Sorting through the noise on Israel’s current wars

Haaretz is an Israeli newspaper that has both English and Hebrew editions. The English edition unfortunately has most of its articles behind subscription. But because it’s willing to do actual critical reporting, even the headlines are sobering:

'Diseases Are Everywhere': Gaza's 'Catastrophic' Healthcare Crisis Is Worsening 04/14/2026

IDF Fire Kills Eight Palestinians in Gaza Over Past Day, Health Ministry Says 04/15/2026 (And you though Gaza was part of Trump’s Everlasting Peace Plan!)

Israel Doesn't Know How to Live Without War, and Maybe It Doesn't Want To 04/15/2026

As Iran War Dragged On, Israel Downed Fewer Missiles – and Cluster Missiles Wreaked Havoc 04/14/2026

Israel-Lebanon Talks Begin; Sources: Netanyahu Using Talks to Buy Time Against Hezbollah 04/14/2026

Declassified Files Expose Jewish Pre-state Underground Militia's Contacts With Nazi Germany 04/104/2026. (Wait! Say what?) The group referred to here is Lehi, also known as the Stern Gang.)

Israel Botched the Iran War – and Shattered Its Standing in the U.S. 04/08/2026

Netanyahu Ordered the War but the Opposition Sold It. Now Israel Will Pay the Price 04/08/2026

How Many Israelis Does It Take to Kill 300 Lebanese in 10 Minutes? 04/14/2026

Trailing in the Polls, Netanyahu Launches Another War: Restoring His Image 04/12/2026

The state of the current wars in Iran and Lebanon (and continuing military action against Gaza) is not giving Israelis much cause to celebrate. Linda Dayan reports on Israeli public opinion:

Jewish Israelis are dissatisfied with the government's handling of the war with Iran and are divided over whether it has improved Israel's overall security, according to a survey by the Israel Democracy Institute published Monday. …

According to the survey, just 38 percent of Jewish Israeli respondents rated the government's management of the war as "good" or "excellent." Among Arab respondents, however, approval was lower, at 10 percent.

The data also shows variation within supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right coalition. Among voters for Netanyahu's Likud party, 59 percent gave the government high marks, the lowest rate among coalition parties. (1)

Like all public opinion polls, it’s always good to pay attention to what they are actually showing. For instance, “I disapprove of the government’s handling of the war” may mean that they think it’s a war in which their government shouldn’t be involved. Or it may mean they think the government isn’t prosecuting the war aggressively enough. Or both at the same time.

During the Vietnam War in the US, it became common for people to say, “We never should have been there in the first place. But now that we are there, we should go ahead and win it.” This was a classic Mugwump kind of position. If the US never should have been there, why should it be there now just because it made a bad decision to put in all those soldiers? And, of course, what would “win it” mean in that case? Unconditional surrender of North Vietnam?

But actually, that’s a lazy way to try to sound harmlessly centrist. Then and now.

That’s also why an approve/disapprove question in an opinion poll is hard to interpret. Generally, there is broad support in Israel for the illegal wars on Iran and Lebanon. So depending on the wording of the poll, “disapprove” could include a large of people who “disapprove” because the wars aren’t being pursued even more aggressively.

The main leader of the Israeli opposition, Jair Lapid of the “centrist” party Yesh Atid, enthusiastically supports the wars.

The politics of the wars internationally shows that Israel’s support in the US and Europe has seriously dropped. That doesn’t mean that it won’t rise again later. Time and Israel’s actual policies will tell.

The Christian Post, which speaks to a conservative to very conservative Protestant audience, ran an article recently which is basically a rote summary of pro-war, pro-Netanyahu talking points. The article is titled, “Yes, anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” (2) This is a theme that Israel has been pushing for decades. There has been a lot of excellent analysis in the last three years discussing the ways in which that slogan is dishonest. Because criticizing Israel’s foreign policy – especially when they practice genocide as they have been doing in Gaza since 2023 – is not equivalent to antisemitism.

Antisemites do attack Israel and consider Israel part of their fantasized World Jewish Conspiracy. But it’s dishonest to dismiss legitimate criticisms of Israel’s government and its actions as antisemitic. And in fact, American Christians like the late Pat Robertson and John Hagee of the Christian United For Israel (CUFI) group promote an End Times theology that is not only bad Christian theology.

