launched a military campaign to secure coveted territory and “cleanse” Bosnia of its Muslim civilian population. The Serbs targeted Bosniak and Croatian civilians in areas under their control, in what has become known as “ethnic cleansing.”
“During the subsequent civil war that lasted from 1992 to 1995, an estimated 100,000 people were killed, 80 percent of whom were Bosniaks. In July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces killed as many as 8,000 Bosniak men and boys from the town of Srebrenica. It was the largest massacre in Europe since the Holocaust.”
There is little question that the act clearly qualifies as a war crime. The Fourth Convention of the Geneva Accords is explicit on the movement of civilian populations in an occupied territory:
ART. 49. — Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive. Nevertheless, the Occupying Power may undertake total or partial evacuation of a given area if the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand. Such evacuations may not involve the displacement of protected persons outside the bounds of the occupied territory except when for material reasons it is impossible to avoid such displacement. Persons thus evacuated shall be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased.
There is little chance that there is any amount of pressure that will change Israel’s behavior, as Prime Minister Netanyahu has openly refused to accept most guidance from its allies. And now that former President Trump has been elected, it appears that US policy will be guided by the blank check suggested by Trump: “do what you have to do”. Netanyahu also seems to be preparing the US government for expanded actions against Palestinians in the West Bank by appointing Yechiel Leiter as the next Israeli Ambassador to the US. Leiter has been an advocate for annexing the West Bank. According to Middle East Eye:
“Leiter was a member of the Jewish Defence League, which was founded in the US by the far-right rabbi Meir Kahane. The group was later designated as a terrorist organisation by the US, although the designation was lifted in 2022 due to inactivity.
“Leiter’s son was killed last year in Gaza while serving with the Israeli military.
“Leiter’s appointment came just three days after Donald Trump’s election as US president. During his first term, Trump reversed decades of US policy that considered Israeli settlements in the West Bank a violation of international law.
“Under Trump, Israel aggressively expanded its settlement building, pushing deeper into the West Bank and constructing thousands of settler homes on Palestinian land.
“Trump also recognised Israel’s control over the Golan Heights, a Syrian territory that Israel annexed in 1981 in a move the international community has never recognised.
“Israel’s settler leaders and far-right figures welcomed Trump’s victory, particularly after the Biden administration imposed sanctions and asset freezes on settler groups and individuals involved in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
“Leiter’s appointment suggests that Netanyahu plans to advance policies in line with the settler movement’s agenda, which includes the annexation of the West Bank.”
I expect that Netanyahu will take advantage of President Biden’s lame-duck status and move forward aggressively to resettle the Gaza and the West Bank. Israel’s behavvior is comparable to the atrocities in Bosnia, in Rwanda in 1994, and the ongoing war against the Royingha in Myanmar. The critical difference is that Israel would not be able to accomplish any of its goals without the support of the US, and the American complicity in the atrocity breaks my heart. But we can dispense with the idea that Israel is conducting a war of self-defense. It is quite clearly a war of conquest.
“Mussolini did not have any philosophy: he had only rhetoric” — Umberto Eco, 1955
Today has been very difficult for many. This post was written in a state of confusion, fear, and rage. So you should tread carefully here, because there are dragons.
We had hoped that Mr. Trump had effectively diminished his allure to voters, but that was not the case. Instead, we now face the prospect of a mob boss political system, bent on enriching only those who submit and disenfranchising those who do not submit.
This terrain will be difficult to navigate, and it creates a problem for those of us who opposed Mr. Trump. Knowing that he will punish anyone who disagrees with him and knowing that the Congress and the Supreme Court will not restrain his basest instincts leaves us in uncharted territory. The Supreme Court has completely abdicated its responsibility to maintain checks and balances in Trump v. The United States and has decided that it does not have the power to check executive power as long as there is some mention in the Constitution of the powers of the President, no matter how indirect or peripheral the reference. With the Republicans in control of the Senate and possibly of the House as well, there is no posssibility that that party will restrain Mr. Trump given his ruthless purge of malcontents in the party.
We should place the blame for this situation squarely on the Republican Party which has completely abandoned its responsibility to defend the Constitution. The Democrats ran a very effective campaign which was not sufficient. What does the failure of opposition to Mr. Trump mean?
