This was an excellent analysis of an incredibly complicated situation. You did a great job of being objective about the constraints and dangers facing the various groups and countries involved.
“Netanyahu does not spend any time reflecting on whether anything Israel has done might possibly have contributed to the radicalization of Palestinian opinion.” Brilliantly put.
If war is politics by other means then it seems pretty clear that regardless of how the shooting bit is going, the politics of this conflict are a complete and utter mess. My strong impressions (largely confirmed in this excellent piece) is neither side have political leadership with any interest or perhaps even capacity for long, or indeed medium, term planning.
Both sides seem to deeply committed to unachievable long term goals - the Israeli's for the elimination of Hamas (big ask) and also the elimination of armed opposition to the existence of Israel (a huge ask). Hamas, and indeed the Palestinians, seem to want the establishment of a Palestinian state (a huge ask without Isreali acceptance) and In Hamas's case the elimination of the state of Israel.
Both leaderships also have a vested interest in the war continuing. Netanyanu knows he'll be out on his ear if the war stops and the Hamas leadership consider (I believe accurately) that they are in a war for their very existence.
I don't detect any desire to make compromises needed for peace on either side. I reckon the bottled up conflict has burst its constraints 3 months ago and I can't see it returning to something as low intensity as before the 7/10/23 attacks for a very long time. Sigh.
I am re-upping a comment posted to Mick Ryan’s Futura Doctrina Substack the other day as it fits what you are thinking, Lawrence.
The lack of strategic vision at all and the seemingly widening schisms internally in Israel are concerning and debilitating. In a rational world, these would be problems to be solved, but in Likud and Netanyahu’s world these are features! This keeps he and his ruling coalition in power indefinitely as the war just proceeds without any strategic political goal. And then he can call opponents as opposing the war and being Hamas sympathizers.
Neither Netanyahu’s coalition nor Sinwar’s Hamas leadership care one iota about their people, only their power and remaining in charge. In this sense Netanyahu and Hamas need each other to stay alive and relevant. Neither has ever had strategic empathy and they have instilled that in their people thru 7 Oct!
If anything Netanyahu’s lack of strategic empathy and acting before thinking is exactly what Hamas wanted and expected! In this sense, Netanyahu and Israel walked right in to the trap. And this goes to influence operations. Hamas’ strategy while pure evil in using civilian deaths, is great fodder for gaining sympathy world wide. And the Israeli government made this easier in the years leading up to 7 Oct in the way they have treated Palestinians in the what amounts to ghettos not terribly dissimilar to the Warsaw Ghetto and looks like South African apartheid. The younger generations only know this side of Israel. They do not have the deeper history, and social media is not conducive to learning or understanding that history.
So while the Israelis you have spoken with feel abandoned by the rest of the world, they seem to have a serious lack of self awareness of how their government’s actions have set up this current situation. Clearly it is far from universal within Israel and the US Jewish community as there are loud voices who have been pointing out these problems for 15 plus years.
The only way forward must start with a first step, and that is a new government that gets rid of the far right and embraces a two state solution and gains strategic empathy. Absent this step, nothing will change.
Sometimes it looks to me like Netanyahu and the more vitriolic Hamas leaders are engaged in mutual backscratching. He gets to stay in power until all his stated goals are met, and they stay in power with their under-the-table funding in place
This is an excellent review of the current situation and its complexities. The conclusion however is giving me difficulties, where you say: "If the US, Europeans, and Arabs really want to get a grip on this situation they are going to have to go beyond attempts to mediate between recalcitrant parties and engage more directly with the situation. Gallant wants them to take responsibility for the governance and reconstruction of Gaza. It is not clear who else could play this role, but if they do so, it should be on their terms, with Palestinian aspirations fully addressed."
I don't know what "engage more directly with the situation" means. Nor do I see what the rationale would be for other countries to rebuild what Israel destroyed, nor how we could rest assured that the interests of those other countries and of the Palestinians (who are divided on fundamental issues) would necessarily converge.
I keep coming back to my basic perception that there will not be sustainable peace in that region until the warring parties come to the inevitable conclusion that both of them are there to stay and they will need to develop rules of the game - between themselves - for living with each other. Who knows how long this will take to happen, but don't expect much resolution till it does.
Exactly. One state - a United States of Israel/Palestine. A place where the founders can see that the rule of law applies and all citizens have rights. al me idealistic but it can be achieved if there is a will.
If anything at all were likely to happen, it is more likely to be a two-state construct. Part of the reason is that most Israelis and foreign Jewish communities consider Israel to be the homeland of the Jews (i.e. a convergence of the religion and the State, making it a "kind of" democratic theocracy -perhaps a contradiction in terms). Another part of the reason is the mistrust that many Palestinians would feel about their place in such a unified State, whether they would be first-class citizens or not. A two-State solution would pose less potential conflict of religion, values, trust and status between these groups.