It’s also based on a view of the divine march of history that Jewish critics have been rightly pointing out for years is about as antisemitic as it gets. Because most versions of it promote the idea that before Jesus can come again, all the Jews of the world will be “gathered” into Israel, where most of them will be slaughtered in a big war. And the survivors will all convert to Christianity, and the world will finally be free of Jews. And, yes, Israel actively encourages these Christian Zionist kooks. The current US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, is one of them. He recently promoted an extreme Greater Israel view in an interview – not very diplomatically smooth for an US ambassador who should be taking his job seriously. (3)

The Christian Post includes this stock peace of knee-jerk support for Israel’s wars:

Israel stands alone as the only country on earth whose right to exist is routinely denied by people who claim to only oppose its policies. Many people frequently disagree with America, but this sentiment is never followed by the absolution of the nation. You never hear, “I don’t hate the Iranians, just their right to self-determination,” or the same statement applied to the Russians, French, or Brazilians. This selective standard exposes the deeper issue. [my emphasis]

I think the writer probably meant to say “abolition” instead of “absolution.” “Absolution” is what Catholic priests give to people who confess their sins, i.e., forgiveness.

The story has various other pieces of stock defenses of Israel that we hear again and again and again. Not that it makes any difference to people who repeat such statement on podcasts and legacy TV news, but Israel is a member of the United Nations and is formally recognized by 164 countries (nine of them have “suspended” their recognition) and not recognized by 23. (4)

And, by the way, the government of China does not recognize Taiwan as a separate country – technically the US doesn’t either. North and South Korea are both UN members, but they both consider Korea to be a single country.

Notes:

(1) Dayan, Linda (2026): Most Israelis Disapprove of Government's Handling of Iran War, Survey Shows. Haaretz 04/14/2026. Gift link: <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-politics/2026-04-14/ty-article/.premium/most-israelis-disapprove-of-governments-handling-of-iran-war-survey-shows/0000019d-8a36-d290-afbf-aa76c9fe0000?gift=b057e7120263452fb0ea88b239ffa987> (Accessed: 20206-15-04).

(2) Huehl, Chris (2026): Yes, anti-Zionism is antisemitism: Why the distinction collapses under scrutiny. The Christian Post 04/06/2026. <https://www.christianpost.com/voices/yes-anti-zionism-is-antisemitism-why-the-distinction-collapses.html> (Accessed: 20206-15-04).

(3) Ghannoushi, Soumaya (2026): Mike Huckabee lifts the veil on US backing for Israeli expansionism. Middle East Eye 02/26/2026. <https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/mike-huckabee-lifts-veil-us-backing-israeli-expansionism> (Accessed: 2026-15-15).

(4) Countries that Recognize Israel 2026. World Population Review, n/d. <https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-that-recognize-israel> (Accessed: 2026-15-15).

The beginning of this week’s horrors in Palestine

It’s Monday, so we have news that Israel is bombing Yemen again. In this Deutsche Welle English report, (1) Netanyahu is quoted as saying, “Whoever attacks us, we attack them. Whoever plans to attack us, we attack them.”

His actual policy is more like: When we feel like attacking somebody, we attack them.

This is reckless hubris on Israel’s part. But as long as Trump 2.0 continues to fund Israel’s wars and genocide, Israel isn’t yet experiencing the full impact of the blowback on Israel.

But Israel also found time to bomb one of the remaining functioning hospitals in Gaza, a reported here by France 24: (2)

I’m sure Israeli hasbara (information operations) would spin this by saying, look, after all this time there was still a hospital there to bomb, so that shows the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are obviously The World’s Most Moral Army.

Middle East Eye notes, “Four journalists were killed in the attack, including Mohamed Salama, a contributor to Middle East Eye who had produced numerous video reports since the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza in October 2023.” (3)

His most recent exclusive report exposed that the body of a 10-year-old boy- killed while trying to receive aid at the controversial Israeli- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) - had yet to be recovered. Salama also worked with Al Jazeera.

Amira Hass warned late last week:

My friends in Gaza will likely soon be ordered to "evacuate" from their makeshift shelters and be "absorbed" into the southern part of the Gaza Strip – just as my parents were once "evacuated and absorbed": my mother to Bergen-Belsen, my father to a ghetto in Transnistria.

The army's flattened language of lies pollutes every report, every discussion. This is not my exhausted, starving friends' problem. It is ours, the Israelis'. So is the outcry of the willfully blind and hard-hearted who insist: "You should never compare."