The election of 2024 was essentially a rerun of the early 20th Century. The end of the 19th Century brought about a wave of globalization powered by advances in refrigeration, telecommunications, shipping, and transportation. The result was a phenomenal explosion of wealth at the expense of those with limited access to capital and whose only link to the global economy was the sale of their labor. The growing inequality between rich and poor ultimately led to widespread dissatisfaction which resulted in the abandonment of traditional political norms and the adoption of new ideologies, fascism and communism, which channeled that dissatisfaction into acceptance of authoritarian rule. That inequality also led to the Great Depression.
Similarly, the technological revolutions of the 1980s and 1990s led to the creation of fabulous wealth–think Gates, Musk, Jobs, and Zuckerberg. But that wealth was accumulated by tapping into the labor markets of poor states such as China and Vietnam, leading to a massive loss of manufacturing jobs in the developed world. Those unemployed by the 2nd wave of globalization are the ones who abandoned traditional political norms, not only in the US, but in India, Hungary, Italy, France, Sweden, Denmark, and the Cech Republic. They have reasons to be angry.
The pattern of the early 20th century is repeating because the conditions are roughly similar. And, I suspect, the outcome will be the same: economic collapse and war.
The question for me is how do I respond to this situation? My gut instinct is to resist as Trump attempts to create a White, Male, and Christian Republic. I should resist any attempts to cut Obamacare, Social Security, health and safety regulations, and the proposed deportations. These are the issues that Trump used to secure the support to win the election. My suspicion is that those who supported Mr. Trump did not believe that he would truly implement those policies. But they knew exactly who Mr. Trump was: a person who cheated on his taxes, who assaulted women and bragged about his conquests, who punished anyone who did not support him, and who showed little regard for the rule of law. He will, I am certain, insure that everyone appointed to his government will share the same contempt for integrity and lawfulness. Those who voted for Mr. Trump cannot plead ignorance of who he was and how he defined his interests as the single guide for public policy. They knew what they were buying when they voted.
I fear, however, that, for the next two years, resistance will be futile. So I think there should be a second course of action, a course of action which deeply offends my sensibilities as a civic person. The Democrats should simply withdraw from the process of governing. It will be a huge waste of time and, ultimately, counterproductive. The Democrats should simply sit in Congress and refuse to vote or participate in any hearings. Those who supported Mr. Trump should live in the world they voted for. And with tariffs, deportations, and the lack of income security and health insurance, they can figure out how to survive. That economic collapse is inevitable given the obscene inequalities of power and wealth that Trump’s Administration will foster.
Then the Republican Party will have to decide whether it cares more about the Constitution than raw power. And the American people might learn to appreciate the idea of Justice and Equality and to temper their infatuation with unaccountable freedom.
In 1935, Sinclair Lewis published a book entitled It Can’t Happen Here about the election of a Fascist President in the United States. It is a creepy read (and not a particularly good book, but I do not think that Lewis really wanted to write great book–just a book with an important warning to Americans. Americans very rarely think about Fascism in the US, but that is due to willful amnesia. Former President Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden reminded some of the Nazi rally that was held there in February 1939.
Nazi Rally at Madison Square Garden, 20 February 1939
The Nazi movement grew out of the virulently racist period after the Civil War that spawned the Jim Crow laws that institutionally segregated African-Americans. We are familiar with the images of the Ku Klux Klan, but there was a more explicit movement marrying fascism with institutionalized racism which was known as the Black Legion:
“The Black Legion was a spinoff of the so-called Second Ku Klux Klan, which flourished in the 1920s, fusing anti-Catholicism and antisemitism with anti-Black racism. Strongest in the North — with 500,000 members in Ohio alone — it fell apart by the decade’s end in the face of internal scandals and public denunciations. A doctor in Bellaire, Ohio, named William Shepard founded the Black Legion in 1924. He painted KKK robes black and added pirate imagery and an even greater obsession with militarism and secrecy. By 1935 the Black Legion had grown to hundreds of thousands of members nationwide, largely in the Upper Midwest but spreading to at least 21 states. No one really knows how big it was.”
