As readers know, I am sympathetic to Israel, especially when compared with its vile enemies like Hamas and Hezbollah, and that’s reflected in my blog posts. But it’s frustrating, because the Israeli government has proven to be so incompetent [beyond the general standard of incompetence one can expect from any government]. This is to a large extent a reflection of the country’s broken political system. Each coalition government is composed of several parties, the leaders of which may have very different ideas of what Israeli actions are supposed to accomplish. Even within each party, there are always “backbenchers” hoping to move up who disagree, for real or strategic reasons, with the party leaders’ strategy.
The result is a cacophony of views about what Israel is trying to accomplish. The only unanimity, or virtual unanimity, Israeli governments can reach is that there is a point where the country needs to use force–against Hezbollah in 2006, against Hamas in 2008, and with regard to the continuing embargo against Gaza.
The problem is, in the absence of agreement within the government as to what the force is meant to accomplish, the government can’t announce under what circumstances it will cease to use force. So instead of setting out clear parameters, and saying, for example in 12/2008, “we regret the loss of life in Gaza, but if Hamas would do the following …. we will ceasefire immediately,” and thus try to put the onus on Hamas for the violence when it fails accede to what at least many would find to be reasonable Israeli demands, Israel instead just keeps shooting until either world opinion or popular exhaustion gets the better of it, and doesn’t achieve its goals. Consider:
When Israel attacked Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in 2006, its leaders suggest many distinct goals, including: (a) to rescue the three soldiers Hezbollah had kidnapped, (b) to retaliate for that kidnapping, (c) to degrade Hezbollah’s ability to attack Israel, (d) to topple Hezbollah and establish Lebanon’s sovereign authority in South Lebanon, (e) to get the international community to intervene to stop Hezbollah’s smuggling of weapons into south Lebanon. Of these goals, Israel achieved only (b) (and (c), but very temporarily), but at the cost of over a hundred of its own dead and great suffering in northern Israel. On (e), a potentially realistic and important goal, Israel eventually settled for a toothless U.N. resolution that accomplished precisely nothing. With regard to (a) Israel eventually turned over hundreds of live Hezbollahniks for the bodies of its three soldiers, something that surely could have been “accomplished” without war.
When Israel attacked Gaza in December 2008, the primary stated goal was to halt or limit missile attacks against Israel. That goal was accomplished, but the attack probably dragged on significantly longer than it had to for that purpose. Various Israeli officials also had the goals of driving Hamas from power, winning the release of Gilad Shalit, destroying the ability of Hamas to govern effectively, and so on, but insisted on none of these additional goals and achieved none of them. [By contrast, the 1982 Lebanon invasion was misbegotten in various ways, but Israel insisted it that regardless of world opinion it wouldn't leave Beirut until the PLO was forced out of Lebanon, and that goal was achieved.]
Finally, with regard to the Gaza embargo, it’s been reasonably effective in preventing an Iranian-sponsored Hamas military buildup. But there are many “dual use” items that Israel could allow or ban, depending on how strictly it wants to enforce the embargo. The more dual use items that are restricted, the greater the propaganda for the other side. There have been proposals over time to ease the embargo on dual use goods to ease the burden on the citizens of Gaza. This hasn’t been done, because again Israeli officials have various unannounced goals: (a) to limit the standard of living for Gazans such that they will be inclined to dislike and eventually get rid of their Hamas government; (b) to make a point about Gilad Shalit, purely for domestic political consumption: “we’re not going to let the Gazans live well so long as Gilad Shalit is treated so poorly”; (c) to control the channels of aid to Gaza so as to create alternatives to Hamas; (d) to emphasize that Israel in a state of war with Gaza–and what nation at war has ever allowed more than the barest of humanitarian aid to its enemy?, and so on.
The problem in each situation is that Israel never announces what its goals are, or if does, it announces them haphazardly through different government factions, and then doesn’t insist on them, which means the world (and its enemies) just ignore them. I don’t have a solution for this problem, but I think it goes a long way to explaining why even individuals who are not inclined to think poorly of Israel often get exasperated by what seems to be a lot of violence for a little gain. It’s not that Israel, in most cases, doesn’t have legitimate goals that it has every right to achieve through military force; it’s that the government can’t agree on what those goals are, and doesn’t ensure that any such goals are actually achieved by military action. This means that on the “left” Israel winds up looking cruel, which harms Israel with regard to public opinion, and on the “right” Israel winds up looking ineffectual and incompetent, which harms Israel’s value to the U.S. and the West as an ally.
In short, in recent years, Israeli officials across the political spectrum have agreed that military force is the solution. But they haven’t agreed on what the problem is. And that’s a problem. [UPDATE: Note that this is an entirely separate problem from whether Israel has the legal and moral RIGHT to use military force against the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah, which many anti-Israel bloggers deny. My take has generally been to defend Israel's RIGHT to do so, without necessarily expressing an opinion on the WISDOM of the particular action, which seems duly modest, given that I don't have even 1/100 of the information before me that the decisionmakers have. And I should add that the cacophony of voices coming from Israeli officials inevitably results in propagandists hostile to Israel always quoting the dumbest-sounding rationale for Israel's actions as "official" Israel policy, when it may simply be the "official" policy of the number 3 person in a party with 10 seats in the 120 member Knesset, who also happens to have an official title in the government.]
(The exception that proves the rule was when Ariel Sharon launched Operation Defensive Shield in 2003, against the wishes of much of the Israeli Left. In that case, there was a clear, definable, achievable goal, which Israel pursued until it achieved it: to utterly destroy the ability of West Bank Palestinian factions to engage in terrorism within Israel’s borders).
steve s says:
I am largely in agreement with you here. In my recent writings I keep wondering just exactly where Israel is going with its actions. Their actions are not consistent with any viable end game that I can make out. Wieseltier touched upon this in his recent piece. Policy has been militarized. Worse, it has been poorly militarized without defined goals. From the outside looking in, it looks as though domestic re-election politics are dominant. As an example, what was the long term strategic advantage of potentially alienating Turkey?
Steve
June 5, 2010, 10:17 pm33daws says:
“As readers know, I am sympathetic to Israel, especially when compared with enemies like Hamas and Hezbollah, and that’s reflected in my blog posts. But it’s frustrating, because the Israeli government has proven to be so incompetent.”
When you start to sound like a battered spouse, maybe you should think about whether you should be married or not.
June 5, 2010, 10:20 pmLTEC says:
Government incompetence is something that terrorists and other criminals should keep in mind, and not take it for granted that a reasonably benign government will successfully figure out how to capture them without killing them. If they seriously care about their own well-being, they should not make it too hard to get arrested. In particular, being part of a large, violent mob is not a good career decision.
June 5, 2010, 10:20 pmLTEC says:
33daws has an interesting point. Perhaps, after seeing how incompetent England and France were in the 1930s, we should have considered siding instead with Germany. At the very least, after seeing all the bad stuff England did in the early 40s, we should have reconsidered our slavishly obsession with defending it.
June 5, 2010, 10:31 pmnewrouter says:
because rockets fired from gaza and suicide bombers from the west bank are something to talk about with a latte.
June 5, 2010, 10:47 pm/end rant against educated idiots
IP98 says:
Even a battered spouse would not leave a marriage to hook up with Ted Bundy or O. J Simpson.
June 5, 2010, 10:48 pmDavid Bernstein says:
If you would read my post closely, you will note that I didn’t send that military force is not the solution. I just said that military force needs to be used wisely, with defined goals.
June 5, 2010, 10:54 pmnewrouter says:
but you’ll listen to the jew hater point of view. how tolerant of you.
June 5, 2010, 10:57 pmChris Travers says:
Don’t forget then turning around and trying to alienate Ireland…..
I suppose it’s part of the Lieberman legacy however. (Honestly that Avigdor Lieberman has been allowed to wreak such harm on the Israeli state as he has is not a good thing.)
June 5, 2010, 11:00 pmJohn Moore says:
The factional nature of the Israeli government has indeed long been a problem and a danger to Israeli national security.
On the other hand, there is an advantage to the resultant ambiguity: when the enemy doesn’t know where you draw the line, they have to assume the worst, and react accordingly. In other words, ambiguity can be a strategic asset.
BTW, Obama doesn’t seem to understand the concept. His announcement about when the US would not use nuclear weapons was hence idiotic, and unprecedented since even Jimmy Carter wasn’t that stupid.
June 5, 2010, 11:03 pmnewrouter says:
you idiots think the usa controls nations. turkey be an islamic country long time before attaTURK. god libs are richly edumaceted and stupid.
June 5, 2010, 11:03 pmmarquis says:
“god libs are richly edumaceted and stupid.”
You’re a convincing argument in favor of abortion.
June 5, 2010, 11:06 pmChris Travers says:
I think this is exactly it, btw. I think it’s also symptomatic of a deeper problem which is that the legacy of antisemitism, particularly from Europe, has lead to a very problematic view of Israeli relations with the rest of the world. The Israeli government seems obsessed with proving its legitimacy. But legitimacy is something which can never be proven and if you have to assert it, you have already lost it. It can be regained, naturally, but the first step is to step back and find a better center.
The current Israeli policies against Hamas are doomed to fail. The blockade ensures that Gazan misery will be blamed on Israel instead of Hamas, just as every-day Cuban misery is often unfairly blamed on the US.
If the goals are to try to cut down on terrorist weaponry in the hands of Hamas, then the sanctions should be narrowly tailored to meet that goal, and refusing shipments after searches should be the exception rather than the rule. If, on the other hand, the goal is to isolate Hamas, and for Israel to take the blame for Hamas’s failures, then the current strategy is nearly perfect.
June 5, 2010, 11:07 pmmarquis says:
More details re Israeli self defense:
A smiling Larudee, who spent three days detained in Israel and another two traveling back to California, said he was beaten six times while in Israeli custody because he refused to cooperate with authorities.
The 64-year-old Larudee said he suffered the purple black eye he was sporting after he jumped into the Mediterranean Sea to avoid the naval commandos who landed on his boat, which was traveling under the Greek flag and behind the Turkish ship on which nine activists were killed Monday. His face was slammed into the boat when he was pulled back aboard, he said.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/06/02/state/n133650D40.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0q2SimH2T
June 5, 2010, 11:08 pmChris Travers says:
Still, up until the Lieberman incident, Turkey was the only Islamic country to seem open about desiring a positive diplomatic relationship with Israel.
June 5, 2010, 11:10 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Well, that sounds like a neutral source–a true peace activist who has no ideological stake in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
June 5, 2010, 11:16 pmD.O. says:
Now, Prof. Bernstein, you are starting to feel some of the Obama’s pain. You might even consider keeping Mr. Netanyahu in a room alone for a couple of hours as a mild form of pressure to get his government’s act together.
If so, it is extrimely wrong. And it would vindicate much of the worldwide leftist rage at Israel. You first decide what you need, than how to achieve it. Maybe you meant that Israelis decided that they cannot achieve anything meaningful with the diplomacy only approach and resigned themselves to the active military use. But it does not absolve them from the requirement to use force as narrowly as possible and therefore planning their objectives first. I hope that was an unfortunate expression on your part, not the essence of Israeli politics.
June 5, 2010, 11:20 pmChris Travers says:
I am not sure at all that Israel achieved this goal. Certainly some of the terrorist activity dropped off, but it was not utterly destroyed.
June 5, 2010, 11:23 pmMike S. says:
Sorry to rant on this, but why would anyone blame Israel for deteriorating relations rather than blame Turkey for staging a provocation, which is only the latest in a series? The deterioration in relations has far more to do with the civilian (Islamist) government in Turkey asserting authority over the (secular) Turkish military than anything Israel does. There seems to be an assumption in some quarters that one can demand that Israel absorb unlimited attacks and provocations, whether terrorist, military or diplomatic in the name of peace, while one cannot expect any restraint on the part of Israel’s enemies.
June 5, 2010, 11:25 pmPetep says:
Once you announce ‘your goals’, you have effectively disarmed yourself.
The other side ( the slimy terrorists et al ) will then play word games, use your own self-imposed limits against you, pretend to ‘meet the letter of what you said’ while continuing to violate the SPIRIT of peace, or anything else.
If you walk into a gunfight, do you start out by declaring ‘I don’t want to shoot anyone’ and throwing your gun on the table ?
Win many that way, do you ?
June 5, 2010, 11:27 pmgrog says:
D.O. :You first decide what you need, than how to achieve it. Maybe you meant that Israelis decided that they cannot achieve anything meaningful with the diplomacy only approach and resigned themselves to the active military use.
I believe what he’s saying is that, while a number of different desired outcomes are operative for a number of different parties, the use of force is one tactic shared by all of them.
Call it the corporate view of foreign policy. Alice wants to build a better mousetrap, Bob wants a steady income, and Mallory wants to rule the world. They can all agree that the company needs to sell things.
Only substitute explosions and bullets and such for “sell things”.
June 5, 2010, 11:39 pmDavid Chesler says:
This differs from how the US has waged war since WWII how?
June 5, 2010, 11:42 pmChris Travers says:
It’s also worth noting that in a few short years, Israel has managed to take their only real ally in the Muslim world and alienate them so far that they have agreed to send a warship to accompany a future humanitarian aid flotilla (at least Turkey has indicated it may do this).