The Minister of War, Israel Katz, made a promise, and he's keeping it: The mission of moving and transporting, concentrating and crowding, compressing and crushing hundreds of thousands more human beings into a tiny scrap of land in Gaza's south is going ahead, undeterred by protests, condemnations or historical parallels. (4)

She emphasizes that the discontent among Israelis about Netanyahu’s war polices and his drive to make Israel a straight-up authoritarian regime are not, for the most part, directly opposing the wars and genocide:

The Kaplan Street protesters have one remaining lever to derail the decisive plans of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, plans bound up in the Putin-style regime overhaul: a mass refusal to participate in these campaigns of destruction and expulsion.

And Haaretz in an editorial reports on the openly criminal rhetoric that leading officials are using:

The barbaric destruction [of the West Bank village of al-Mughayyir] was a response to an attempted terror attack near the settlement of Adei Ad, in the course of which a civilian suffered minor injuries, the army said. At the scene, IDF Central Command head Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth said every West Bank village should "know that if they commit a terror attack, they will pay a heavy price, and they will experience a curfew and siege." (5)

Collective punishment such as targeting an entire city or town in retaliation for an attack somehow associated with it is a clear war crimes. Not that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government or the US Republican Christian Zionists supporting his current policies care in the least about international law.

The general stated openly that the actions would target not the shooter, who fled, but the entire village.

Bluth went further, saying that in addition to efforts to find the shooter, the army is undertaking "shaping actions" aimed "to deter everyone, not only this village but every village that tries to raise a hand against any of the residents. The village carries out an attack. No problem. You want the spotlight, we can turn on a spotlight." This isn't about a specific incident, it's a declaration of collective punishment.[my emphasis]

This is not some drunk in a bar shooting off his mouth. It’s the general heading of IDF’s Central Command. And the editorial concludes:

Bluth is importing to the West Bank the pattern of action the IDF is employing in Gaza – flattening to the foundations. Israel is marching with its head held high to the international court in The Hague, and along the way is accusing anyone who dares point a finger at it of antisemitism.

Notes:

(1) What's driving the renewed escalation between the Houthis and Israel? DW News YouTube channel 08/25/2025. <https://youtu.be/dEaVEtJWdYw?si=KpRddIA_aIhj6KON> (Accessed: 2025-25-08).

(2) At least 20 killed, including five journalists, in Israeli strikes on Gaza's Nasser hospital. France 24 08/25/2025. <https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20250825-at-least-15-killed-including-four-journalists-in-israeli-strikes-on-gaza-s-nasser-hospital> Accessed: 2025-25-08).

(3) Israel bombs Khan Younis hospital, killing journalists and rescue worker. Middle East Eye 08/25/2025. <https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/israel-bombs-khan-younis-hospital-killing-journalists-and-rescue-worker?nid=427184&topic=Israel%2527s%2520genocide%2520in%2520Gaza&fid=547431> (Accessed: 2025-25-08).

(4) Hass, Amira (2025): Europe and Arab States Are Asleep. Soon, Anything That Moves in Gaza City Will Be Killed. Haaretz 08/228/2025. <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025-08-22/ty-article-opinion/.premium/europe-and-arab-states-are-asleep-soon-anything-that-moves-in-gaza-city-will-be-killed/00000198-ce07-dc9d-abd9-dfdf235f0000?gift=105876fd8aec4a6886a3295e89bf42d8> (Accessed: 2025-25-08).

(5) Uprooting Thousands of Trees in the West Bank, Israel Is Marching to The Hague With Its Head Held High. Haaretz editorial 08/25/2025. <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2025-08-25/ty-article-opinion/after-razing-gaza-the-idf-is-uprooting-thousands-of-trees-in-the-west-bank/00000198-ddc3-d4c6-afdf-dddf59370000> (Accessed: 2025-25-08).

A review of Israel’s wars since 1947 (Part 3 of 3)

This is the third of a three-part recap of Israel’s wars since 1947.

Second Intifada 2000-2005 (aka, Al-Aqsa Intifada), including Operation Defensive Shield 2002.

By all accounts, the event that set off the second intifada was a deliberate provocation by Ariel Sharon, then opposition leader. On September 28, 2000 he visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the location of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, considered a sacred site by Muslims.