The Regalia of the Black Legion
The Black Legion grew as Fascism became prevalent in Europe in the early 20th Century. It was a dynamic movement, starting with the first Fascist state in Italy in 1920 (although one could argue that Hungary was actually the first after the collapse of the Soviet Republic of Hungary founded by Béla Kun). By 1940, the only European states not ruled by a fascist party were Great Britain and Switzerland (one could argue that the Swiss worked closely with the Nazis). It was an amazing transformation in the space of only 20 years, counterbalanced by the emergence of the communist brand of totalitarianism in the Soviet Union.
Map of Fascist regimes in Europe in 1940
As Americans vote today, we should all be reminded of the Fascist history in the US. It is not necessarily a fluke in American culture, but rather a persistent presence. It can happen here.
Israel continues to force Palestinians to leave northern Gaza. Mondoweiss reports:
“Israel’s siege and offensive on northern Gaza have been ongoing for 20 days, as part of what has been described as the implementation of Israel’s ‘Generals’ Plan,’ which aims to forcibly depopulate northern Gaza through deliberate starvation and extermination. Although the Generals’ Plan doesn’t include plans for settler colonization of the area after its ethnic cleansing, far-right Israeli politicians and settler groups have been advocating for settling Gaza since December of last year.
“On Monday, Israelis rallied at Kibbutz Be’eri 3 kilometers away from Gaza’s fence demanding to be allowed to settle in the Strip. The rally was attended by several Israeli ministers, according to Israeli media. Reports indicated that some 700 Israeli families at the event had signed up to move to the prospective Israeli settlements in Gaza.
“Northern Gaza was home to some 700,000 Palestinians before October 7, 2023. According to estimates, some 200,000 Palestinians continue to live in the area, which includes Jabalia, Beit Lahia, Twam, Sheikh Zayed, and Beit Hanoun.”
The “Generals’ Plan refers to a plan devised by Israeli Major General Giora Eiland, although parts of the plan have always been part of Netanyahu’s overall strategy in the Gaza. The plan, however, is most explicit on the forced relocation of Palestinians to southern Gaza. Middle East Eye reports:
“Once Palestinians have been removed from northern Gaza, which the plan anticipates will take a week, the second phase can proceed: the transformation of northern Gaza into a closed military zone.
“The area will, says the plan, be subject to a ‘full and tight blockade, which includes preventing movement to and from it, and preventing the entry of supplies, including food, fuel and water’.
“Anyone remaining will be treated as a combatant. The plan’s YouTube video states that the Hamas operatives who remain can choose to ‘surrender or die of starvation’. After that, ‘it will be possible to enter and cleanse the area of Gaza City with almost no enemy’.”
Middle East Eye interviewed Abdullah al-Muqayid, a resident of Northern Gaza, who eventually left for the south. The report is chilling:
“After an interrogation that lasted until sunset, the Israeli army ordered the residents to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip. However, reluctant to leave northern Gaza entirely, they moved to the adjacent Gaza City instead.
“‘One of the phrases the soldiers told us was, ‘Go south; you will never return to the north. The north will be ours, and we will build settlements there,'” he said.
‘There were martyrs and wounded people whom no one could help along the way’
“But we came to Gaza City. Along the way, there was a massive number of soldiers and tanks as far as the eye could see, as if they were invading a country, not merely civilians and unarmed individuals. We saw the bodies of martyrs on the ground, with dogs mauling them.”
“Muqayid managed to leave Gaza City, but he had to leave his elderly mother behind.
“She remained in Jabalia; she cannot leave, she cannot walk such a long distance and face the humiliation and insults we faced.”
The “Generals’ Plan” is not official policy of the Israeli government at this point, but The Times of Israel reports that in a recent meeting between US Secretary of State Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, the Prime Minister refused to rule it out publicly:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his top aides sidestepped US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s request during a meeting Tuesday to publicly clarify that Israel is not seeking to lay siege to northern Gaza, a US official tells The Times of Israel.
Netanyahu and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer insisted during the meeting that Israel is not implementing the so-called General’s Plan aimed at isolating northern Gaza and argued that claims to the contrary have been detrimental to Israel’s public image, the US official says.
Blinken urged Netanyahu to clarify this publicly, but he and his aides demurred, the official adds.”
