* The attack this month on Israel was a military operation sanctioned and organized by Hamas.
* Hamas is the legitimate self-governing regime of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and was elected although its ability to retain power was partially a function of a flawed democratic process.
* The Hamas attack was planned for more than a year and was an unprovoked surprise attack.
* About 2000 Hamas soldiers left the Gaza Strip, although additional looters may also have crossed over. Several thousand people were involved in preparing for and conducting the attack in all.
* The primary goals of that attack were to take a significant number of hostages and to kill as many civilians as possible. The Israeli soldiers and security forces killed were a means to that end. This is definitely a Hamas war crime by all people involved in the attack in any part of the operation.
* Hamas has as its goal, the complete elimination of Israel and restoration of Palestinian control of the entire country.
* Prior to the Gaza border fence, Palestinian terrorist organizations, including Hamas, routinely carried out smaller terrorist attacks on Israel and Hamas routinely fires missiles and rockets towards Israel.
* While there were some Hamas casualties in the attack, the lion's share of the attackers successfully returned to the Gaza Strip and brought about 150 hostages with them. About 1200 Israelis (including foreigners in Israel), mostly civilians, were killed in the attack.
* The attack lasted about a day or two, with final mop up taking another day or two.
* Hamas used mostly civilian vehicles, a few drones, and mostly small arms, with a few heavy 0.50 caliber heavy machine guns and some short range, infantry carried rockets or rocket propelled grenades, together with some explosives and tractors to breach the border fence around Gaza in a small number of places.
* Hamas has probably hidden hostages and some of its soldiers in underground tunnels and bunkers in Gaza.
* As this is written, about nine days after the attack, most of the Hamas soldiers and officials involved in the attack are at large and none of the hostages have been recovered.
* Israel's democratically elected government has declared war on Hamas.
* The issue presented now is what response by Israel is appropriate in these circumstances. This is a question that Israel will ultimately resolve more or less unilaterally. It may consider the views of the international community, but it is unlikely to be forced to comply with those views absent truly extraordinarily harsh response, and Hamas and the Palestinians will surely have little or no say in the matter. It can make Israeli invading ground forces bleed a little and spend some of its treasure on the effort, but it is ultimately no match for them.
(Primary New York Times Source)
To venture an opinion: This entire Hamas operation was designed to force Israel to commit war crimes (or what will be perceived as war crimes) as a method for Israel to try to influence the Hamas leadership to not do this again. It's a lose/lose situation for Israel and for the current residents of the Gaza Strip. But not necessarily for Hamas.
ReplyDeleteI would be willing to offer US citizenship (with some stipulations) to everyone from the Gaza Strip just to upset the status quo. Some mandatory residence time (5 years? With a test out.) in relocation camps here in the US where English and other skills would be taught. Prohibition from funding or interfacing with "jihadist" institutions for that 5 years. Just spitballing.
@Guy
ReplyDeleteI think you are right that Hamas is gambling on the Israeli reaction generating international support for their cause, in both the West and in the Islamic world, although I'm not convinced it will work and I think that there is a mix of delusion, bad judgment, Iranian influence, and possibly even Russian influence involved.
Libertarians think free international migration would stop a lot of conflicts. They aren't entirely wrong. But the example of Northern Ireland, where Irish Catholics have remained for many decades of free migration under the E.U. and under separate treaties for a while before, and also after Brexit, suggests the limits of migration at ending a situation where there is a perception of an oppressed minority (i.e. Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland under a Protestant and U.K. controlled system).
If Gazans and West Bank Palestinians had made it a political priority to leave, I think that they could have been more successful than they have been in that regard. Three-quarters of a century later, Palestinians still want to end Israel and get their land back as futile as an effort to achieve that is likely to be (and as futile has it has been for many decades).
There is also aid distortion. As awful as Gaza as economic conditions and general liberty have been relative to Israel proper, Gaza in a net economic burden to Israel. But Gaza is better off economically as a subject of Israel than it would be as a sovereign country of its own that wasn't at war with Israel. Between international humanitarian aid and access to Israeli electricity, water, and other trade goods (for a price), Gazans get lots of things that they couldn't themselves and the modest number of Gazans who work in Israel proper send lots of $$ back to Gaza that help its economy. Like post-WWII Japan and Germany, the inability of the Palestinians to spend significant public funds on a defense budget also helps their economy at the margins.
The perceived Israeli threat to the Palestinians also helps the Palestinians maintain domestic political unity against the common enemy instead of dissolving into infighting a la Libya or Sudan or Syria or Lebanon or Iraq.
@Guy
ReplyDeleteOne plausible goal of Israel in its counterattack to prevent it from being a lose/lose even if it crushes every Hamas official and soldier involved and frees every possible hostage it can, is to change the balance between Palestinians who want to stay in Gaza and fight or put up with Israeli rule's new conditions whatever they may be, and Palestinians who give up and try to emigrate.
If Israel convinced even 25% of Gazans to emigrate from the Gaza Strip as refugees or otherwise (about 450,000 people) to multiple destinations in the Islamic world and the West combined, and this could be facilitated on humanitarian grounds, given that Gaza City will suffer heavy damage and have less housing and infrastructure resources after the counterattack, that would suit Israel just fine.
More intellectual Israelis are also conscious of the fact that between Palestinians and Arabs in Israel proper, that Jewish Israelis only make up just over half of the population of the territory that Israel controls. In a one state solution, Jews would be only a narrow majority. Mass Palestinian emigration mitigates that concern.
@Guy
ReplyDeleteHamas is also playing a dangerous game.
Suppose that the counterattack causes hundreds of thousands of Gazans to die, provoking international condemnation, but U.S. and U.K. sponsorship of Israel in international affairs prevents anything meaningful being done internationally about this outcome.
Paying with a hundred Gazan deaths for every Israeli killed in their campaign is a far higher price than Hamas probably thought that it was facing in a bad case scenario.