Richard Kreitner recalled the incident 15 years later:

In a truly manful display of resolve on this day 15 years ago, the leader of the Israeli political opposition, Ariel Sharon, toured the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, surrounded by several hundred, and perhaps more than a thousand, armed riot police. The visit had the desired effect: After Sharon left the compound, Palestinian rioters began hurling stones and other projectiles in the direction of Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall. Rarely has it been more accurately said that hell broke loose of its restraints. (1)

Over four thousand deaths were registered during the second intifada, most of them Palestinians. Bader Araj and Robert Brym describe events from 2002 as follows:

In March 2002, following an especially horrific suicide bombing that killed 30 people, the Israeli army launched Operation Defensive Shield to reoccupy the West Bank and parts of Gaza. One year later Israel started building a separation barrier in the West Bank to match a similar barrier erected in Gaza in 1996. Also helping to suppress the uprising were more than 200 state-directed assassinations of Palestinian military operatives and political leaders.
Although the violence had nearly subsided by the end of 2005, the conditions causing it had in some respects worsened. Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank continued, and tight controls were placed on the movement of Palestinian goods and people, stifling economic growth. Negotiations were at a standstill. In addition, the Palestinian Authority lost support amid charges of widespread corruption. Many Palestinians now turned to Hamas, which won the 2006 legislative elections and took power by force in Gaza in 2007. [my emphasis] (2)

Second Lebanon War (July-August 2006).

Dieter Vieweger gives this description of the 2006 Lebanon War, a short but significant event:

The trigger for a second, much more extensive armed conflict in 2006 was [an] attack on the Israeli border with Lebanon. On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah first attacked northern Israel with heavy rocket fire and at the same time carried out an attack on a border patrol, killing seven soldiers and kidnapping two. Hezbollah hoped to be able to negotiate the release of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners held in Israel in exchange for both two abductees.

Beginning on July 12, Israeli warplanes bombed the international airport and Shiite neighborhoods in Beirut, soon followed by Tyre and many other places identified by the Israeli military as Hezbollah strongholds, as well as infrastructure facilities of all kinds. The damage ran into the billions. As always, the force of the destruction also hit the civilian population. It was not until UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of August 12 that the way was paved for the cessation of fighting, which took effect two days later.

The war cost the lives of well over 1100 Lebanese. In addition, thousands of people were injured and hundreds of thousands were made into refugees. (3)

The next three short wars were “operations” of the kind that the Israeli leaders refer to cynically as “mowing the grass.” Essentially, this is the assumption that Israel can keep the Palestinians in Gaza under tight control by regulating their supplies of food, fuel, medicine, even water. And every few years carry out a brief war (or “operation”) to intimidate them.

This approach regards Gaza as an open-air prison. Others like Masha Gessen have referred to it as a ghetto. Including the far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich. (4)

This approach to Palestine is in keeping with the commitment in Netanyahu’s coalition agreement in forming the current government that Israel must control all of Eretz Israel. Also known as “from the river to the sea.”

Operation Cast Lead (Dec. 27, 2008-January 18, 2009).

Belén Fernández calls Operation Cast Lead “a twenty-two-day affair that ultimately dispensed with some 1,400 Palestinian lives, among them more than three hundred children.” Sounds like standard operating procedure for the Israeli government and the IDF. (5)

She continues:

Western mainstream media outlets, ever-reliable conduits for Israeli propaganda, explained Cast Lead in the same way they explain all Israeli onslaughts: as “retaliation” for some Palestinian offense. In this case, Hamas was accused of breaking a ceasefire by firing rockets into Israel — even though the rockets (which injured no one) were themselves a response to Israel’s lethal, ceasefire-violating raid into the Gaza Strip.

The media’s insistence on endowing Israel with a perennial monopoly on retaliation obscures the reality that any Palestinian action against Israel is fundamentally a reaction to Israel’s brutal usurpation of Palestinian territory, institutionalized policy of ethnic cleansing, and habitual massacres.

If either side in the conflict actually cares, the laws of war apply to states and to liberation movements also.

But Israel is a nuclear power with what has long been taken to be one of the most formidable armies in the world. A reputation that hasn’t let them succeed in eliminating Hamas yet. And their government and their politicians don’t seem to have much more to offer than permanent insecurity for the indefinite future.

A later report from the Israeli human rights group B’tselem would report of Cast Lead:

On 27 December 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, its most extensive operation in Gaza. The operation, which ended on 18 January 2009, resulted in unparalleled harm to civilian Palestinian population: 1,391 Palestinians were killed, including at least 759 civilians who did not take part in the hostilities; thousands were wounded. Israel also extensively damaged buildings and infrastructure, so that electric, water, and sewage facilities, which were on the verge of collapse even before the campaign, ceased functioning altogether. According to UN figures, Israel destroyed over 3,500 residences, rendering tens of thousands homeless. (6)

Operation Pillar of Defense (Nov.14-21, 2012). This conflict lasted only eight. But it racked up an impressive record of criminal behavior on both the IDF and Palestinian sides.