The Generals’ Plan is a clear violation of the Geneva Accords which forbids the forcible displacement of civilians in any occupied area. It is also completely inconsistent with US foreign policy which still calls for a “two-state” solution to the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians. But Netanyahu likely sees the coming months as a window of opportunity: Americans are transfixed by the upcoming presidential election and the period between election day and the inauguration is a very difficult time to make significant foreign policy changes. Further, Netanyahu probably thinks that, if Israel quickly makes the annexation of northern Gaza a fait accompli, a President Trump would approve and a President Harris would be powerless to dislodge Israel until after inauguration, at which point US opposition would be moot.
The Generals’ Plan is not possible without US continued support. That support has two components: massive military and financial assistance; and the US missile interceptor systems which prevents Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran from inflicting heavy civilian casualties in Israel. Both are indispensable to the Generals’ Plan, but the US protective shield gives Netanyahu the freedom to do whatever he, or his right- wing cabinet members, Ben-Givr and Smotrich, want.
The US is a clear accomplice in this crime. If Netanyahu had to worry about significant civilian casualties (on the scale of the near 43,000 identified Palestinians bodies, not to mention the bodies buried under the rubble in Gaza), I doubt that he would currently be bombing the Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran with such abandon.
This circumstance places the US in a very delicate moral dilemma. In order to restrain Netanyahu, the US should lift its protective missile shield and allow civilian casualties at a scale necessary to change Netanyahu’s calculations. But that tactic is morally indefensible: innocent civilians cannot be used as a diplomatic tool. The US needs to continue to shield Israeli civilians.
The alternative is to use the military and financial support as a bludgeon. Netanyahu would then have to calculate how long he could continue the military operations without the infusion of weapons and wealth. That course of action lacks the immediacy of the costs of civilian casualties, but Netanyahu has got to start worrying about the long-term capabilities of Israel without US support.
In order to implement this tactic, US President Biden should immediately announce the suspension of US support unless Netanyahu publicly commits to no annexations of land in the Gaza and in the West Bank and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. It is long past time for the US to indulge Netanyahu’s political survival which is dependent on Ben-Givr and Smotrich. And the US needs to more vigorously pursue its own foreign policy interest which is a peace based on the two-state solution.
It is often good to look at news stories that are supported by journalists who are allowed to report directly from a conflict zone. No US media sources are allowed in the Gaza Strip by order of the Israeli government. Most US citizens are unaware of the desperate circumstances of the people in the Gaza because of this blackout.
As we approach the one-year anniversary of the brutal Hamas attack on Israel, the conflict is also nearing a critical point in the escalation cycle. After the Iranian missile attack last Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that:
“This evening, Iran again attacked Israel with hundreds of missiles. This attack failed. It was thwarted thanks to Israel’s air defense array, which is the most advanced in the world. I commend the IDF for the impressive achievement. It was also thwarted thanks to your alertness and responsibility, citizens of Israel. I also thank the US for its support in our defensive effort.
“This evening, Iran made a big mistake – and it will pay for it. The regime in Tehran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves and to exact a price from our enemies…
“We will keep to the rule we have determined: Whoever attacks us – we attack them.
“This is true wherever we fight the axis of evil. It is true in Judea and Samaria. It is true in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria – and it is also true in Iran. We are fighting the axis of evil everywhere, including in southern Lebanon and Gaza, where our heroic soldiers are active.
“Today, more than ever, the forces of light in the world must unite and work together against the ayatollahs’ dark regime, which is the source of terror and evil in our region. They must stand alongside Israel. The choice has never been more clear, between tyranny and freedom, between the blessing and the curse.”
Both Israel and Iran face a very serious problem–their efforts to deter each other have failed. Iran thought that by arming Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel would not take actions to endanger their citizens. Further, Iran believed that its missile forces would deter Israeli action against Iran. Israel proved these assumptions to be incorrect. Israel believed that its anti-missile systems, buttressed by US forces in the region, would lead Iran to believe that a missile attack on Israel would fail. That assumption is less certain now than it was before 7 October.
Both Hamas and Israel miscalculated. Many observers, including me, were shocked by the intensity of the Israeli response to the 7 October atrocity. And many, including me, believe that the Israeli response in the Gaza (and now in Lebanon) to be wildly disproportionate. After the Iranian missile attack last April, which consisted of about 300 missiles most of which were intercepted by the Israeli and US forces, Israel determined that its civilian population was sufficiently protected to permit extensive Israeli military actions, including the missile attack on Tehran which killed the leader of Hamas, Haniyeh. But that assumption now looks to be problematic.