If so, this is EXTREMELY significant. It also indicates an attempt by Turkey to attempt to ratchet up the pressure. Given that Turkey is a NATO member (and the one the US relies on most currently), this puts Israel in a very precarious position.
Let me restate this to be absolutely clear on the significance: Warships from a NATO-member country may, in the near future, be helping activists run this blockade.
Sometimes I wonder how things would go if Israeli politicians got over their extreme allergy to apology….
June 5, 2010, 11:42 pmDavid Bernstein says:
No, because the leftists deny that Israel has a right to use force to defend itself under just about any circumstances. Recall Operation Cast Lead in 2008: not a single individual who accused Israel of a “disproportionate” military response to Hamas rocket fire was willing to specify what level of military force would be acceptable, because the answer was none; it was disproportionate because Israel had no legitimate right to defend itself, not because of the level of civilian casualties, the failure to achieve Israeli ends, or anything else.
Not necessarily. If you announce: we are going to keep bombing Hezbollah strongholds until our kidnapped soldiers are returned, and we mean it, then you keep bombing Hezbollah strongholds until the soldiers are returned. I admit that one problem is that Israel never knows how long “world opinion” (i.e., the U.S.) is going to allow its operations continue. But that itself is a strategic challenge that has to be considered not just when setting the goals of a military operation, but deciding whether to launch the operation to begin with.
June 5, 2010, 11:42 pmnewrouter says:
birth control so fascist/communist/socialist
June 5, 2010, 11:43 pmDavid Bernstein says:
This I disagree with. From my non-expert perspective, I believe the commentators who argue that the Turkish civilian Islamist government is using populist sentiment against Israel as a weapon in its war against the secularist military are correct. Certainly, nothing Israel has done has caused Turkey to embrace Iran, thus also spitting in Obama’s eye.
June 5, 2010, 11:45 pmnewrouter says:
allah you are too stupid about the plastic turkey.
June 5, 2010, 11:46 pmD.O. says:
But that is wrong. You can not plan and run military campaigns like that. I think another interpretation is that whatever is the party, the attitude is “we will show them [Kuzkina mat']!” without clearly understanding what exactly they want to show. And that would also be wrong.
June 5, 2010, 11:49 pmDavid Bernstein says:
The lessons of Vietnam are quite relevant: you should have clearly defined goals, and if you choose to pursue them, pursue them until they are achieved, or not at all.
June 5, 2010, 11:50 pmRobert B says:
Professor Bernstein,
I often disagree with you on the Israeli-Palestine issue, but you’ve effectively stated the position I’ve held for years: Israel has the right to defend itself, it just does so in a haphazard way that is not conducive to whatever it’s goals are (which as you said, are never stated). I applaud you for this insight, as I’d previously chalked you up as an Israel First-er, and I’m glad to have my previous conclusion debunked.
That said, in another thread, someone mentioned making the US a protector under Geneva IV, such that the US would have legal obligations to the Palestinian, yet as a long time ally of Israel, would have political reasons to enforce a peace. The West Bank and Gaza are also small enough that we could realistically enforce such a peace, given what our military has learned in Afghanistan over the past decade. What are your thoughts on this issue?
June 5, 2010, 11:50 pmChris Travers says:
BTW, to those who have in the past criticized my point that at some point in the future, a Palestinian state MUST be heavily armed, this crisis actually serves as a useful case as to why a human right to access to means of self defence must be seen as applicable to the Palestinians (even if it might need to be forestalled temporarily in practice due to the fact that the PA is basically a failed state and semi-lawless area).
Turkey (a NATO member) has offered military escorts to future Gaza aid ships. This means that Turkish ships will likely be operating in Gaza waters. This means that things could get tense, but it also means that if there is a fight, Israel risks having the combined diplomatic weight of NATO brought to into action. I have in the past characterized this problem as a very basic one: The Palestinians will not be content to allow Israel to be the only military navy in their waters and will have to bring in ships from Islamic countries to meet their interests if they don’t have warships themselves, and while at the moment, it’s probably better to have Turkish ships than Hamas ships in those waters, in the long run, that’s a recipe for regional war because the ships will likely owe their primary allegiance to foreign countries which will be harder to attack with decisive force than Gaza would be.
Long-run (once law and order can be brought to the PA), the PA must have their own navy operating out of Gaza so as to prevent this problem of foreign ships being brought in to defend their interests.
June 5, 2010, 11:53 pmDanny Black says:
Chris, it is simply indisputable that Defensive Shield achieved its goals. One only has to compare before and after, let alone 2002 and now.
The issue with Israel is that it uses just enough force to get itself condemned and nowhere near enough force to get anything even close to any job done.
June 5, 2010, 11:54 pmD.O. says:
I am not saying, it will make them intellectually consistent. It will vindicate the anti-Israeli passion, however stupid.
June 5, 2010, 11:54 pmRicardo says:
Vietnam is a case study in the kind of incompetence Bernstein is talking about. On the other hand, Gulf War I was exactly the opposite. It started with a clear objective — the removal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait — and once that objective was achieved on the ground, the shooting war stopped.
June 5, 2010, 11:55 pmDavid Bernstein says:
You can, but you shouldn’t. It’s the natural product of coalition government, Israeli-style–we all agree to use military force, and then we’ll jockey to see whose goals actually get pursued. Note that among Israel’s greatest long-term challenges–the West Bank situation–arose in part because the various elements of Israel’s government disagreed sharply on what to do with the captured territory in 1967–some wanted to withdraw from much of it unliaterally, some wanted to offer much of it to the domestic Palestinian leadership, some wanted to hold out for a Jordanian peace treaty, and some wanted to keep it out of military necessity. Arab resistance to any negotiation didn’t help to say the least, but the situation turned out the way it did in part because there was no strong “President” who could set a definitive policy and pursue it, instead things proceeded haphazardly and without a clear strategic goal in mind.
June 5, 2010, 11:55 pmanon says:
DB,
I have come to understand that at least two things are definitely true.
First, the leadership of Israel has not seen fit to confide in you either their “Grand Strategy” or their goals.
Second, as brilliant as you are, and, as well informed on the situation as you are, you are unable to discern either the “Grand Strategy” or the goals of the Israeli government.
I caution you to realize that neither the first or second true statement means that the Israeli leadership has neither a “Grand Strategy” or a set of determinable goals.
It is truly frustrating when you can’t figure out the solution to a
puzzle and it’s creator won’t clue you in on the answer.
But since you are an American citizen and not an Israeli (even though both Green Glenwald and Sully Andrewvan would accuse you of ‘dual loyalty’ since you don’t criticize EVERYTHING Israel does) is there a
June 5, 2010, 11:59 pmreason that Bibi should even consider telling you what his ultimate
end point might be?
Chris Travers says:
Erdogan’s party has been in power for eight years so far. They did not act this way during past issues (Operation Defensive Shield, Operation Cast Lead, The Second Lebanon War). His administration has generally walked a careful line and while less Israel-friendly than his predecessors didn’t exactly make a rapid change in this area until after Liberman fired the first diplomatic shot, as it were.
June 5, 2010, 11:59 pmChris Travers says:
If the goal was to reduce terrorism to an acceptable level, the goals were met. If it was to utterly remove the capability to engage in terrorism the goal wasn’t met. The question is what the goal was, then we can determine whether it was met.
Similarly, if the goal of the Iraq war was to remove the US troop presence from Saudi Arabia (where the presence was giving bin Ladin and others talking points) it was a success. If the goal was to find and destroy Saddam’s chemical weapons caches that we KNEW he had, it was a failure ;-)
June 6, 2010, 12:02 amDavid Bernstein says:
I don’t think you followed the news during OCL that closely. Turkey’s reaction was so hostile that many Israelis starting boycotting Turkey, which led Turkey’s tourism industry to beg the government to tone it down.
June 6, 2010, 12:04 amDanny Black says:
Chris I would be extremely surprised if the Turkish military escort these ships. There is no upside to this for them and the IDF dealing violently with military boats simply doesn’t have the same impact as “civilians”. I also cannot see the rest of NATO getting involved if Turkey decides to provoke a fight with Israel. So I see this as yet more verbiage from Erdogan.
Also Hamas has no interest in this. Whenever there has been an out and out fight between arabs and the IDF the IDF has always won. Far better to pretend to be the “poor unarmed” Palestinians who can’t defend themselves – despite having highly sophisticated infantry weapons that are comfortable the match of what the IDF have – and force Israel to fight with one hand tied behind it’s back whilst presenting it as “over-reacting”.
June 6, 2010, 12:09 amDavid Bernstein says:
So is every Israeli commentator I’ve ever read. The exception is that there is a very clear Israeli goal, pursued for two decades now, to prevent Iran from getting the bomb. It’s succeeded for two decades, which is pretty impressive all things considered, but it’s reaching an end game soon.
June 6, 2010, 12:09 amgrog says:
DB (whom I’m agreeing with in this thread much more than usual) already responded, but ot take a different tack – clearly states can, and do.
Aside from the current example under discussion, has anyone heard a clear statement of U.S. goals in Afpak that aren’t obviously facile, and, if achieved, would lead to an end to hostilties?
June 6, 2010, 12:09 amThe Man Who Watches says:
I don’t think that Israel was incompetent. This is what Israel does. The country is fighting for its survival. The only problem is the means it undertakes to that end. This is why no one should ever go to the Middle East without an intent to wage war against the nations there. These nations are dangerous. The people there are dangerous. Only armed people should be attempting to assist the Palestinians. Perhaps the U.S. Marines should deliver the next shipment of food. If you are not willing to send in people trained to kill and destroy to deliver food . . . you are accepting the starvation of the people in Gaza. Only are very mighty armed force will be able the alleviate the suffering. Here in the states, if it ain’t for a big oil company you can forget it. We will not send our troops into harms way for humanitarian reasons. Our troops fight at the beck and call of big oil. It is said, but true.
June 6, 2010, 12:16 amnewrouter says:
bill ayers and bernie do and obama and the “international left”. go figure the paul mccarthy left on the run
June 6, 2010, 12:23 amDanny Black says:
Chris, number of Israeli dead from suicide bombers in the **month** just before Defensive shield was 130. There was an attack every single day. Number of Israelis killed in terrorist incidents from the West Bank in the last 7 years is under 160 with over a third killed in 2004. More people were killed in suicide bombings on one day in in the month before Defensive Shield than have been since 2004. Seeing more than a bit of straw man in the “utterly remove” argument, so unless the operation reduced it to zero then it was a failure? There are still Nazis in Germany, so does that mean the allies lost WW2?
June 6, 2010, 12:25 amThe Unbeliever says:
Considering your local Home Depot has everything you need to carry out crude, low-level terrorism, I doubt “completely eliminate” was ever on ANY list of objectives.
Let’s call it “make the set of ‘weapons and nations under Saddam’s control’ equal to zero”, and declare victory once he was pulled out of a hole in the ground. (A goal I believed justified the war both now and when it was launched.)
Back on topic: toppling governments is a nice, neat objective–arguably the oldest and clearest objective of warfare. It’s all the OTHER objectives that get sticky–per Clausewitz, it ain’t over until you’ve broken the other guy’s will. And, inconveniently, the entire body of international law, treaties, and institutions are set up to make this feat as hard as possible.
June 6, 2010, 12:33 amD.O. says:
OK, grog, I’ll bite. I believe it is like this: establish self-sufficient Afghan government, which will keep Al Q out of the country. I am not sure how deep it is or how achievable, but it is the announced goal AFAIK. As for running military campaigns without agreed upon purpose, it is not only inefficient, but cruel towards “collateral damage”, about which Israel might not care, but the rest of us might.
June 6, 2010, 12:40 amsteve s says:
Also, Turkey may want its own nukes as was suggested by Barnett. Given this picture, why then did Israel follow tactics that virtually guaranteed civilian deaths. Everyone knows it was exceedingly unlikely there were weapons on the ship. Every effort should have been made to avoid killings.
As to Cast Lead, it did not fit in with any viable long term plan. It was a reaction to a problem. There needs to be an overarching strategy with long term goals. That will shape what tactics are then allowable.
My gut feeling is that the Israeli elites have given up on a two state solution. That fits best with their current efforts. They seem to be aiming towards a single state solution and finessing the demographic issue (apartheid or exile) while relying upon the US and their nukes to carry it out. Not sure they are serious about Russia.
Steve
June 6, 2010, 12:49 amOrenWithAnE says:
Even among defenders of Israel, I can never say this enough.
June 6, 2010, 1:22 amED Maven says:
DB is right in describing the symptoms, but not the cause which is that Israel has recognized (as have all rational people) that the military solution is the only solution in that part of the world. But the Israelis want to be like other Westerners who have over the years lost that fighting edge. They want to be liked/loved/admired so they can enjoy their latte in a sidewalk cafe. So they delude themselves into believing that if only they utter the proper magic words (like “land for peace”) their enemies will stop attacking them. Nonsense. These enemies don’t want land and they don’t want peace. THEY want victory so they are willing to die for their cause.
Nonetheless, in the face of all that the Israelis pull their punches, and over the long run prolong the agony.