B’tselem notes of the Pillar of Defense operation that the one-week operation did feature changes in IDF behavior that limited civilian casualties more than they did in Cast Lead:

Operation Pillar of Defense was significantly different from Operation Cast Lead which took place about four years previously. The harm to the civilian Palestinian population during Operation Cast Lead was enormous: over the three plus weeks of the campaign, 1,391 Palestinians were killed, including at least 759 who did not take part in the hostilities. Thousands more were wounded, hundreds of homes were destroyed and civilian infrastructures were severely damaged.

Granted, Operation Pillar of Defense was of shorter duration than Operation Cast Lead and was conducted entirely from the air. However, the less extensive harm to civilian population during Pillar of Defense should probably be attributed also to the fact that this time, the Israeli military adopted a different open-fire policy and firing was more restricted and focused. Nonetheless, in this report, B’Tselem seeks to draw attention to violations, or alleged violations, of the law, based on the conduct of both sides during the campaign. [my emphasis] (p. 35)

The report also explains:

Because the military [IDF] refuses to provide real information about incidents in which Palestinians who did not take part in the hostilities were harmed, B’Tselem is unable to investigate the lawfulness of each and every military strike during the operation. In the vast majority of cases the target of the attack cannot be discovered and therefore, it cannot be determined whether the target was legitimate and, if so, whether the strike was proportional. Nonetheless, B’Tselem’s investigations have found that, in some cases at least, the military violated IHL [international humanitarian law] and in other cases there are substantial reasons to believe IHL was violated. [my emphasis] (p. 37)

After the eight-day operation, “Netanyahu declared the Israeli offensive to be a success, saying that his forces had dealt a painful blow to Hamas, destroying thousands of rockets and killing many ‘terrorist commanders’. Hamas also claimed victory, despite the Palestinian losses.” (7)

Operation Protective Edge (July 8-August 26, 2014).

This was yet another Israeli incursion in Gaza against Hamas. A 2017 RAND Corporation report summarized the results:

Protective Edge took a toll in both blood and treasure. On the Israeli side, at least 66 soldiers and six civilians died in the conflict. According to the Israeli Tax Authority, Protective Edge caused almost $55 million in direct damage to private and public infrastructure and another $443 million in indirect damage given economic disruptions caused by the conflict.

On the Palestinian side, the United Nations (UN) estimated the number of Palestinian deaths at 2,133, of whom 1,489 were civilians—a point that Hamas used to advance its legal and international claim that Israel used disproportionate force. By contrast, Israeli estimates suggest that there were 1,598 Palestinian fatalities in Protective Edge, of which 75 percent were combatants. In addition, the UN estimated 500,000 people—28 percent of Gaza’s population— were internally displaced, while the homes of some 108,000 people were uninhabitable. (8)

If those last three operations or “Gaza wars” seem to have produced inconclusive results for both sides, that’s actually the point of the “mowing the grass” approach. Control the population of Gaza and then periodically terrorize the people and degrade Hamas’ capabilities and wait for a chance to take a more drastic approach to establishing permanent Israeli control “from the river to the sea.”

The RAND report remarks, “Israel tries to maintain a difficult balance with respect to Hamas. On one hand, it wants to punish Hamas for its attacks; on the other hand, it does not want to eliminate Hamas because it worries that the organization could be replaced by one that is much more violent.”

Maintaining that status indefinitely seems to have been the purpose of the “mowing the grass” approach. RAND’s 2017 evaluation of the prospects in the immediate future:

In the three years after Protective Edge, Hamas has maintained its control in Gaza and does not appear in danger of being replaced in the near term. And yet, the underlying political and economic pressures on Hamas remain today. Thus, many believe a fourth major Gaza conflict is only a matter of time.

The Netanyahu government’s approach in the current war seems to go well beyond just maintaining the “mowing the grass” indefinite stalemate.

Israel-Palestine Crisis of 2021 (May 10-May 21).