The Iranian missile attack last Tuesday consisted of 200 missiles, but about 20 of those missiles actually hit Israeli military bases., suggesting that the Israelil missile defense was not as robust as was assumed. The Israeli Defense Force first announced that the Iranian attack had been unsuccessful and that damage was minimal. But National Public Radio quotes Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey:
“Lewis notes that although over 30 missiles landed inside the base perimeter, the damage caused was still somewhat limited. That’s notable because Iran is believed to have used some of its most advanced Fattah missiles.
“‘Even these missiles, which look substantially more accurate, still struggled to do damage,’ he says.
“Still, he thinks the attack has shown that Iran can strike at targets well inside Israel. ‘They can definitely get missiles through,’ he says.”
If Iranian missiles can penetrate the Israeli missile defense system, then the Israeli civilian population is at risk. The missiles on Tuesday struck Israeli military bases. Iran clearly made a decision not to target civilian population centers. One such missile hitting a city like Tel Aviv or Haifa could be damaging (but not catastrophic), and would change the calculations of acceptable losses for Israel.
There are, however, questions to be raised before the expected Israeli counterattack. The Iranians launched 300 missiles last April, but only around 200 on Tuesday. That difference is significant. It could signal that Iran’s response to the assassination of Nasrallah was not so important and that the Iranians felt they could be restrained. Or it could be that Iran was trying to preserve as much of their missile force as possible for future asttacks. Or it could mean that Iran was only trying to get a better read on the effectiveness of Israeli missile defenses. I personally believe thats Iran’s decision to avoid population centers was a clear signal that Iran did not wish to provoke a major escalation, even though it was bound to retaliate for the assassination of Nasrallah.
Now Israel has to send some messages as well. Interestingly, US President Biden indicated to journalists that he did not think the Israelis should attack the nuclear facilities in Iran, nor should it attack the oil production centers in Iran. An attack on Iranian population centers would be roundly condemned by most in the world. So Israel has to think about what message it wishes to send to both Tehran and Washington.
There are other considerations as well. The Israeli missile defense system is mostly effective, but it is truly expensive. Offensive missiles are reltively cheap; defensive missiles require a great deal of infrastructure,, including extensive radar systems and very sophisticated targeting mechanisms. Offensive missiles can be used for a variety of targets. Defensive interceptor missiles have only one objective, but an objective that has to be perfectly targeted to be considered a “success”. The drain on the Israeli economy will be substantial and Israel’s economy is already suffering from the costs of the war. The Economist reports:
“Stronger economic growth would ease the pain. Although reservists have returned to work and consumption has returned to pre-war levels, Israel’s economy remains smaller than it was on the eve of war. Mr Smotrich has cushioned the least productive parts of society and starved industry of resources. The labour market remains ultra-tight, with the unemployment rate at just 2.7%. Firms are struggling to fill vacancies and Israel’s small high-tech companies are under strain. They are losing out on funding owing to the war, warns Startup Nation, a local think-tank.
“Some 80,000 Palestinian workers were denied permits after October 7th, and have never been replaced. As a consequence, the construction industry is 40% smaller than it was this time last year, greatly impeding housebuilding and repairs. For now, the biggest impact has been on inflation, which hit an annual rate of 3.6% in August, having accelerated over the summer. Should the scale of Hizbullah attacks increase, the lack of construction workers will become an even bigger problem….
“Then there is the nightmare scenario. Few investors are preparing for a war that would engulf all of Israel, including Jerusalem or Tel Aviv—even though Hizbullah may be capable of launching such an attack. In these circumstances economic growth would be hit hard, perhaps even harder than after October 7th. Army outgoings would soar. Fleeing investors would probably topple banks and send the shekel plummeting, forcing the Bank of Israel to intervene and spend its reserves.
“Whatever happens, Israeli economists are resigned to things getting worse. Even Mr Smotrich, generally a bullish type, now emits an air of exhaustion: ‘We are in the longest and most expensive war in Israel’s history.’ Previous conflicts have come at a heavy cost to Israel. Do not be surprised if this one does, too.”