The best advice came from three American generals:
June 6, 2010, 1:27 am(1) Avoid war but when you are in one, fight to win,
(2) There is no substitute for victory, and
(3) War is hell, not heck.
Jewish Marksman says:
“In short, in recent years, Israeli officials across the political spectrum have agreed that military force is the solution. But they haven’t agreed on what the problem is. And that’s a problem. ”
Wrong. They all agree and know that the problem is simple: generally speaking, Muslims would prefer a judenrein middle east. Radical Muslims are willing and able to take up arms and devote their lives to making that happen. Wake up and smell the jihad.
As to how to stop it, the frustration you are feeling is that at the moment, the world only has a short term plan: kill jihadists. As to stopping the spread of radical Muslim theology, there are many long term plans, but no Western countries or coalitions with the long term vision or ability to implement them.
The long term plans all involve wealth redistribution within the Muslim world. That involves a lot of meddling, cloak and dagger, and basically asserting our will over those still living with dark ages ideas. Completely un-PC nowadays.
So without US or European backing, each Israeli PM is just the temporary driver of the bus, with limited ability to set the course. Long term plans such as setting up puppet regimes like we once did in Central America, or with the Shah in Iran are simply not on the table as they once were. Sure, you get your Bay of Pigs now and then, but you dust yourself off and stick with the program.
It’s called backbone. We no haz it no more.
So your criticism is unfounded. All each successive PM can do is put out fires. Uncle Sam needs to grow a pair for more than 4 years at a time and maybe the Middle East will change.
June 6, 2010, 2:09 amThe Man Who Watches says:
Ed Maven has it right. This is a war. People must die. There is no avoiding it. What you have in this situation is controlled suffering of the people of the region. Look at how the United States was created. We killed, massacred and imprisoned pretty much any party that did not see things our way. We didn’t negotiate for this land. We waged war against our lawful government when we had enough. When we wanted more, Jackson went into Florida and kicked the Spanish out. The only way land is purchased is with the threat of bloodshed. Any of you who think otherwise are living in a state of delirium. You cannot negotiate your way out of the mess in the Middle East. People must die until all sides are sickened by the body count. There is simply no other solution. What you cannot do, however, is allow one side not to defend itself. In other words, containment of the conflict at the expense of one side is simply not a solution. All sides have a right to assert self-defense.
June 6, 2010, 2:18 amDan Simon says:
David, I see your point. After all, only a hopelessly dysfunctional, politically riven and terminally confused and irresolute society would respond to naked aggression by an oppressive Arab tyranny against its neighbor by launching a large-scale invasion, only to abruptly end hostilities with the aggressor government intact and still in power, settling instead for a long-term blockade to prevent the aggressor from rearming. Wasn’t it obvious that the suffering of the blockaded civilians would become an international cause celebre, leading the blockade to ultimately fail spectacularly, and at great PR cost?
June 6, 2010, 2:44 amleo marvin says:
Has this (or anything else) altered your preference for Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu over Labor and Kadima?
June 6, 2010, 3:36 amEngineer says:
n short, in recent years, Israeli officials across the political spectrum have agreed that military force is the solution. But they haven’t agreed on what the problem is. And that’s a problem.
Bibi was pretty clear in the past few days that the blockade is to prevent rockets and similar things from getting to Hamas.
In terms of sending mixed messages, the Obama admin is probably as bad as the Israelis.
It’s good that some Jews have been making suggestions to the Israelis regarding poor intelligence/planning, poor PR skills etc. and these things should be improved. But I doubt that the messaging is the main problem (as it gets suppressed or heavily distorted), and I doubt that DB is helping matters much with the inflammatory title of this posting.
If you read the MSM and the lefty blogs, it seems that for these people the “real” underlying problem with Israel’s behaviour in the boat incident is that a) the underdogs are being oppressed once again b) Israel is upsetting the Muslim world which is preventing the whole world from joining hands and singing Kumbaya ie. “Israel is driving Turkey out of the Western sphere”, “Israel is preventing a united front on the Iran issue”, “the boat incident will further complicate the proximity talks” etc.
If there is anything to this analysis, then Israel should worry less about convincing the MSM, Obama, EU etc. and focus on communicating directly with real people.
June 6, 2010, 3:49 amEngineer says:
It’s also worth noting that in a few short years, Israel has managed to take their only real ally in the Muslim world and alienate them so far that they have agreed to send a warship to accompany a future humanitarian aid flotilla (at least Turkey has indicated it may do this).
This comment is a good example of how many liberals think that Muslim countries are not independent actors and only do something because Israel drove them to do it.
Does this commenter also think that Israel drove Erdogan to oppose Denmark’s chairing of NATO due to the Mohammed cartoon incident? Or that Israel somehow triggered Turkey’s lack of admission to the EU?
June 6, 2010, 4:00 amThomasS says:
In the past I have been sympathetic to Israel, and I think that to an extent I still am. One of the reasons that I have been sympathetic is the lack of leadership on the Palestinian side strong enough to negotiate with. If the other side doesn’t have the discipline and loyalty to, say, consistently implement a cease fire, then negotiations don’t mean that much.
What this article points out is that Israel suffers some of the same problems. Its military has more than enough discipline to obey orders. However, for political reasons it cannot provide consistent criteria for a cease fire either. Both sides suffer from the same need to demonstrate that they aren’t being “soft” on the other.
Under the circumstances, I don’t see how there can be peace until Israel wins over a reasonable fraction of the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people and vice versa. My best guess about the right way to do this is that they should eliminate the settlements and find a way to ensure that the Palestinians have food, water, and basic infrastructure. I do not believe that these goals are inherently incompatible with minimizing the number of guns and explosives available within Palestine. At least, as an admittedly uneducated international observer, it seems to me that this could (slowly, it is true) greatly reduce the power of Hamas, etc.
Suicide bombers come about because parents send their children off to suicide bomber schools. They do this at least partially because they are hungry, and because the terrorist organization is the closest thing to a helpful government that they know.
“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you always got.” – Mark Twain
June 6, 2010, 4:08 amDanny Black says:
Chris, sorry but what you are saying is factually incorrect. Erdogan threw a hissy fit during and after Cast Lead.
June 6, 2010, 5:42 amDanny Black says:
When Israel pulled out of Gaza they should have locked the door and thrown away the key. They should have said nothing to do with us and we will treat like any other hostile country if you attack us or gear yourself up to attack us.
Instead what they did was this half-arsed not quite out and not quite in. So now Israel has ALL the responsibility and none of the benefits of “occupying” Gaza. Hence it seems to me the only route left is to go “Sorry tried to pull out didn’t work, we are retaking Gaza and staying there”. Get the benefits of being on the ground as not just the responsibilities. This puts an end to this flotilla nonsense, an end to this seige nonsense and I think will make the guys in Egypt demanding to revoke the peace treaty stop and think and the same with Hizbollah. It will also kill support for Hamas dead.
I don’t expect this to happen what will happen is slowly slowly the half-hearted “seige” will end and Hamas will win and all Israel will have got for it’s pains is a tarnished rep.
June 6, 2010, 5:50 amEngineer says:
I don’t see how there can be peace until Israel wins over a reasonable fraction of the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people and vice versa. My best guess about the right way to do this is that they should eliminate the settlements and find a way to ensure that the Palestinians have food, water, and basic infrastructure.
A lot of Gazans subscribe to the “Helen Thomas solution” for the mideast (which is why they support Hamas) – but this commenter is yet another person who thinks that the Palestinians are incapable of independent action and their national politics can be re-wired if Bibi simply makes an eloquent address to the Palestinians along the lines of the one that Obama made to Iran.
This way of thinking has its proponents in Israel between 1993 and 2000. Since 2000 and especially since the Gaza withdrawal, Israelis have recognized that it is a pipe dream.
The people who say Israel shouldn’t respond to violence with violence, should reach out to the Palestinians etc. are actually insisting that Israel soak up missiles and other forms of terrorism.
June 6, 2010, 6:00 amDarwin says:
David, you as a law professor should not use “the exception that proves the rule” in such an idiotic way. Please look up the correct meaning of that phrase, which is a useful and sensible rule of legal construction. (Hint: “proves” is used in the sense of “the exception that tests the rule”. as in a testing ground being referred to as a “proving ground”.)
June 6, 2010, 6:19 amNowMDJD says:
The alternative, and more likely possibility, is that an Islamist government decided to rupture the alliance for ideological reasons and to expand its influence with other Islamic nations that oppose Israel. This change of direction has nothing to do with Israeli policy. So Turkey proceeded to provoke Israel by fomenting the attempt to run the blockade– a hostile action. Israel, which brightly elieves it must control what is going into Gaza, had to respond.
June 6, 2010, 7:00 amNowMDJD says:
No, they waited until they had consolidated their power vis-a-vis the pro-Israel, secular, military officer corps.
June 6, 2010, 7:06 amLitigator London says:
Might I suggest that the problems run deeper than being only ones of “incompetent execution” or bad public relations.
One big causative factor is the Israeli electoral system. It is often forgotten that Israeli elections take place under one of the purest possible forms of proportional representation. This has two disadvantages, one of which is that the chances of a particular candidate being elected depends on position on the lists rather than on the views of voters upon him/her as a individual. The other is the possibility of the legislature being fractured into too many parties. To avoid this, most but not all states using party list PR set a threshold for representation. For example, in Turkey, the threshold is fixed at 10%. The threshold for Knesset representation is just 2%.
After the 2009 elections, the consequence of the low threshold was that there were no fewer than 10 parties represented in the Knesset and 2 of those are themselves coalitions. I think there were 20 or so other parties which put up candidates but which did not pass the minimum threshold for Knesset seats. Since the executive depends on the composition of the parliament (in contrast to, say, France or the USA where the executive is directly elected), a fractured Knesset inevitably results in a fractured executive.
Further, there is no national consensus in Israel as to the future direction of the country. Even excluding the extreme fringes of political belief, there is deep division on fundamental issues such as whether: (1) Israel should withdraw to its original borders and dismantle the settlements, (2) should the policy be eventually to incorporate the whole of Eretz Israel into the national territory, (3) what should be done with the Arab population, in particular having regard to the disparity in relative birth rates, (4) how can Israel normalise elations with its neighbours, (4) what should be the strategy in relation to international pressure for a “two state” solution with the prospect of an indipendent, Arab state of Palestine as the nearest neighbour and very possibly a fundamentally hostile neighbour.
And, of course, there is also the issue of the impact of Israeli government actions on the perceptions of the wider diaspora community. As an example of this I proffer this article in the London Jewish Chronicle by a student who recently visited the West Bank Correcting my vision in Palestine – The prospect of taking part in a Palestinian literary festival was scary. The reality was shaming.
“A few weeks ago, I stood by Abraham’s tomb in Hebron during the recitation of the Amidah.
It was an awesome moment, to be at the resting place of the first Jew on earth while hearing the liturgy, and it came at the end of an extraordinary journey, one that had challenged the assumptions I had set out with. My journey was through Palestine. I was travelling with a literary festival.
The invitation had immediately appealed. The Palestine situation is so much at the centre of contemporary Jewish life that I was keen to see it for myself. I was nervous, of course. All the voices of my education, all the years of news footage – charred car bodies, masked gunmen, wailing crowds, photographers pushed back as stretchers are rushed into ambulances – told me to be scared.
The first revelation of the trip changed that. It was so obvious, so bound to be true, that I’m almost ashamed to admit what it was: Palestinians are normal people. Unlike the turbulent, vengeful individuals I had been expecting, I encountered warm, rational, intelligent human beings, concerned for their families and struggling with a difficult situation.
….
The great benefit of being there yourself is that it releases you from the endless to-and-fro of argument about the situation. You can see what is happening, the facts on the ground, facts that can’t be contradicted by any argument from either side. What you see is that there are a huge number of illegal settlements within Palestinian territory and that the wall is in the wrong place.
The settlements are shocking in their scale. They are easy to spot because they are always on the tops of hills and are reinforced. Some, like those in a ring around Nablus, are so far into territory necessary and promised for a viable Palestinian state as to make that future seem impossible.
What can be done with these armed fundamentalist inhabitants who would rather kill than move? Settler Judaism is hard for me to comprehend. It seems to lack all the moral and intellectual depth, the subtlety and sensitivity, of the Judaism I am proud to have grown up in. Full of messianic fervour, indifferent to pain, soaked in violence, it privileges the one commandment to settle over the other six hundred and twelve. That they have been tolerated and supported in pursuing this activity, which seriously damages the chances of a two-state solution, is mystifying to me.
….
Seeing, too, the frightening checkpoints, and Hebron settlements built directly over the remaining Palestinians in the old city, over whom rubbish and urine are thrown down, I came away with a new understanding of why so many Jews within Israel and the diaspora are protesting against current Israeli government policies. For myself, the words of William Blake came to
mind: opposition is true friendship.”
I agree with the comment above from Chris Travers:-
“The current Israeli policies against Hamas are doomed to fail. The blockade ensures that Gazan misery will be blamed on Israel instead of Hamas, just as every-day Cuban misery is often unfairly blamed on the US.
If the goals are to try to cut down on terrorist weaponry in the hands of Hamas, then the sanctions should be narrowly tailored to meet that goal, and refusing shipments after searches should be the exception rather than the rule. If, on the other hand, the goal is to isolate Hamas, and for Israel to take the blame for Hamas’s failures, then the current strategy is nearly perfect.”