For 12 days in May 2021, Israel and Hamas exchanged heavy fire. The number of casualties suffered reflected the balance of capabilities—offensive and defensive—and decisions made by policymakers on how to respond to attacks: 10 Israelis, 3 foreign workers, and approximately 260 Palestinians were killed, with many more injured. The immediate trigger for this round of violence seemed to have been developments that took place far from Gaza: the eviction of Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah (a neighborhood of East Jerusalem, which is territory occupied by Israel in 1967 and subsequently de facto annexed) and a gradual increase in the number of Jews permitted by Israeli authorities to pray on the Temple Mount (also known as the Noble Sanctuary). The absence of a deliberate response to these developments by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) both motivated Hamas and provided it an opportunity to assert itself as the guardian of Palestinian and Arab rights in Jerusalem. (9)

In his interview with Patel, Shai Feldman gives an interesting evaluation of the results of the 2021 round of conflict.

Hamas [in 2021] seemed to have estimated correctly that numerous Israeli threats notwithstanding, Israel would be self-deterred from taking steps that would truly threaten Hamas: a major ground operation followed by sustained reoccupation of Gaza and a weeding-out of Hamas operatives, similar to the de-Ba‘thification campaign that the U.S. oversaw in Iraq following the 2003 invasion. Hamas knows well that Israelis have neither the appetite for reconquering Gaza nor the will to try to manage the chaos that would ensue there should Hamas no longer control this very densely populated area. [my emphasis]

This was the context of the “mowing the grass” strategy. On implication of that now is that Hamas presumably knew very well that the October 7 attack would be likely to provoke a ground operation. But Israel is not yet pursuing a “sustained reoccupation of Gaza” and by all current accounts, Hamas is still the functioning government of Gaza – to the extent they still have a functioning government after the war’s devastation.

Feldman also suggests that Hamas may have taken the lesson from the 2021 fighting that Israel’s forces were overestimating their own capabilities:

Israel seems to have sustained a number of losses as a result of the May 2021 violence. First, it failed to defeat Hamas strategically, let alone suppress its rocket fire operationally. Such a result could not have enhanced its deterrence. Thus, there appears to be a wide gap between the announcements made by some Israeli leaders to the effect that their objective in the fighting was “to change the deterrence equation” vis-à-vis Hamas and the realities on the ground. There is no evidence that Hamas was impressed by the IDF’s post-fighting public relations campaign that attempted to convince it that the IDF was the clear winner of the “round.” Quite the contrary: By appearing in public and above ground immediately after the intense fighting ended, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, took special pains to demonstrate that Hamas was not intimidated. [my emphasis]

Feldman also identifies another weakness in Netanyahu’s calculations in the mowing-the-lawn strategy:

More than any other constituency, Israelis residing in the south—and thus paying attention to detail—have also observed over the years that when it came to the actual implementation of policy vis-à-vis Hamas, Israel has contributed significantly to the erosion of its deterrence. It has done so by assisting the transfer of Qatari money to Hamas while continuing to insist that it was fighting the terror organization relentlessly; negotiating with Hamas while stating that it is not engaged in such talks; and concluding very generous deals with Hamas—notably the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange agreement, in the framework of which Israel released 1,027 Palestinians (far more generous than anything it has ever granted the PA). [my emphasis]

At the end of the interview, Feldman makes virtually the same prediction that the RAND Corporation report made in 2017, saying, “without anything in the international, regional, and domestic environments that could drive a significant change, and given that living conditions in Gaza continue to be intolerable, it is only a matter of time before another explosion will erupt.”

But the mowing-the-grass approach was based on assuming that such explosions could be contained indefinitely at a comparatively minimal cost to Israel itself. And the last year has shown us that eventually turned out to be a very bad assumption.

Summary

And that process led to the current war, beginning with the October 7 attack and Israel’s war on Gaza civilians, has been spreading to war on West Bank civilians and military actions of one kind or another in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

If the record of Israel’s wars since 1973 – over fifty years ago – show any serious indication of trying to achieve a diplomatic and peaceful solution to the conflict with the Palestinians, I find it very hard to see what that would be. In the meantime, they have created a rigid apartheid system in the illegally occupied territories and are moving away from rather than toward a healthy liberal democracy.

The US is basically the only external power at this point that can push Israel in the direction of a less destructive policy. But until we have a government again that is willing to put restraints on Israel, which relies critically on US support to fight the wars it keeps getting itself into, the question will be how many military disasters it will take and how much damage to Israeli society and economy will be done before it changes course in a major way.