Israel is also free to ignore President Biden’s caution, but the price of that tactic could be substantial. Prime Minister Netanyahu has already ignored several US proposals for a cease-fire, and the cumulative effect of indifference to US preferences could lead many in the US to consider Israel to be an unreliable ally–a problem that could get very difficult for Netanyahu if Kamala Harris wins the Presidential election. In many places in the world, Israel is already becoming a pariah nation.
Finally, a massive Israeli counterattack would send a clear message to Iran that its reliance on conventional weapons is dangerous. A unfortunate paradox of Israeli miltary prowess is that it may lead Iran to the decision that its only effective defense is to build a nuclear weapon–exactly the most troubling scenario nettling the Israeli defense establishment.
Deterrence has failed for both sides. Re-establishing deterrence is a very tricky business, fraught with the possibility of serious misreadings of intentions or inaccurate calculation of risks and costs. Israel’s response to Iran will determine the course of this wretched conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has established Israel as a rogue state with no red lines. It has attacked the Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran with few repercussions to its own security. And it has launched these attacks with no hints whatsoever as to what would be acceptable terms of peace. Consider: the Gaza Strip has been almost completely destroyed and its inhabitants do not know how the devastation might stop. The US and its allies have all stated that the only possible resolution to the conflict would be the implementation of a two-state solution. Netanyahu has explicitly rejected this approach, according to the New York Times:
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel doubled down on his opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state this weekend, again rebuffing pressure from President Biden to agree to that path after the war in Gaza is over.
“My insistence is what has prevented — over the years — the establishment of a Palestinian state that would have constituted an existential danger to Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement in Hebrew on Sunday. “As long as I am prime minister, I will continue to strongly insist on this.”
“The statement reiterated comments he made on social media the previous day, when he said in Hebrew that he “will not compromise on full Israeli security control of the entire area west of the Jordan River — and that is irreconcilable with a Palestinian state.”
Because it has offered no alternative, Israel only offers continued occupation, and it demands that the “elimination” of its enemies is the price that the Palestinian people have to pay for those terms if they want peace. And now the same terms are being offered to Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Moreover, there are apparently no limits on how Netanyahu defines “elimination”. The current war in Gaza was precipated by a heinous Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis but the counterattack on the Gaza has killed almost 42,000 Palestinians, the majority of which are women and children. The disproportionate ratios are also reflected in the losses suffer by the Lebanese in the current escalation, as demonstrated graphically byBloomberg:
The one-sidedness of this conflict means many things, but the one point most relevant to any possible settlement is that the terms of a settlement acceptable to Israel is the complete and utter capitulation of the Palestinian people and that Israel is willing to kill as many people and to attack any state required to achieve that capitulation.
As I have argued before, Israel is only able to follow this strategy because the US continues to arm and financially support Israel with no conditions and that the US is willing to provide the necessary shield to prevent any Israeli civilian losses from attacks from any state in the region. The attack on the Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut was likely done by a 2,000 pound bomb supplied by the US, even though President Biden had earlier banned the export of such bombs to Israel because of their indiscriminate destruction. The Israeli air strike against Yemen yesterday was especially significant because it was a difficult mission that demonstrated the geographic reach of Israeli power as described by The Jerusalem Post:
“Until July, the IDF had outsourced responses to the Houthis to the US, which was fighting the group over various maritime aggression issues. However, after the Houthis killed a civilian in Tel Aviv, the Jewish state struck back directly for the first time.
“During Israel’s July counterstrike, it took two hours and 50 minutes for the IDF’s F-15s, F-35s, and other fighter jets, which carried out around 10 airstrikes against the Houthis, to reach their targets in the Hodeidah Port area. Those aircraft took off around 3 p.m. on July 20 and struck their targets around 6 p.m.
“Although the IDF kept classified the exact number of aircraft it used to refuel its fighter jets to make the 1,800-kilometer flight and return safely during that July attack, it provided a dramatic video showing some of the mid-air refueling in real-time.
“Sunday’s flights and refueling were equally complex, intended to completely destroy the Houthis’ capability (as opposed to a partial cut in July) to receive refined products, including weapons, from Iran.”