Where I disagree with him is his comment:
“I think it’s also symptomatic of a deeper problem which is that the legacy of antisemitism, particularly from Europe, has lead to a very problematic view of Israeli relations with the rest of the world.”
No, the significant problem is not the legacy of past or even present anti-semitism. The problem (for the USA and Israel, not for Europeans) is the impact of the European Convention on Human Rights. The impact of this Convention and the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights has been very considerable, particularly over the last 20 years. In the UK alone, ECHR decisions have led to: the abolition of the death penalty, the promotion of equal rights for homosexuals even in the armed forces (btw, the sky has not fallen in as a consequence), better treatment of other minorities of all kinds and, significant restraints on executive decision making which governments must ensure are rights compliant – and here the concept of necessity and proportionality comes into play. The doctrine of state immunity has gone both for citizens and foreigners. No better example perhaps than the impact of the ECHR on the actions of British forces in Iraq where the state has had to admit liability and pay millions in compensation to Iraqis ill-treated in UK custody and run a meaningful inquiry into what went wrong.
The development of that rights-based culture in Europe spills over into our view of the legitimacy of the actions of other states, including the USA and Israel. In particular as regards Israel because it is a Mediterranean basin state with a desire for a closer relations with Europe. (The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership today comprises 43 members: 27 European Union member states, and 16 partner countries (Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia, as well as the Palestinian Territories). There is a meeting scheduled soon and the prospect of Avigdor Lieberman’s attendance is already asking waves.
The impact of the ECHR has been beneficial for all our minorities, including the Jewish communities and the Muslim communities and increasingly representatives of those communities (especially the post WW2/Cold War generations) are saying: we can live together in peace and harmony and these values should govern in other territories too.
But that EU rights-based culture impacts on EU/US relations and I think it is also bringing an increasing disconnect between the views of the US diaspora and the views of European Jewish communities on the present situation.
June 6, 2010, 7:29 amLitigator London says:
Well said, even though I suspect your view will go down like a lead ballon on this site. One correction is perhaps relevant. I have spent quite a long time studying the phenomenon of salfist terrorism. Young people do not become terrorists because of their parents but in spite of their parents. Whether we are talking about young people recruited among our UK Muslim communities, or in Algeria, or elsewhere, in the vast majority of cases the parents are law abiding, anxious to make their way in life and obtain a better future for their children. The salafist recruiters make headway in prisons and young offenders’ institutions, among the undereducated and unemployed poor but testosterone-filled youth. Here I am speaking from personal experience in challenging that recruitment, not theorising from a safe distance.
I’ve said it before: the devil finds work for idle hands and that is a fundamental good reason for putting the population of Gaza back to work as quickly as possible.
June 6, 2010, 7:48 amEricPWJohnson says:
Prof Bernstein
I disagree with most if not all of your premise and even the emotions or say a lessor word concerns that compelled you to convey these thoughts.
*sigh* When the world or at least the Arab world is using everything and everyone to forment unrest and revolution and perhaps the pallor of genocide to(on) a small nation surrounded on three sides by those same factions its almost impossible to be “competent”.
A country whose government has contentious and constant free elections, vigorous and open debate and strong factions that support ideologically different causes –
Out numbered 1.2 billion to 5 million with no natural resources except opinions and op-ed pieces.
Incompetence? Its actually the incompetence of th Arab governments who when Saddam is rising or the Russian Bear is lurking or when oil is falling is suddenly concerned with governance, peace, understanding with the Jewish state and its 800 lb gorrila the USA – but when times are good and petro dollars are cascading into a small few shiek clawed hands – its seems that to deflect attention from the lack of spreading the wealth that the faux mini crusades against the Hebrews manage to crop up timely
June 6, 2010, 7:52 amDavid Bernstein says:
It sounds reasonable, but it happens to be false. The standard of living on the West Bank and especially in Gaza rose at one of the fastest rates in the world from 1967 to 1987; if it was about economics, the occupation without meaningful resistance would be the obvious choice. Indeed, West Bankers would be begging to be incorporated into Israel.
June 6, 2010, 7:57 amGW says:
“Dual use”? While some items are clearly of dual military/civilian use, cement or steel, for example, there are so many embargoed items of an unambiguously non-military nature, that one suspects that the embargoers have included them simply to demonstrate a willingness and ability to demonstrate and exercise power arbitrarily. Why else embargo coriander, for example? Or allow only one color of cheese?
June 6, 2010, 8:16 amDavid Bernstein says:
I know what it means, and Sharon’s operation “proved the rule” of general Israeli government incompetence.
June 6, 2010, 8:33 amDavid Bernstein says:
You say you disagree with me, but you’ve just reiterating my point.
June 6, 2010, 8:34 amNocomment says:
Hezbollah had kidnapped
This assumes that the soldiers were captured in Israel.
June 6, 2010, 8:38 amEngineer says:
Even excluding the extreme fringes of political belief, there is deep division on fundamental issues such as whether: (1) Israel should withdraw to its original borders and dismantle the settlements, (2) should the policy be eventually to incorporate the whole of Eretz Israel into the national territory,
All the major political parties are in favor of some sort of “2-state solution”. The far right National Union and one religious party – who together hold 8 seats out of 120 – are the only ones for “Greater Eretz Yisrael” today
(3) what should be done with the Arab population, in particular having regard to the disparity in relative birth rates,
Though this might be discussed sometimes, there is no policy discussion as there is nothing to be done or not done about the issue.
(4) how can Israel normalise elations with its neighbours,
It takes two to “normalize” so again there is little discussion to be had here.
(4) what should be the strategy in relation to international pressure for a “two state” solution with the prospect of an indipendent, Arab state of Palestine as the nearest neighbour and very possibly a fundamentally hostile neighbour.
Yes this is the major issue today, with each party taking a different tack.
I’m amazed that you acknowledge that Palestine is likely to be a “fundamentally hostile neighbour” as essentially you are admitting that the “peace process” is not at all about peace.
Most Israelis realize that you can’t have open borders with a fundamentally hostile state. Nor can you permit them to import war materiel. Most Israelis realize that the PA won’t prevent radicals from firing missiles from the West Bank – and that the world community won’t care in the slightest except perhaps to suggest a “Helen Thomas solution”.
Well said, even though I suspect your view will go down like a lead ballon on this site.
Perhaps Litigator London should try listening to the views of people who actually live in Israel instead of dismissing and sneering at them like a gentleman at a Kensington dinner party.
I’ve said it before: the devil finds work for idle hands and that is a fundamental good reason for putting the population of Gaza back to work as quickly as possible.
I’m not sure what this means practically. There have been attempts to help develop an economy (eg. Wolfensohn greenhouses) … There are already lots of aid groups operating. It’s not the Israelis’ job to re-wire Palestinian culture or national politics.
June 6, 2010, 8:38 amBill Harshaw says:
Re birth rates: The only proven solution to disparate birth rates is to make all parties rich fast. Even if there were an acceptable two-state solution, it would be a very unstable one if the disparities in birth and wealth between Israel and its neighbors continued. So the correct policy is: anything that creates permanent wealth for Palestinians is good for Israel; anything that destroys wealth for them is bad. (Of course, even following the correct policy doesn’t mean one state can successfully manage a neighbor.)
June 6, 2010, 8:49 amMnZ says:
Why? Hezbollah is not a government. It has no sovereignty to capture. In fact, doesn’t Hezbollah avoid claiming sovereignty?
June 6, 2010, 8:54 amEricPWJohnson says:
Prof Bernstein
.
No.
This statement is erroneous because its based upon the an assumption that Israel controls the level of intensity and futhermore assumes that there are any rules of engagement albeit onesided.
Arabs have had a storied history of submission after defeat, the Saudi’s and Persians during the Ottoman reign, the Syrians and Lebanese during French rule and the rest of the Arab world under spanish and British occupation. For the first time in several hundred years a few decades of freedom has now been replaced with appointed dictators and self elected dictators. Why is this relevant? Because Israel is at peace and responds in self defense
This following opinion by you is poorly supported by recent events in my opinion
I run in different circles than others we all have our different sphere’s of influence – mine are worried that the Israeli’s were too soft on the boaters – I tend to agree the ships should have been seized, the blockade runners imprisoned until their respective countries take responsibility for their actions and those who attacked the IDF should have a fair trial and sentenced accordingly.
Again the Israeli government is competant and the Arab forms of government are incompetent.
June 6, 2010, 9:58 amDan Simon says:
Re birth rates: The only proven solution to disparate birth rates is to make all parties rich fast.
Another option would be to end the enormous subsidies Palestinians receive for having children. Palestinians receive by a huge margin the the world’s most generous per-capita allocation of international aid, and most of it is given on a per-person basis, and hence subsidizes population growth.
June 6, 2010, 10:22 amsteve s says:
“Again the Israeli government is competant and the Arab forms of government are incompetent.”
Competent was realizing that Turkey has a population of about 74 million, is a member of NATO and is strategically located for access to future problem areas (Iran, Iraq), then making efforts to form an alliance. Incompetent is putting the secularists in Turkey in a difficult position to maintain the current relationship. Competent was taking military action against Gaza to stop missiles. Incompetent was losing the information war and not knowing when to stop. Incompetent is a prolonged blockade that has cemented the position of Hamas in Gaza. Occupy it or don’t. This halfway stuff makes no sense.
And yes, the flotilla boarding was incompetent. Nearly all of us who served in the military couldn’t believe that troops were going down one at a time into an angry mob. If Israeli accounts are correct, and they were already carry pipes, this is comically bad. Pro-Israel types will concentrate on justifying what happened after they got on board. Anti-Israeli people will just note that civilians were killed. Those of us who just look at this as a military exercise realize that you just don’t put troops into that kind of a situation except as a last, desperate resort.
Look at where Israel is now compared with a few years ago. Is it better off now?
June 6, 2010, 10:42 amEngineer says:
Look at where Israel is now compared with a few years ago. Is it better off now?
Good question.
Withdrawing from Gaza unilaterally worsened Israel’s strategic position and did not win any international goodwill whatsoever.
Offering 2-state solutions in 2000 and 2008 did not lead to peace or create international good will either.
Violence or intransigence by the Palestinians – on the other hand – seems to just strengthen their hand. They fire missiles or reject talks – and the international community screams at Israel to do something to make the Palestinians less desperate or more compromising..
Hard to avoid the conclusion that hereforward Israel should only make concessions in exchange for real peace.
June 6, 2010, 10:54 amLitigator London says:
I note your amazement and I hope it will be the precursor of enlightenment. However I did not say that an independent Palestine was “likely” to be hostile but that the possibility that it might be has to be factored into any solution. BTW I haven’t suffered a Kensington dinner party in over 20 years, the area is now far too chi-chi for me and I live in a part of London where more than a third of the population is of Turkish or Kurdish origin. Strange at it may seem, I do spend time communicating with people within Israel, but very few of them reflect the views espoused on this blog.
In that regard, those on this blog who look back with nostalgia to the Bush Administration’s relationship with the Government of Israel, to the almost perfect entente between the Neoconservatives and the Likud or between the Administration and both AIPAC and Christians United for Israel, must be viewing the straws in the wind with an increasing degree of cocern.
A key indicator may be a little noticed bombshell contained in a piece by one of the high priests of the beltway strategic studies confraternity, Athony H. Cordesman Israel as a Strategic Liability? for after all the ritual reassertions of the US-Israel relationship and guarantees came this:-
“At the same time, the depth of America’s moral commitment does not justify or excuse actions by an Israeli government that unnecessarily make Israel a strategic liability when it should remain an asset. It does not mean that the United States should extend support to an Israeli government when that government fails to credibly pursue peace with its neighbors. It
does not mean that the United States has the slightest interest in supporting Israeli settlements in the West Bank, or that the United States should take a hard-line position on Jerusalem that would effectively make it a Jewish rather than a mixed city. It does not mean that the United States should be passive when Israel makes a series of major strategic blunders–such as persisting in the strategic bombing of Lebanon during the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, escalating its attack on Gaza long after it had achieved its key objectives, embarrassing the U.S. president by announcing the expansion of Israeli building programs in east Jerusalem at a critical moment in U.S. efforts to put Israeli-Palestinian peace talks back on track, or sending commandos to seize a Turkish ship in a horribly mismanaged effort to halt the “peace flotilla” going to Gaza.
It is time Israel realized that it has obligations to the United States, as well as the United States to Israel, and that it become far more careful about the extent to which it test the limits of U.S. patience and exploits the support of American Jews. This does not mean taking a single action that undercuts Israeli security, but it does mean realizing that Israel should show enough discretion to reflect the fact that it is a tertiary U.S. strategic interest in a complex and demanding world.
Israel’s government should act on the understanding that the long-term nature of the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship will depend on Israel clearly and actively seeking peace with the Palestinians—the kind of peace that is in Israel’s own strategic interests. Israelis should understand that the United States opposes expansion and retention of its settlements and its efforts to push Palestinians out of greater Jerusalem. Israeli governments should plan Israeli military actions that make it clear that Israel will use force only to the level actually required, that carefully consider humanitarian issues from the start, and that have a clear post-combat plan of action to limit the political and strategic impact of its use of force. And Israel should not conduct a high-risk attack on Iran in the face of the clear U.S. “red light” from both the Bush and Obama administrations. Israel should be sensitive to the fact that its actions directly affect U.S. strategic interests in the Arab and Muslim worlds, and it must be as sensitive to U.S. strategic concerns as the United States is to those of Israel.”