Notes:

(1) Kreitner, Robert (2015): September 28, 2000: Ariel Sharon Visits the Temple Mount, Sparking the Second Intifada. The Nation 09/1/2015. <https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/september-28-2000-ariel-sharon-visits-the-temple-mount-sparking-the-second-intifada/> (Accessed: 2024-22-09).

(2) Araj, Bader & Brym, Robert J (2024): "intifada". Encyclopedia Britannica 09/17/2024, <https://www.britannica.com/topic/intifada> (Accessed: 2024-22-09).

(3) Vieweger, Dieter (2023): Streit um das Heilige Land (8th edition), 258. Munich: Gütersloher Verlagshaus. My translation from German.

(4) Karanth, Sanjan (2023): Senior Far-Right Israeli Official Admits Gaza Is A ‘Ghetto’ For Palestinians. Huffpost 12/31/2023. <https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israeli-official-gaza-ghetto-palestinians_n_6591f45de4b0b01d3e40260c> (Accessed: 2024-22-09).

(5) Fernández, Belén (2018): A Milestone on the Timeline of Israeli Brutality. Jacobin 12/27/2018. <https://jacobin.com/2018/12/operation-cast-lead-ten-year-anniversary-israel-occupation 1/> (Accessed: 2024-22-09).

(6) Stein, Yael (2013): Human Rights Violations during Operation Pillar of Defense: 14-21 November 2012, 8. B’Tselem. <https://www.btselem.org/download/201305_pillar_of_defense_operation_eng.pdf>

(7) Hussain, Hana (2017): Remembering Israel’s ‘Operation Pillar of Defence’. Middle East Monitor 11/14/2017. <https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20171114-remembering-israels-operation-pillar-of-defence/> (Accessed: 2024-22-09).

(8) RAND Corporation (2017): Lessons from Israel's Wars in Gaza. <https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9975.html>

(9) Patel, David Siddhartha (2021): The Impact of the May 2021 Hamas-Israel Confrontation: A Conversation with Shai Feldman (introduction). Brandies University Crown Center for Middle East Studies 10/28/2021. <https://www.brandeis.edu/crown/publications/crown-conversations/cc-10.html> (Accessed: 2024-22-09).

A review of Israel’s wars since 1947 (Part 1 of 3)

This is the first of a three-part recap of Israel’s wars since 1947.

Israel has had numerous wars since 1947 that obviously have had a huge effect on how the Israeli public and its politicians think about war. There have been many squandered chances to develop a lasting resolution of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, which has been a continuing thread through that entire period.

The current war, which has no end in sight, is easily the longest intensive conventional military conflict in which Israel has engaged. (Not counting the two periods of popular militance known as intifadas, which can’t reasonably be counted as wars.) So a look back at them provides some relevant perspective on the current disaster.

Civil War in Mandatory Palestine 1947-48.

This is the period where the Zionist forces scrambled to gain control over as much of the territory of British Mandatory Palestine and drive out as many Palestinians as they could in preparation for UN recognition of Israel’s independence. It was at the end of November 1947 when the UN General Assembly adopted a partition plan for separate Jewish and Palestinian states. Britain had turned formal authority for Mandatory Palestine over to the United Nations in February 1947.

War of Independence 1948-49.

Dieter Vieweger observes, „At that time, both parties to the conflict were preparing for a violent implementation of their goals. The UN's partition plan was certainly conceived as being honest and mediating - but unfeasible without the military presence of a force of law and order.” (1)

David Ben-Gurion, was the leader of the Zionist armed forces Haganah and later the first Prime Minister of Israel, declared Israeli independence on May 14, 1848. Haganah during this war also allied (secretly) with the Zionist terrorist groups Irgun and Lehi, who concentrated on terror against civilians. Haganah was renamed the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) later that same month and began to absorb the Irgun and Lehi fighters.

The civil war and the War of Independence created what is still known as the “refugee problem.”

British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt 1956-57, aka, the Suez Crisis (Oct-Nov 1956).

Israel teamed with the two main formal colonial powers in that region, Britain and France, to seize control over the Suez Canal from Egypt and to overthrow the government of Egypt President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who advocated for an “Arab socialism” and unity among Arab nations in conflict with the West (“Pan-Arabism”. This was a case where Israel was not only representing its own aims but could also legitimately be said to be acting on behalf of Western imperial powers.

But US President Dwight Eisenhower was not on board for this particular action. He applied strong pressure on Israel, Britain, and France to pull back and give up their war aims. This became to be an important turning point in British-US relations, after which Britain became very reluctant to take political positions contrary to those of the US in international conflict, a posture still very much on display decades later when British Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair enthusiastically backed the Cheney-Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq.