The significance of the attack was not in the destruction it caused in Yemen, but rather the message sent by Israel to Iran that it had the capability to attack Iran (also because the Saudis allowed Israel to use its airspace to make the flight). Reuters highlights Netanyahu’s objective:
“Israel warned Iran on Monday that nowhere in the Middle East was beyond its reach and hinted at a land invasion of Lebanon after assassinating the leader of the Tehran-backed Hezbollah group, one of its biggest adversaries, in a Beirut suburb last week.
“‘There is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country,’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a three-minute video clip in English that he addressed to the Iranian people.”
The Iranians have taken actions, such as hiding high-ranking officials, in anticipation of such an attack. I doubt, however, that the Iranians want such a war–the country is weak economically and suffering from drought, a weak economy, and questions about the legitimacy of the regime. More importantly, however, Iran does not have a viable military option. As long as the US is committed to the aerial defense of Israel, there is probably nothing that the Iranians could do do change Netanyahu’s determination to eliminate Israel’s enemies. This is particularly true given that Israel has demonstrated that its has pierced Iranian intelligence by its assassination of Ismail Haniyeh right in the heart of Tehran. Israel also compromised the communications network of Hezbollah by its bold tactic of planting explosives in the pagers and walkie-talkies of Hezbollah activists.
There is, however, one course of action open to the Iranians. It could take to heart the lesson of the fate of the “axis of evil” identified by US President George W. Bush after the 11 September attack on the US. The axis consisted of Iraq, North Korea, and Iran. Iraq had no nuclear weapons and was invaded by the US in 2003 and its government was overthrown and the country occupied by the US for a number of years. North Korea, on the other hand, did have nuclear weapons and does not have to worry about an attack by the US or its allies. The lesson seems clear: if one is worried about an attack by a state that is militarily superior and has indicated that it has no constraints on the use of force, then possession of a nuclear weapon is the best defense.
I sincerely doubt that Iran wants a nuclear weapon. The late Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, called nuclear weapons inconsistent with Islam in 2010. But Iran exists in a dangerous neighborhood. Some of its closest neighbors–Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel–already have nuclear weapons and the US is constantly patrolling the Persian Gulf with ships that are nuclear-capable. Iran unquestionably has the capability to develop a nuclear weapon. but would have to develop a nuclear weapon secretly so that Israel would not launch a pre-emptive strike against its nuclear facilities. A nuclear test conducted by Iran would quickly raise the costs of any Israeli action against it. The outcome of a nuclear Iran is decidedly against Israel’s and the world’s interest. But territorial integrity and sovereignty are attributes without which a state cannot exist, and Israel is currently threatening both of those attributes.
The US must immediately announce that it is suspending all military and financial assistance to Israel until Israel puts forth a proposal for the two-state solution that effectively creates the opporunity for the Palestinians to exercise their inherent right of self-determination. That aspiration will never die no matter how many leaders in Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen, and Iran that the Israelis succeed in assassinating. This has been the official position of the US ever since the war in 1967, and it is second only to the Cuban Embargo as a bootless policy–it is an objective that has been purely rhetorical and meaningless to the countless number of people who have died in the region. Fifty-seven years is a very long time for a power to remain impotent, and Netanyahu has apparently no compunction to disregard American counsel or interests.
The situation is reminiscent of the difficulties the US had in floating peace proposals during the Vietnam war. In 1972, the US had reached agreement with North Vietnam on a cease-fire, but South Vietnamese President Thieu rejected the proposal as a “surrender to the Communists”. Rather than using its formidable levers to change Thieu’s mind, the US instead chose to amplify its military commitment to South Vietnam and the war expanded and dragged on for two more years. President Nixon chose the military path because he did not wish the US to appear as a “pitiful, helpless giant”. The US became a hostage to its weaker ally and many died because of US inaction on the diplomatic front. In the immediate case, choosing a diplomatic path is the only effective course of action. The US must clearly tell Netanyahu that that path is the only one it will support even as it promises to defend Israel against any attack on its territory, but it will not support any further expansion of the war.
Like Thieu, Netanyahu can ignore the US, but the US needs to make clear to its ally that it means what it says. If Israel wants to continue the carnage, then the US should no longer be an accomplice to the war crimes being committed. Israel is a sovereign state and the US should not dictate to Israel what it should do. But Israel also should not tell the US that it has to support actions that do not serve US interests.
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