Another indicator, was the common language in more or less simultaneous statements issued in Washington and various European capitals on the Gaza blockade: It is true that the European statements were made at the highest level President/Prime Minister/Minister of Foreign Affairs, while the US statement came only from relatively low level National Security Council spokesman, but the key words were there:
“We are working urgently with Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and other international partners to develop new procedures for delivering more goods and assistance to Gaza, while also increasing opportunity for the people of Gaza and preventing the importation of weapons. The current arrangements are unsustainable and must be changed.”
Today’s clue came in an Agence France Presse report from Madrid. Spain presently holds the presidency of the EU Council of Ministers and there has been a meeting in Madrid between members of the EU Parliament and members of the US Congress (one of those summer junkets for legislators) and on the margins of that meeting the Spanish Foreign Minister said:-
““We spoke with the team of the [EU] High Representative yesterday, and we are going to make a proposal over the next few days so that situations like the ones that happened [this week] will not be repeated.”
This sounds as if there is going to be an EU proposal for the lifting of the blockade coupled with arrangements for international inspection and that such proposal has been pre-cleared with the USA. I suspect that it may be assorted with non too subtle private warnings of consequences if not accepted.
June 6, 2010, 11:04 amEngineer says:
This sounds as if there is going to be an EU proposal for the lifting of the blockade coupled with arrangements for international inspection and that such proposal has been pre-cleared with the USA. I suspect that it may be assorted with non too subtle private warnings of consequences if not accepted.
This seems plausible, and if it is true then Israel may have no choice but to cave in as it has caved on so many other points in recent years.
The international community would certainly treat Hamas with the same seriousness that it gave to Hezbollah in resolution 1701 ie. it’s all just a big self-righteous show for lawyers and diplomats with high self-regard.
You continue to condescend without addressing the main points:
- the EU’s continuous rewarding of Palestinian violence and intrasigence
- the refusal to address or even take an interest in basic facts such as what really happened on the flotilla
- the EU’s sham concern regarding missiles fired on Israel in the past and the likelihood of their resumption
And most basically, the realpolitik cynically cloaked in the language of peace and human rights.
June 6, 2010, 11:25 amDanny Black says:
Nocomment, not even Hizbollah disputes they were taken in sovereign Israeli territory. Not even on the Golan where you can argue about it.
June 6, 2010, 11:54 amJT says:
you keep ignoring that phrase, as though the conditions of unsustainability rest solely on the side of Israel.
why is that?
you’ve ignored it three times at least. Although it seems that you have abandoned your claims that the blockade is illegal. So I see we are making some progress.
June 6, 2010, 12:13 pmNocomment says:
. . . not even Hizbollah disputes [the soldiers were captured on the Israel side of the Israel/Lebanon border] . . .
I haven’t heard any Hizbollah representative speak on this issue one way or the other. Have you?
June 6, 2010, 12:18 pmEngineer says:
However I did not say that an independent Palestine was “likely” to be hostile but that the possibility that it might be has to be factored into any solution.
The term you used was “very possibly” ie. it was “very possible” that the state would be “fundamentally hostile”. Your choice of words.
The notion that a European govts or NGO (if you are in fact associated with such) would push forward a Palestinian state without much regard for actual peace is not really a surprising one.
Israelis would oppose any arrangement in which it’s “very possible” that the Palestinian state would be “fundamentally hostile”. In the 90s Israelis were urged to “take risks for peace”, establish “peace of the brave” etc. (and more than half the population took this to heart). Now there are only threats.
June 6, 2010, 12:19 pmDanny Black says:
Litigator London, Israel ALWAYS takes into account what the americans want and often to the detriment of it’s own security. This is why you always see the stop start crap in their fights. You also see it in all these idiotic peace conferences you know are going nowhere.
I am curious exactly who and how Israel goes about “actively making peace” with?
June 6, 2010, 12:52 pmDanny Black says:
Nocomment, their deputy leader said it was the right operation wrong place. Why do you insist on lies not even Hizbollah makes up?
June 6, 2010, 12:54 pmEngineer says:
I am curious exactly who and how Israel goes about “actively making peace” with?
I suspect that the answer is everyone ie. Syria, Lebanon, Hezbollah etc.
After all, you make peace with your enemies not with your friends.
Israel’s first job would be to offer concessions to these entities so as to entice them to come to the negotiating table.
June 6, 2010, 12:58 pmDanny Black says:
Engineer, doesn’t the other side have to want it too? Can someone point out where Hizbollah, Iran or Hamas have offered to make a stable peace with Israel? I know other people CLAIM they have but actually from the horse’s mouth in black and white terms.
June 6, 2010, 1:11 pmEngineer says:
DBlack, what I wrote is a semi-sarcastic paraphrase of what London Litigator said earlier.
June 6, 2010, 1:21 pmBob from Ohio says:
I’m not DB but my thoughts are “You must be insane”. (no offense)
There is no way on god’s earth the US will occupy Gaza or the West Bank. Iraq and Afghanistan has been more of enough of dealing with Muslim populations.
Nor should we. The Palestinians are the enemies of the US as well as Israel. If you recall, the PLO murdered our ambassador to the Sudan in 1973. It hijacked US planes. It murdered US citizens, including those in wheel chairs. The Palestinian population cheered the 9/1 attacks. We should not “protect” our enemies, just help kill them. or at least stay out of Israel’s way.
June 6, 2010, 1:50 pmDavid Bernstein says:
I haven’t argued that Israel should necessarily use less force. I said they should use force effectively, with clear goals that they plan to fulfill. This may ultimately involve less force, or more force.
June 6, 2010, 1:55 pmOrenWithAnE says:
There is avoiding it! It’s called settlement on terms! The side that loses (I count at least 8 times since ’48) surrenders to reasonable terms, the winning side is careful not to ask too much from the losers. Life goes on.
It is only when the losers of a (8) war(s) insist that they are immune from the consequences of losing a war that it drags on indefinitely as it has.
June 6, 2010, 1:55 pmLitigator London says:
JT said:-
“Although it seems that you have abandoned your claims that the blockade is illegal. So I see we are making progress.”
If that remark is directed at me, I am sorry to have to disappoint you. I maintain my position that it was illegal for the reasons previously given. I have never disputed that it is appropriate to prevent the importation of weaponry given the situation, but the approach to reconstruction materials (even those potentially of dual purpose use such as cement) made the impact on the civil population disproportionate.
I do not see Israel referring the issue to the ICJ which could give a definitive answer. As we know, the Turkish Public Prosecutor, as the law enforcement official of the flag state of the vessel and therefore with jurisdiction over events on board, has launched an investigation with a view to prosecutions but, even if charges are preferred, I do not see the principal actors appearing voluntarily in the immediate future, and while those presently with immunity might be ill advised to travel once they have left office, I do not see a judicial finding coming any time soon. I know not if the planned UN enquiry will reach any conclusion on that issue, but in any event it would hardly be determinative. So I do not see the point of you or me wittering on further on the subject.
Engineer said:-
You continue to condescend without addressing the main points:
- the EU’s continuous rewarding of Palestinian violence and intrasigence [sic];
I believe the EU as a member of the Quartet, tries exceptionally hard to keep a fair balance between the parties. You may not like the EU approach because it does not mirror the lop-sided “Israel right or wrong” approach of past US US administrations, but then there are recent signs that even the USA is losing patience with Israeli intransigence.
- the refusal to address or even take an interest in basic facts such as what really happened on the flotilla
On the contrary, I am very interested to know what really happened on the flotilla. Thus far, and leaving aside the legality of the intervention, I rather share the view of Steve S above:-
“And yes, the flotilla boarding was incompetent. Nearly all of us who served in the military couldn’t believe that troops were going down one at a time into an angry mob. If Israeli accounts are correct, and they were already carry pipes, this is comically bad. Pro-Israel types will concentrate on justifying what happened after they got on board. Anti-Israeli people will just note that civilians were killed. Those of us who just look at this as a military exercise realize that you just don’t put troops into that kind of a situation except as a last, desperate resort.”
When stopping a merchant vessel for any kind of interdiction, the best methodology is to get a naval vessel on scene, hail the vessel and demand she heave to. If she fails to comply, you fire a shot across her bows. You contact the maritime authorities of the flag state. They can bring pressure to bear on the Master to permit inspection. If all else fails, you fire to disable the vessel. You do NOT send a boarding party until you are fairly sure it will be received peaceably. Have you ever tried coming up the side of a large vessel from a much smaller one? I have. If you have the means, a helicopter can be used for surveillance but preferably not for boarding.
For me, the whole operation as conducted seemed to have all the reality of a episode of a low budget made for television special-operations themed series.
- the EU’s sham concern regarding missiles fired on Israel in the past and the likelihood of their resumption
And most basically, the realpolitik cynically cloaked in the language of peace and human rights.
Of course, the EU and its members states have real concerns about the missiles and much else. We have also been conscious of the body and casualty counts on both sides and much else – as to which you may care to refresh your memory here B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights
You also opined:-
“Israelis would oppose any arrangement in which it’s “very possible” that the Palestinian state would be “fundamentally hostile”. In the 90s Israelis were urged to “take risks for peace”, establish “peace of the brave” etc. (and more than half the population took this to heart). Now there are only threats.
Do you not recall the Morgenthau Plan for Post WW2 Germany? It was premised on the idea that Nazi Germany was so evil that action should be taken permanently to obliterate Germany’s capacity to wage war. Fortunately wiser heads prevailed. There is no-one who can guarantee that a future government of any state will not go nasty. That’s why one concludes defensive alliances and Israel has a bettor guarantor than most.
It is my belief that if a truly viable Palestinian state gets off the ground there will be a consequential economic boom in both Israel and Palestine. The Palestinians have some of the best educated professionals in the world. Large numbers of them provide the backbone of corporate endeavour throughout the Gulf – often for pittance wages. They have enterpeneurial skills to rival those of the Israelis which are not inconsiderable and would be that much greater if the defence budget were not such a burden. One would hope for a free trade and investment agreement between the states, eventual free trade and association agreements with the EU.
It is worth recalling that the EU started off as a possible way to so integrate France and Germany that a third all out war between then in 100 years would become unthinkable. At that time most of Europe had only recently lost the status of post-ear economic basket cases. The EU has worked. Look at the EU-US trade figures:
Trade in goods : EU goods exports to the US in 2009: €204.4 billion – EU goods imports from the US in 2009: €159.8 billion
Trade in services: EU services exports to the US 2009: €119.4 billion – EU services imports from the US in 2009: €127.0 billion
Foreign Direct Investment: EU investment flows to the US in 2008: €121.4 billion – US investment flows to the EU in 2008: €50.5 billion
I refuse to believe that a two state solution is impossible or ill-advised. I believe it has been too long delayed. The reality is that there has to be something akin to a “banging heads together” approach by the Quartet with the USA once again filling the principal role of Supernanny.
June 6, 2010, 3:29 pmyankev says:
Yes, it is clearly Israel’s fault that Turkey elected its first non-secularist government since WWI and that the Islamists who were elected unleashed a barrage of anti-semitic TV shows and popular entertainment. Israel then compounded the issue by actually summoning Turkey’s ambassador and seating him in a lower chair than Israel’s.
If that’s your standard, I hate to guess what you think Obama’s treatment of the Israel PM would justify Israel in doing.
June 6, 2010, 4:34 pmanon says:
db:
>> you are unable to discern either the “Grand Strategy” or the
>> goals of the Israeli government.
> So is every Israeli commentator I’ve ever read.
1) perhaps you should find an Israeli – or other – commentator that
does recognize a goal. Victor Davis Hansen perhaps. Definitely
not Peter Beinart or Andrew Sullivan
2) “absence of evidence” d.n.e. “evidence of absence”.
3) Does it really help to release a “goals” statement? Certainly
President Bush (41) met his stated goals in the First Gulf War.
Are you arguing that meetings those stated goals solved the
problem of Iraqi belligerence?
4) Hamas has the state goal of eliminating Israel. There are
countless millions around the globe who agree with that goal.
Does their explicit statement actually help them achieve their
goal?
—-
I guess I’m just in an argumentative mood. Please don’t think that
any of this is either implicit or explicit criticism of your or your
blog. I happen to agree with you almost 100% of the time. Even
when I do disagree with you it is you – and not I – who is most likely
correct.
I think I will go back to lurker mode now.
June 6, 2010, 4:43 pmyankev says:
subject. predicate. direct and indirect objects. definite and indefinite articles. intelligible sentences. capitalization.
Try them some time. You may be surprised at how they can aid clearer thinking as well as clearer expression.
June 6, 2010, 4:45 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
I reiterate for about the sixth time this week on a Gaza-related VC thread: there is not the slightest evidence that coriander is embargoed.
June 6, 2010, 5:15 pmOrenWithAnE says:
It was discussed in the Israeli military and decided against on the grounds that disabling such a large ship 60 miles from shore would entail weeks of towing her to safety.