The US also required Israel to remove its forces from the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. Unconditional support for Israeli military adventures was still in the future.

Six-Day War of 1967.

This was the war in which Israel seized the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and have since maintained what is still called an illegal occupation, though it’s very clear that the Israeli government intends to hold those areas permanently with a view to incorporating them into Greater Israel, or “Eretz” Israel. Such control is a part of the official program of the governing coalition of Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government. They want permanent control of that area, also known as “from the river to the sea.”

Avner Cohen wrote on the 50th anniversary of that war:

Fifty years ago, war transformed the Middle East. Six memorable days, known to Israelis as the Six-Day War and to Arabs and others as the 1967 War, redrew the region’s landscape in fundamental ways. In those six days, Israel defeated three Arab armies, gained territory four times its original size, and became the preeminent military power in the region. The war transformed Israel from a nation that perceived itself as fighting for survival into an occupier and regional powerhouse.

The consequences for the Arab coalition were similarly transformative. For those “on the line of confrontation,” as Arab states bordering Israel were called, the war brought the loss of vast territories and crushing humiliation, all the more so for the Palestinians. Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of Egypt and the most prominent Arab leader at the time, survived the war but his leadership never recovered. The stunning defeat initiated the demise of his brand of secular pan-Arabism that was once an assertive ideological force in the Arab world. [my emphasis] (2)

This had big political significance in the US, because the Israelis won widespread admiration from the American public for their quick victory – something that clearly was not happening in the Vietnam War which was still going on. One particular dark side of that was that American Christian fundamentalists came to embrace the Christian Zionist view that looked forward to wars involving Israel as signs of the End Times. And, in a not-unrelated effect, some racist white Americans saw Israel as a nation of white people fighting dark-skinned barbarian Arabs.

Christian Zionism in the form of a “dispensational premillennialism” End Times theology was pioneered by the sectarian Anglo-Irish minister John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) was one of the most important influences in the development of what came to be known as Christian fundamentalism, which is generally the outlook of the political Christian Right in the US. It has now grown to be a major political influence in the Republican Party that celebrates warlike behavior on Israel’s part. The Christians United for Israel group led by John Hagee is one of the most important lobbying and political-mobilizing organizations in US politics.

Hagee told Bill Moyers back in 2007, that it is a “fact that in history, if Jerusalem is at war, the world is at war. If there's peace in Jerusalem there's peace in the world.” (3) Whether uncritically backing Israel’s wars is the best way for the US to bring peace to Jerusalem or anywhere else is not at all as clear to most people as it is to Christian Zionists like Hagee.

Yom Kippur War of 1973.

Israel’s reputation as an invincible nation of warriors was shaken by the 1973 war, which occasioned what was known as the Arab Oil Embargo (1973-74) that made OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) part of the American political vocabulary. Israel was attacked on the Yom Kippur holiday on October 6 by Egypt and Syria. But Israel emerged as the clear winner, though the heroic reputation that IDF Gen. Moshe Dayan had earned in the Six-Day War was tarnished be the setbacks the IDF suffered in the early part of the Yom Kippur Was, to the point that he resigned his command. (4) The enemy had pulled off an attack that caught the Israelis by surprise. (So October 7, 2023 was not the first time that happened.)

Not least through the efforts of the Carter Administration, Israel began a peace process with Egypt culminating in a treaty in 1979 that actually did produce decent relations and maintained the peace between Israel and Egypt, though the still-not-settled Palestinians question was not improved by that reconciliation.

There followed a period ofn attempts by the Palestine Liberation Organization under Yassir Arafat to pressure Israel. But though the Israeli government always blames the Other Side for the lack of progress, Israeli politics was taking a more revanchist turn, and former Irgun terrorist leader Menachem Begin became prime minister. After a 1980 attack by Iran on an Iraqi nuclear research center near its capital Baghdad failed to do serious damage, Begin ordered a much more effective strike in 1981.

Notes:

(1) Vieweger, Dieter (2023): Streit um das Heilige Land (8th edition), 169. Munich: Gütersloher Verlagshaus. My translation from German.

(2) Cohen, Avner (2017): The 1967 Six-Day War. Wilson Center. <https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-1967-six-day-war> (Accessed: 2024-22-09).

(3 Hagee, John (2007): Bill Moyers Journal 10/08/2007. <https://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10052007/transcript1.html> (Accessed: 2024-22-09).