That said, I’m not particular opposed. The activists weren’t going to starve to death while they wait.
June 6, 2010, 5:22 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
No; it’s only when other people, outside of the war, agree with those losers.
The Israeli-Palestinian situation is the only one in the world in which the losers of a war get to dictate terms before they’ll start negotiating. Where their actual position — and that of their supporters — is, “Let’s revert to the status quo ante, and then we can talk about what else you’ll give us as a penalty for beating us in this war.”
June 6, 2010, 5:28 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
Israel doesn’t want your “concerns.” It wants the missiles stopped. EU “concerns” and $2.25 will get one Israeli a ride on the NYC subway.
As Oren asked you before, since when has this ever been the procedure? What country’s military or law enforcement, faced with an unauthorized civilian ship, has ever called up the flagging country to ask said country to try to get the unauthorized ship to permit inspection?
That would be the case if your goal were to avoid violence. But if your goal is to accomplish your mission, then having a policy of not taking action unless the other side first agrees not to attack you is pretty counterproductive.
The puzzling thing about this argument is that “firing to disable the vessel” can easily go wrong. What if the ship is seriously damaged? Is “Israel sinks ‘humanitarian’ boat with 600 people aboard” really a better headline/outcome for Israel? Then all the people purporting to care about the specifics, but who actually are anti-Israel, would be saying, “How can Israel possibly justify attacking a peaceful boat? Why didn’t Israel just send some commandoes to take over the ship and steer it away from Gaza?”
June 6, 2010, 5:44 pmSoldier of Fortune says:
The problem in each situation is that Israel never announces what its goals are, or if does, it announces them haphazardly through different government factions, and then doesn’t insist on them, which means the world (and its enemies) just ignore them.
No, the problem is that Israel does give a rat’s behind about international opinion, which is the reason that its military operations are so half-assed. The demand for “proportional response” by the international community prevented Israel applying maximum force during its military operations in Gaza and Southern Lebanon. It should treat everyone in Gaza as a member of Hamas, and everyone is Southern Lebanon as a member of Hezzbolah, and treat them accordingly. Rather than board the blockade runners, the Israeli Navy should have given the passengers 30 minutes to abandon ship and then sink the boats.
There are no bystanders in these conflicts, and Israel should treat them with the ferocity required for their national survival. Israel should never negotiate with their enemies, they should destroy their enemies with the wrath of God.
June 6, 2010, 5:49 pmLitigator London says:
Apropos the investigation into the botched military intervention, see this article Israel Navy reserves officers: Allow external Gaza flotilla probe – Officers denounce operation as ‘military and diplomatic failure’, slam government for placing blame on the activists..
Apparently, while the government continues to resist the UNSG’s proposals for the international investigation, it seems to be the case that there is a certain lack of confidence in Israeli military circles in the ability of the government to be full and frank about its own failings in the management of this sorry affair.
June 6, 2010, 5:51 pmSoldier of Fortune says:
An outside inquiry–or any inquiry–is the response of those afraid to take a stand. (At least you are willing to admit you are a lawyer.) The only failure of management of this “affair” is that the enemy has scored a propaganda victory. As I said above, since the ship was trying to reenforce the enemy, then it shouldn’t have been boarded–it should have been sunk.
June 6, 2010, 6:03 pmEricPWJohnson says:
Prof Bernstein
Any confrontation between unarmed fanatics and the military has the same effect, outrage by those sympathetic to the fanatics and chagrin for those who support the military.
The red shirts in Bangkok tried but failed to garner world opinion, Arab leaders seeing the lack of world sympathy because the red shirts occupied downtown and were armed – shifted tactics to force the military’s hand
Your comment about wishing that Israel was more effective in its use of the Military can be taken several ways – To not have been in a position to kill any of the flotilla blockade runners – To not have let any of them live – or to not have done anything at all – or lastly to have subdued the Gaza strip making the flotilla pointless.
June 6, 2010, 7:09 pmleo marvin says:
Fortunately Israel disagrees, though I doubt it’s because of any great concern over international opinion beyond practical consequences. I suspect that like my own sympathy for Palestinian civilians, Israel’s comes despite, not because of morally bankrupt criticisms from the likes of the U.N.
June 6, 2010, 7:09 pmquest says:
Mr. Bernstein,
Do you believe it should be legal for a private restaurant owner to refuse to serve African Americans because of the color of their skin?
June 6, 2010, 7:10 pmOrenWithAnE says:
At least they seem to think so. As I can see, this attitude has not worked out terribly well for them.
Not to disagree with someone backing me up, but this is the standard procedure during peacetime. For instance, the US does it with drug traffickers, which it usually will not seize in international waters without permission from the flagging country.
Of course, Israel and Gaza are in a state of hostilities, not peace. Now, Litigator denies this basic premise (and, as far as I can see, actually denies the right of sovereign nations to declare war on one another) and so we are never going to get anywhere. I will agree with him on the conditional point: seen through the lens of peacetime practices he is probably right.
Indeed.
June 6, 2010, 7:37 pmGoggins says:
Litigator London gives himself away when he writes: “We have also been conscious of the body and casualty counts on both sides.”
Israel’s problem, from his point of view, is that it has won the wars waged against it. How much more moral, and pleasing to Mr. Litigator if Israel was to lose those wars, or at least to have suffered as many killed as those who have waged so many wars against it have suffered. That would be the high moral ground, and Israel could then not be judged to have used a “disproportionate” degree of force.
June 6, 2010, 7:45 pmsteve s says:
” As I said above, since the ship was trying to reenforce the enemy, then it shouldn’t have been boarded–it should have been sunk.”
Then I take it you were not really a soldier? Just because someone tries to break the law or run a blockade, you are not justified in summary execution. Doing so would make you the pariah the enemy falsely claims you to be now.
June 6, 2010, 8:07 pmOrenWithAnE says:
Neither are you, since generally the act of killing someone in the process of hostilities is not referred to as execution but simply making war. Execution implies you have control over the victim and then you kill him.
Next up: how the Allied Air Force summarily executed 250,000 Germans during WWII and the amazing coverup!
June 6, 2010, 8:37 pmChris Travers says:
BTW, in case anyone assumes my comments on the breakdown with Turkey are intended to suggest that Israel is somehow evil, I want to clarify that. I see the diplomatic breakdown with Turkey as being an example of the same sort of diplomatic incompetence that Bernstein points out here are found in the military. It involves putting the wrong people in charge, bickering endlessly about goals, and then wondering why things fall apart.
At any rate putting Avigdor Lieberman in charge of anything diplomatic makes as much sense as putting an arsonist in charge of security at Pi Glilot….
June 6, 2010, 10:14 pmSoldier of Fortune says:
In an earlier post I said the Israeli Navy should have given them 30 minutes before sinking the vessel.
Further, the Royal Navy commanded blockcade runners during the Civil War. Isn’t this an act of war? Had the Union be disposed to, the Civil War could have been extended to England.
And so what if Israel becomes a pariah? It is already a pariah state for most of the world anyway so they really have nothing to lose.
June 6, 2010, 10:32 pmLitigator London says:
See what OrenWithAnE has to say above. I must suppose that your little law firm does not have a substantial shipping practice, otherwise you would have known that contacting the flag state is standard procedure.
There is a good reason for this: acts on board a vessel on the high seas are deemed to be within the criminal and civil jurisdiction of the flag state. The whole point is that if the vessel is under the flag of a friendly foreign power, the last thing any naval officer wishes to see happen is for his men to be the object of civil or criminal proceedings in the flag state.
Why do you think that Israel does not wish an international enquiry? Keeping the identities of the soldiers involved out of the public domain may be one relevant factor.
As you may know, the Turkish Public Prosecutor has opened an enquiry into the fatalities and injuries sustained by the passengers and crew of the vessel. I have little doubt that the Government of Israel will with-hold co-operation in that process. But suppose the actual personnel involved in the operation are eventually identified from the top down and charges are laid.
What do you know abut the European Convention on Extradition (“the ECE”)? You can find the full text on the Council of Europe web site if you do not happen to have a copy readily to hand. The ECE defines an extradition offence as one punishable under the laws of both the requesting and requested state by a maximum period of at least one year’s deprivation of liberty, or by a more severe penalty. Both Turkey and Israel are parties to the ECE.
Israel would be able to refuse any extraditions under article 6.1(a), But if the Turkish authorities were savvy, they might well not release the names of charged persons until they were known to be in another Convention State – for example the UK.
In the UK, provided that it can be proved that the person arrested is the person named in the warrant and and the warrant is for an extraditable offence, extradition is ordered. The extraditing state is not required to prove even a prima facie case. That is a matter for the courts of the requesting state.
It might be quite hard for a convention state to refuse an extradition request when there have been 9 fatalities.
It should not be beyond the wit of a competent prosecutor to identify the commanders and politicians who planned the assault and lay appropriate charges. Ministers of a foreign country have immunity while in office, but not once they are out of power and even in Israel ministers do lose office. I suppose they could avoid extradition by not visiting any of the 49 states party to the ECE.
So, Counsellor, in the light of the possible legal ramifications, perhaps you may concede that that those responsible for the planning and execution of this operation were, to say the least, ill advised to proceed on the high seas and on a foreign flag vessel with the same disregard for human rights as they have habitually employed in the occupied territories.
June 6, 2010, 10:51 pmjeepers says:
“How much more moral, and pleasing to Mr. Litigator if Israel was to lose those wars, or at least to have suffered as many killed as those who have waged so many wars against it have suffered. That would be the high moral ground, and Israel could then not be judged to have used a “disproportionate” degree of force.”
————
How much more difficult, yet more interesting, it would be if you were to concern yourself with reality instead of making crap up and attributing it to others.
June 6, 2010, 11:06 pmlgm says:
DB, I don’t think it’s incompetence, but chutzpah (sp?). Israel counts on people like you to have her back no matter what. It has no incentive to moderate its behavior because American aid and support does not depend on Israeli behavior. Note that the US blocked any UN action against Israel this time, as we (the US) always have in the past. Obama’s rebuke was mild and indirect.
This is why Israel’s friends on J street say the US would help Israel more by applying more pressure. I would favor, for example, cutting US aid to Israel by 10% for each month of the Gaza blockade.
June 6, 2010, 11:13 pmLitigator London says:
This article in Haaretz, What the IDF could learn from the Royal Navy is of interest. Uri Averney’s latest column Kill a Turk and Rest is also relevant.
“The idea of a flotilla as a means to break the blockade borders on genius. It placed the Israeli government on the horns of a dilemma – the choice between several alternatives, all of them bad. Every general hopes to get his opponent into such a situation.
The alternatives were:
To let the flotilla reach Gaza without hindrance. The cabinet secretary supported this option. That would have led to the end of the blockade, because after this flotilla more and larger ones would have come.
To stop the ships in territorial waters, inspect their cargo and make sure they were not carrying weapons or “terrorists”, then let them continue on their way. That would have aroused some vague protests in the world but upheld the principle of a blockade.
To capture them on the high seas and bring them to Ashdod, risking a face-to-face battle with activists on board.
As our governments have always done, when faced with the choice between several bad alternatives, the Netanyahu government chose the worst.
Anyone who followed the preparations as reported in the media could have foreseen that they would lead to people being killed and injured. One does not storm a Turkish ship and expect cute little girls to present one with flowers. The Turks are not known as people who give in easily.
The orders given to the forces and made public included the three fateful words: “at any cost”. Every soldier knows what these three terrible words mean. Moreover, on the list of objectives, the consideration for the passengers appeared only in third place, after safeguarding the safety of the soldiers and fulfilling the task.
If Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, the Chief of Staff and the commander of the navy did not understand that this would lead to killing and wounding people, then it must be concluded – even by those who were reluctant to consider this until now – that they are grossly incompetent.”
Quod Erat Demonstrandum
June 6, 2010, 11:24 pmJohn Moore says:
If “Litigator London” had not appeared, it would have been appropriate to invent him, as the epitome of European idiocy on the Israel issue, and world affairs in general.
Having emasculated its own military, Europe now believes that all issues should be solved with laws and courts and treaties and good feelings. It is incapable of understanding the concept of evil, and cannot discriminate between Israel’s (sometimes inept) acts of self defense and the deeply evil and inhumane goals of its opponents. It shrugs its shoulders at the potential holocaust resulting from Iranian nuclear weapons – hey, the Jews have been trouble for too long already!
So LL emits lots of words about laws and prosecutors and agreements and other blather, without the slightest appreciation of the immense moral difference between the actions of Israel and its opponents. After all, sophisticated people recognize that all issues can be settled by talking,and talking, and talking, and suing, and talking, and… no matter the actual motives and behavior of the various parties. Hey, we’re all gentlemen, right? Hezbollah and Hamas don’t really mean it when they declare that all Jews should be exterminated, starting with those in Israel, right?
Fools.
June 6, 2010, 11:49 pmLitigator London says:
As was predicted, the UK Foreign Secretary ad the French Foreign Minister have put forward a plan for he EU to provide inspection services for vessels going to Gaza and for traffic over the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
This plan has plainly been pre-cleared with the USA and Russia as he other members of the Quartet.
June 6, 2010, 11:53 pmJohn Moore says:
Shall we see if the Palestinians, the purported beneficiaries of this, actually accept it? I predict Hamas will reject or, more likely, sabotage this approach, should it come to pass.
June 7, 2010, 12:00 amDanny Black says:
Litigator London, thats because Israel is incapable of thinking imaginatively. The solution to this is to say fine disengagement didn’t work we are re-occupying Gaza.
June 7, 2010, 12:01 amDanny Black says:
If the EU are planning to inspect the ships then Israel should say great… They should make the EU legally liable for anything that gets in that is used against Israel. Let EU soldiers deal with the “peace activists”. In reality, the only thing this will ever be is UNIFIL mk 2.
June 7, 2010, 12:04 amRicardo says:
They are soldiers and have combatant immunity under international law. If Israeli soldiers acting under orders and in uniform were to show up on Turkish soil one day and start shooting, they would be properly treated as POWs, not criminals unless they violated the laws of war. The dispute is between the two governments, not between the soldiers and the crew of the captured ship.
If Turkey wants to prosecute any of these Israelis for the non-offense of inspecting a suspected blockade-running vessel, perhaps Turkey will cooperate with investigations into its cross-border raids into Iraqi Kurdistan?
June 7, 2010, 12:07 amDavid Bernstein says:
That would be an interesting tactic, given that the U.S., at least until now, has given its full blessing to the blockade, and the U.S. bears a great deal of the responsibility for Hamas taking over Gaza to begin with.
June 7, 2010, 12:13 amRicardo says:
From the Helsinki Principles on Maritime Neutrality (1998):
I don’t see anything in there about contacting the government of the neutral vessel before capturing or attacking it. As Oren has pointed out on other threads, it appears Israel gave notice far in advance that if the ship tried to reach Gaza, it would be stopped and seized.
June 7, 2010, 12:29 amOrenWithAnE says:
FIFY.
An interesting use of the passive voice. Who here is doing the deeming?
You are under serious illusions if you think an Israeli gives a fig what a Turkish court rules.
You have lost your mind. The UK under the Tories is going to hand over an Israeli military officer to the AKP? I will lay 25:1 odds against that in any currency you want, for any amount you want.
And pre-rejected by the Israeli government.
The “offer” to a sovereign nation to delegate a component of its military operations is beyond insulting. This is Israel’s war, why would she let anyone prosecute it is beyond me.
June 7, 2010, 12:30 amDavid M. Nieporent says:
“What OrenWithAnE has to say above” is that you’re confusing peacetime with war.
That it doesn’t apply to military situations. A soldier enforcing a military blockade of an enemy in wartime against a blockade runner is not committing a crime.
And that given the Turkish government’s treatment of the Kurds, it probably isn’t going to want to open a can of worms related to extraditions for alleged human rights violations. (I wonder when that occupation will end.)
If you think a European government is going to arrest an Israeli soldier — let alone former government official — and extradite him to Turkey, you’re delusional. Sure, they may arrest an 80-year old Pinochet long after he’s been disavowed by his own country, but that’s about as bold as they’ll get.
June 7, 2010, 12:38 amAndrew J. Lazarus says:
Gulp. I agree with the Original Poster completely, although we might disagree on the implementation details.
The Israeli government are the fanatics who, having lost sight of their objective, redouble their efforts.
I’m not qualified to say whether the Israeli action was lawful, but I can see it was stupid, and I can see that it brings Israel no benefit in either the short or the long run.
I would say, though, that DB should think about the advantages to Israel in not defining any end states: e.g., the Greater Israel movement doesn’t assassinate any more Prime Ministers for veering off course.
June 7, 2010, 12:45 amDanny Black says:
Ricardo, yeah then we get into an argument about non-state players – even though Hamas and Hizbollah clearly have all the trappings of a state player although apparently with absolutely none of the responsibilities…..
The point is that the anti-Israeli stance is nice plain and simple. The fact it is a lie is neither here nor there.
June 7, 2010, 1:03 amDanny Black says:
OrenWithAnE, beyond me too but Israel did do that in South Lebanon with the predictable results.
June 7, 2010, 1:06 amtarylcabot says:
David:
often in disagreement with you, but this is a very well written post. If the goals are a & c, then the policy is a failure – as another commenter wrote, the US embargo against Cuba has been in existence for close to 50 years without achieving a similar aim. If the goal is d, then i guess the embargo is successful in achieving that aim, but do not believe that it’s in Israel’s best interest.
June 7, 2010, 1:10 amDanny Black says:
Andrew J. Lazarus, but Israel HAS defined end states on many many occasions.. All of Gaza, back to international border with Syria, virtually all of the West bank with landswaps, no “right of return” for Palestinians into Israel but maybe some sort of compensation – I note that no one is offering to compensate the hundreds of thousands of Jews forced from their homes when they weren’t trying to annihilate the state they were residing in… The issue is that the Arabs – and turks and Iranians – refuse it over and over again. They offer a “peace deal” in 2002, Israel says lets talk about it and suddenly the Arabs go all coy – except for Hamas and Hizbollah who reject it out of hand. Ditto 2007.
I think post 2006, it would be hard for an Israeli government, “fanatic” or not, to sell pulling out of land. One only has to compare what happens when you “end the occupation” in Lebanon and Gaza with the West Bank and the Golan Heights. However unpleasant having idiots in Turkey and the EU moan about Israel better than being dead.
June 7, 2010, 1:17 amDanny Black says:
tarylcabot, don’t delude yourself that Olmert put more than 10 seconds thought into declaring a boycott. Anyone with a braincell could see how this was going to end. Hamas simply don’t care about their people, just like Castro, just like Kim Jeong Il, just like Mugabe, just like Ali Khameni and Ahmadenejad and boycotts simply don’t work on them. I would love to see and example where a boycott actually acheived that goal of bringing about change – and no I don’t believe it worked with South Africa.
June 7, 2010, 1:22 amAndrew J. Lazarus says:
Got a cite for that? Last I heard, that was the Syrian position.
Maybe I should be more specific: the Netanyahu governments have never offered any picture of an end state. Indeed, they seem almost to enjoy permanent war. (See the video of Israelis jeering the Turkish Embassy? Rather short-sighted behavior.)
June 7, 2010, 1:24 amDanny Black says:
Litigator London, why would the Israeli government put lives of people trying aid an enemy government above the lives of their soldiers or civilians? If in the process of trying to aid the kurds I attempt to beat to death a turkish soldier with a baseball bat I am pretty sure he doesn’t have orders to place his life below mine and I wonder what you think the outcome would be of me trying to repeatedly stab an armed police officer in heathrow would be…
Ha’aretz as usual is talking nonsense. 5 of the 6 ships had no incident. Every single last one didn’t have an incident with this exception. It is clear-cut these people included a small minority looking for a fight. Given this was the paper that started all the lies about flooding South Lebanon with cluster munitions – remember the 3,000 million cluster bombs dropped on SL, well in the end there were just over 1,000. Which is why Israel should consider suing people who parrot anti-Israeli lies with libel.
June 7, 2010, 1:42 amDanny Black says:
Andrew J. Lazarus, nope Syria wants the land it conquered in 1948 – apparently Arabs are allowed to hold land they conquer. Barak offered it, Peres offered it, Olmert offered it. Both Assads rejected it. Weirdly when faced with “ending the occupation”, the Syrians got cold feet or started mumbling about not ending support for “resistance” – which kinda defeats the purpose of “peace” with them.
June 7, 2010, 1:47 amDanny Black says:
Israelis jeering the Turkish embassy? You mean unlike the Turkish behaviour to Israel? Why is it short-sighted of Israel but far-sighted of Turkey?
June 7, 2010, 1:49 amOrenWithAnE says:
The benefit in the medium term is that Hamas in Gaza is starved for men, weapons and cash.
Note that, contrary to many prognostications, there have been relatively few missile attacks (and no missile casualties) since Cast Lead. That alone is a big seller with the Israeli voting public.
June 7, 2010, 2:41 amOrenWithAnE says:
I don’t know, folks like LL seems to think that either Israel is not at war or that she should be held to a novel standard of what humanitarian reconstruction must be allowed to go on during wartime.
June 7, 2010, 2:44 amstevelaudig says:
Amusing how those who lean against government action in the U.S. sing a different song when the Israeli government does things. But then consistency is [supposedly] the hobgoblin of little minds.
June 7, 2010, 8:27 amRick says:
Israel has a very difficult and dangerous problem. They are surrounded by enemies and have little option but to use military force to ensure the survival of their nation.
Yet in the actual application, the Israelis engage in (in my opinion) the same kind of abuses that U.S. big-city police departments are guilty of. They expect unilateral support because their cause is just, they resist any attempts to criticize or correct abuses, they refuse to provide any real transparency and accountability, and denounce anyone who dares to bring forth charges or evidence of excess or abuse.
In so doing, they undermine all good will and trust.
The United States, through massive military aid and diplomatic protection, ensures that Israel continues to exist and even thrive. Yet the United States is treated as if it owes Israel something. Anyone who questions whether what the US gets for all its support is worth it is branded a hate-monger and a vile liberal or some such thing. The Israelis, being both the ones who have the majority of the power and the just cause, have a responsibility to hold themselves to a far higher standard than their enemies. And the current government in Israel simply does not have the competence or restraint to do this. The U.S. has the most effective means to effect change—the threat of withholding aid, which is tantamount to a threat to Israel’s future—available to anyone in the world.
Most of Israel’s enemies seem to me to be corrupt, lawless, stubborn, and addicted to chaos. But Israel seems to be unnecessarily brutal, and, to be honest, a lot of the violence feels more like revenge than part of a strategy to achieve peace.
Of course you can dismiss this viewpoint as one of some “stupid liberal.” Feel free to reject anyone who doesn’t believe exactly what you do. But I read David Bernstein and others with similar views in order to better understand why they think what they do, and to learn new things and change my own views rather than simply digging my cognitive wheel ruts deeper. That’s the only way we can reconcile the “evil terrorists, heroic Israelis” vs. “vicious Israelis, helpless Palestinian victims” narratives into something that actually resembles reality.
June 7, 2010, 10:47 amJoel Rosenberg says:
Perhaps. But that analogy kind of misses the point, doesn’t it? As bad as things can get in, say, Detroit, among the many things that they don’t have to worry about are Canadians sneaking in to detonate themselves, lobbing missiles over the border, and such.
June 7, 2010, 11:50 amyankev says:
Q. What do you call people who have bullet proof vests, and who arm themselves with daggers, wooden clubs, iron bars, knives, pistols and rifles?
A. If they are attacking Israeli soldiers, why they must be unarmed peace activists.
June 7, 2010, 11:51 amyankev says:
Given the Turkish government’s glorification of the dead terrorists as being martyrs, do you have any doubts as to whether the government of Turkey will explore the extent to which any of the dead may have been responsible for their own deaths, or do you deem Turkey, unlike the Jewish state, to be capable of fair and impartial inquiry?
June 7, 2010, 11:56 amGordo says:
You’ve hit the nail on the head, London Litigator. The seemingly arcane issues of electoral systems can have a profound impact on national health. Israel’s almost pure proportional representation system is leading to disaster through unstable coalition government.
While I wouldn’t go all the way to a U.S.-U.K. style electoral system, I think Israel should either go to a system of single-member districts under a single transferable vote system (Australia, Ireland), or go to a half and half districts and proportional representation system, with a higher minimum vote threshold (Germany).
June 7, 2010, 11:59 amyankev says:
I don’t think anyone who is suggesting Israel’s government take steps to defend its citizens has objected to the US government taking steps to defend its citizens. Nice attempt at snark though.
June 7, 2010, 12:03 pmRick says:
The fact that Israel faces different conditions than police in inner cities doesn’t change the fact that excessive force, disregard for collateral damage, and resisting accountability are not OK. Your argument is the same that has always been offered in defense of abuse of power: we’re under attack.
June 7, 2010, 1:26 pmOrenWithAnE says:
STV is an insanely fickle voting system. Better to do approval voting — it avoids strange concave regions.
The world might not like what a strong Israeli Executive, in the hands of Ariel Sharon (who was immensely popular in his day and would have filled the role) might do.
June 7, 2010, 2:02 pmDB Cooper says:
Where Did the Bernard Madoff Money Go?
In a word: Israel. The money was funneled to the Israeli Nuclear Department and military forces to fend off radical factions in the region.
Israel is the smallest nuclear armed country in the world. It is roughly the size of New Jersey with an annual reported GDP of $129 billion. Even with international aid, Israel has no oil reserves like its Arab neighbors and could not afford nuclear weapons on its own. However, with the help of Bernie Madoff and others like him, Israel became a dominant power in the region. The nuclear materials were purchased in France where Madoff maintained many business contacts and a home on the French Riviera. While Madoff was sending reports of profitable trades to his French counterparts from his investment firm in New York, his well-connected French point men set up purchases of enriched uranium. The enriched uranium might then have been put on board Madoff’s boat, nicknamed Bull, and shipped 1600 nautical miles from Antibes, France to Haifa, Israel. Unfortunately for investigators, all records of these trips have been conveniently lost. Only a Geiger counter could reveal the cargo that boarded that yacht.
Other large quantities of Madoff money was found at the Banque Jacob Safra in Gibraltar. According to the IMF, Gibraltar is a well-known terrorist financier and money laundering center for Israel. Since Israel has had no laws against money laundering since its inception, any money that flows into the country is clean on arrival. This rule was enacted to aid Jews displaced by WWII who had hidden money from the German troops.
Many Palestinian charities were labeled “terrorist organizations” by the US government after they were found to be laundering money to fund terrorist operations. In these cases, money that was donated to the charities was then funneled to the terrorists. However, in the Madoff case, money that was donated to Jewish charities was “invested” with Madoff. It was through this seemingly legitimate intermediary that Jewish charities escaped the accusations of funding a war in the Middle East. Without this money and heavy political influence in the US, the country of Israel would have been invaded a long time ago. World governments have been slow to label any of the Jewish charities that have been funding this conflict in the region.
It should be noted that initially all of the Jewish charities were up in arms about the scandal as they were forced to shut down their operations. But after a closed meeting arranged by a known Israeli supporter, not another word was heard from this group. It is very possible that the group was told that their money has been defending the Jewish cause for at least four decades. At the time of this meeting in January 2009, Israel had just launched a major offensive in the Gaza Strip which crippled Hamas.
Two mysterious deaths occurred during the unwinding of the Madoff case. The first was a French aristocrat, Rene de la Villehuchet, who lost more than $1 billion in client’s money in the scam. The death was ruled a suicide. Maybe it was a suicide but it leaves a dead end in what could have been an important French connection. Another man, Jeffry Picower, was found dead on the bottom of his swimming pool. These two men may have had vital information that could have blown this money laundering nuclear scandal wide open. All there is to be said about these suspicious deaths is that “dead men tell no tales.”
Two other individuals have vital information that they are not sharing. The only problem in getting that information is that they both plead guilty to their crimes. When a defendant pleads guilty and receives a sentence longer than their expected life, they are not obligated to answer any additional questions. These men are of course, Bernie Madoff and his CFO Frank DiPiscali. It is remarkable how these two thieves were able to sell this fraud as a Ponzi Scheme and the media bought it like a fund of funds manager going after consistent high returns.
The Madoff trustee, Irving Picard, has a conflict of interest. So far, he has uncovered only the very obvious stashes of Madoff money. He has already received exorbitant payouts from the victims fund to himself and his law firm, Baker & Hostetler LLP. He is also setting himself up to be a friend of the SEC and Mary Shapiro by doing a great job of limiting the amount of money that actually gets paid back to the Madoff victims. He calls this sadistic maneuver a clawback. He is trying to rewrite the SIPA laws that require SIPC to use the amount on the victims November 30, 2008 statement when determining the account value. This would be done to the delight of the big Wall Street firms that would otherwise be the largest contributors to replenish the SIPC funds. Maybe the SEC will repay this favor by hiring his firm the next time they drop the ball as well. Picard seems more likely to be involved with the cover-up than with following the money trail and holding Israel responsible.
But Picard is not the only one involved in a cover up. It seems peculiar that the FBI and the SEC have been investigating this fraud for over a year but the public still knows nothing more about where the money went than they did three days after Madoff turned himself in to the authorities. The ramifications of Israel’s involvement in accepting money from a Jewish financier would ring loud in the Arab world. Israel may even be held to account by the victims. As long as Israel has control of its printing press and there is an exchange rate between the dollar and the shekel, Israel may be liable to pay back the victims from its own coffers.
Denial is the other option. This approach was used when Israel was accused of harvesting organs from Palestinian prisoners. However, it backfired on them when Dr. Yehuda Hiss, blew the whistle and admitted that the forensic institute he formerly headed did just that. It would be irresponsible for Israel to deny that their military was largely funded with the Madoff funds. But after all, aren’t there are still people that continue to deny the holocaust?
Yours truly,
D.B. Cooper
P.S.: Because of fear of redress from the governments or any of their agencies, no other information is available at this time.
June 7, 2010, 8:05 pmOwen H. says:
And now Egypt is opening the border with Gaza. So much for those defending Israel by shouting about Egypt.
As for the rest of it, it’s simple; if someone provokes you into doing something stupid, that does not alter the fact that [i]you did something stupid.[/i]
The actions of the Israeli government are not those of the Israel I imagined as a child. They are not those of a country I want my children to see and be a part of. They are the actions of government that have decided that “Never Again” means, “Except when we do it”.
June 7, 2010, 9:36 pmJohn Moore says:
Nonsense. Do you consider the paintball gun attack on the Turkish ship to be abusive? That was the Israeli intent, and only when their paintball wielding military members were viciously attacked did they resort to gunfire. Look at the videos!
It does appear that the action was misguided – the likelihood that the troops would be attacked would seem high, and should have been taken into account. But abuse? Give me a break!
In other Israeli actions, their military likewise strives to avoid abuse. The Gaza incursion is a fine example. But striving will not prevent all abuse – that is simply impossible. Hence the blame for the abuse falls on the aggressors who start the fight – in Gaza, with rockets; on the ship, with metal bars; in Lebanon, with Hezbollah (and Syria and Iran).
There seem to be too many people who expect and demand that Israel (and the US, and other good actors) reach an impossible standard of perfection in their military and police actions. This unrealistic view then gives a faux justification to verbal attacks for “abuse” or whatever.
Grow some perspective.
June 7, 2010, 11:34 pmRick says:
The ship was in international waters. Rappelling down from a helicopter is a hostile action. Never mind commandos in full tactical gear and with guns; the fact that they may have been paintball guns, almost certainly would not have been apparent at the point where those on the ship had to decide whether to run, fight, or surrender. One could easily make the argument that the IDF was the aggressor. If someone bursts into your house dressed in black military gear and holding a gun of some kind, and you hit them with a bat, you would be the aggressor?
This is not a expectation of perfection. That’s taking a legitimate argument and making it extreme just to discredit it. Also, you make the argument that “the blame for the abuse falls on the aggressors who start the fight.” This would be akin police saying that it’s the criminals fault that bystanders or other innocent people were hurt, killed, tortured (here in Chicago a major police torture trial is about to start), etc. by police.
The Israelis, being the ones who claim the high ground of a lawful, just cause, should have a higher standard than their enemies, just as the police should have a much higher standard than the criminals they are facing. I make the comparison because the phenomena of eroding the trust and confidence of the public seem very similar between Israel and that of police departments throughout the country. It’s not that people don’t think that Israel isn’t legitimately fighting against those who would destroy it, it’s that they don’t trust Israel to take seriously its responsibility to protect innocent lives.
Israel seems to understand the importance of managing the message. However, their handling of the propaganda war seems as ham-handed as their military operations. The official Israeli response to any charges of abuse boils down to, “anyone who got killed must have deserved to,” which of course comes across as brutal and propagandist. The aversion to admitting mistakes and making a public effort to reduce recurrence will continue to undermine public support for Israel.
Someone who cares much for Israel’s future might ponder the implications of the flotilla incident. Nine people achieved more attention with their deaths than nine suicide bombers could have ever. Those who wish Israel harm, and willing to die for it, may simply provoke deadly military response and martyr themselves before the world. If the Israelis don’t change their tactics they may find themselves losing a war in which they are the sole combatant.
June 8, 2010, 10:54 amyankev says:
This is fascinating. What else did you learn at Stormfront?
June 8, 2010, 11:17 amyankev says:
Anyone who uses Holocaust imagery to demonize Israel is engaging in anti-semitic rethoric. You claim that the Nazis were trying to protect their citizens against Jews who had sworn to end the German state and exterminate every last German in the world, and who had taken numerous steps over the years to achieve those goals, including committing numerous mass murders of German cilivilans in the years leading up to Kristallnacht? And Israel is exterminating the Palestinians, conducting medical experiments on them, making it a criminal offense for a Jew to marry an Arab, making it unlawful for Arabs to employ Jews or own property, barring Arabs from access to the court and from practicing the professions? Arabs who are caught with food are summarily shot? Arabs are tortured to death and treated sadistically? The Nazis treated Jews free of charge, side by side with Aryans, in Nazi hospitals? Nazi troops exposed themselves to risk of death or casualty, to a degree unprecedented by any modern army in order to reduce the risk of harm to Jews?
You are not one of the fellow Americans that I learned about as a child. You are not a fellow American that I want anything to do with.
June 8, 2010, 11:28 amOrenWithAnE says:
Once again Rick, we have explained a few dozen times that enforcing an announced blockade is not aggression but a sovereign right of every belligerent nation under maritime law. It was an act of hostility, no doubt, but one sanctioned by law and by the practice of centuries.
June 8, 2010, 12:20 pmRick says:
That is, if you accept the legality of the blockade. And it *is* an act of aggression, as a blockade is naval warfare. But is Israel really conducting something akin to a siege of the civilian population, especially given the stateless nature of Gaza? Is it collective punishment? I believe reasonable people could think either way on these questions. The fact that the response by Israel and its ardent supporters to these questions is uniformly dismissive and arrogant creates a polarizing atmosphere. Someone like myself, who is sympathetic to Israel’s situation but not comfortable with their methods, is presented with a “you’re with us unconditionally or you’re with the terrorists” choice. I don’t see how enforcing such orthodoxy of thought is constructive, and it certainly is corrosive to the sympathies of all but the most unquestioning of Israeli supporters.
June 8, 2010, 12:53 pmOrenWithAnE says:
It would be an act of aggression if a state of hostilities did not already exist between Hamas and Israel. Given that they already exist, the blockade is a longstanding legal means of prosecuting those hostilities. Citations available everything in this thread.
Actually, the laws of war relating to siege would allow Israel to block the importation of food, water and medicine until Gaza surrendered to terms. Since they are allowing basic humanitarian items, it is not a siege but a blockade.
It most certainly is — most hostilities are quite punishing on the civilian population of the losing end. German civilians didn’t fare to well in WWI or WWII, as I recall. War is hell, the only way to fix that is to end the war by some settlement on terms.
Hamas, as it turns out, is not willing to negotiate on terms, and certainly not on terms that reflect the fact that they are unequivocally the losers of the conflict. See, normally the losers make concession to the winners. In the Israeli/Palestinian conflict it is universally assumed, even in Israel itself, that the winners will make concessions to the losers just to get them to stop contesting and recontesting the results of wars that have passed decades ago.
FWIW, I’m on the left of Israeli politics. I would vote Barak, not Bibi. Both, incidentally, have unconditionally supported the blockade and Cast Lead as militarily necessary.
That said, the wisdom of a particular strategy and its legality are quite distinct. Israel is quite clearly entitled, by the laws of war, to blockade Gaza. If your argument is that she can but shouldn’t, that needs to be made to the Israeli government or, failing that, to the Israeli voters.
June 8, 2010, 3:14 pmRick says:
Collective punishment is a war crime under the fourth Geneva Convention. “Everybody does it” is no defense.
Many people (that is, many people who have legitimate experience and authority in international law) disagree with this analysis. For instance, if there is a cease-fire in effect in Gaza, is it a state of war in which San Remo is valid? The more that one tries to reconcile established international law with the conditions which exist in Gaza, the more muddled and complex the situation is. Which is why Israel’s dismissal of the UN and other international organizations is distressing. Instead of cultivating international support (through the UN Security Council, for instance) in an area in which international law is not very clear, Israel has adopted a unilateral policy, and appears increasingly insular and defiant in the face of any criticism.
Actually, as an American, I think the case should be made to American politicians to hold Israel accountable, with the massive and critical foreign aid the the U.S. provides (and its potential for being withheld) being the incentive to observe a more internationally-accepted course of action. Israel is free to act as a sovereign nation, but America owes Israel nothing, and need not continue to support Israel unconditionally.
June 8, 2010, 4:19 pmOrenWithAnE says:
The GC4does not prohibit hardship incidental to legitimate military aims — only hardship inflicted for the sole purpose of hardship.
By the way, customary international law is traditionally defined as “what everyone does” and so the defense cited is actually the best defense there is. See, e.g. Rosenne:
Irrelevant, since there is no cease-fire.
It is the right of every sovereign nation to make policy. It is a natural response then to be defiant in the face of demands that they change their policy.
Sure. The American voters, on the other hand, have chosen to support Israel (by huge margins in both the House and Senate and every President), which is their sovereign right.
June 8, 2010, 5:08 pmyankev says:
The Bensky Corollary strikes again.
June 8, 2010, 6:09 pmjeff says:
http://blogs.reuters.com/gbu/2010/06/07/cropped-photos
Rueters publishing misleading photos
June 9, 2010, 10:03 pmAriel Shayn says:
http://prophetofdoom.net/Islamic_Quotes_Jews.Islam
This is the problem Israel faces, and the world [including Israel] is not willing to identify the elephant in the china shop. No improvement in Israel will happen until this ideology is defeated. How would Jews resolve their differences with Hitler? Islam is more anti-Semetic than Nazism so whatever the answer to Hitler is will need to be doubled. Israel’s main problem is caring about world opinion. G-d willing, Israel will shuck off American aid in favor of independence.
Regarding the small issue of the Gaza blockade, I will quote Robert Serry the UN Envoy, “There is no humanitarian problem in Gaza”. — The only problems are called “taqiyya” and “kitman”.
June 11, 2010, 4:13 am