Israel's recent governments have shown contempt for a two state solution, and clearly a large chunk of their electorate share that contempt. But from the outside view point the current West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as a two state solution is bound to be and remain unstable, as it allows extremists from both populations to exert violence and indignities on the other . What it resembles is South Africa during its Bantustans period.
As with South Africa, the only stable solution will actually be a one state solution, however repugnant this may be to some on both sides. This is what outsiders should be demanding, not patch up solutions to allow Israel to carry on as before.
Both Sinwar and Netanyahu “would prefer that all talk of Gaza’s future be put off until the fighting is over”. The two are like the generals of World War I who were allowed to decide the purpose of war. They are willing to fight until the last Israeli AND the last Arab.
“.. if Hamas remains active but excluded, it can cause trouble for whoever tries to run Gaza..” Yes, and if a well-meaning coalition controls Gaza and allows something that Israel doesn't like, Israel can cause trouble as well.
"Hamas gave no impression of having thought through the implications of the vicious attacks on 7 October, other than to force the plight of the Palestinians back on to the international agenda"
From what I understand, Hamas has a Poltical and a Military Wing, but also the last wing is infitrated by simple dregs of society who feel power with guns in their hands, and do awful deeds to those over whom they have power. For example, see the example of the American soldiers at Abu Ghraib. The actions of these people may not represent the strategies of the institutions they are part of. It is possible that lot of what happened in October 7th was the unintended consequence of such non-idealisitc dregs acting without permission, and Hamas has to accept this now and deal with it.
You may well be right, Lokyi but the sheer scale of the atrocities committed on that day makes it hard for me to believe that it was just a minority of dregs that got carried away. At the very least a sizeable proportion of the non-dregs seem to have followed their bad example.
The day after - after what? This war has shown an exponentially escalating cycle of destruction since the Hamas atrocity. The scale of destruction seems to be unusually high. It would be good to have some analysis of some of the factors underlying this escalation - for example the level of US military support; the use of AI by the IDF in target identification - massively increasing the rate of target identification and destruction; the massive movements of people in a restricted area (no safe zones?). Then there is the potential for further escalating mortality - estimates of 60 x previous mortality under comparable conditions of displacement and deprivation would predict mortality of up to half a million, or a quarter of the Gazan population (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/29/health-organisations-disease-gaza-population-outbreaks-conflict).
Does the evidence suggest an exceptional rate or level of destruction, and if so what are the implications of this for the next stage of the war?
Going of reporting, a lot of Gaza is now uninhabitable rubble. What if , for whatever combinations of reasons, all those ruined buildings are not rebuilt?
This was an excellent analysis of an incredibly complicated situation. You did a great job of being objective about the constraints and dangers facing the various groups and countries involved.
“Netanyahu does not spend any time reflecting on whether anything Israel has done might possibly have contributed to the radicalization of Palestinian opinion.” Brilliantly put.
If war is politics by other means then it seems pretty clear that regardless of how the shooting bit is going, the politics of this conflict are a complete and utter mess. My strong impressions (largely confirmed in this excellent piece) is neither side have political leadership with any interest or perhaps even capacity for long, or indeed medium, term planning.
Both sides seem to deeply committed to unachievable long term goals - the Israeli's for the elimination of Hamas (big ask) and also the elimination of armed opposition to the existence of Israel (a huge ask). Hamas, and indeed the Palestinians, seem to want the establishment of a Palestinian state (a huge ask without Isreali acceptance) and In Hamas's case the elimination of the state of Israel.
Both leaderships also have a vested interest in the war continuing. Netanyanu knows he'll be out on his ear if the war stops and the Hamas leadership consider (I believe accurately) that they are in a war for their very existence.
I don't detect any desire to make compromises needed for peace on either side. I reckon the bottled up conflict has burst its constraints 3 months ago and I can't see it returning to something as low intensity as before the 7/10/23 attacks for a very long time. Sigh.
I am re-upping a comment posted to Mick Ryan’s Futura Doctrina Substack the other day as it fits what you are thinking, Lawrence.
The lack of strategic vision at all and the seemingly widening schisms internally in Israel are concerning and debilitating. In a rational world, these would be problems to be solved, but in Likud and Netanyahu’s world these are features! This keeps he and his ruling coalition in power indefinitely as the war just proceeds without any strategic political goal. And then he can call opponents as opposing the war and being Hamas sympathizers.
Neither Netanyahu’s coalition nor Sinwar’s Hamas leadership care one iota about their people, only their power and remaining in charge. In this sense Netanyahu and Hamas need each other to stay alive and relevant. Neither has ever had strategic empathy and they have instilled that in their people thru 7 Oct!
If anything Netanyahu’s lack of strategic empathy and acting before thinking is exactly what Hamas wanted and expected! In this sense, Netanyahu and Israel walked right in to the trap. And this goes to influence operations. Hamas’ strategy while pure evil in using civilian deaths, is great fodder for gaining sympathy world wide. And the Israeli government made this easier in the years leading up to 7 Oct in the way they have treated Palestinians in the what amounts to ghettos not terribly dissimilar to the Warsaw Ghetto and looks like South African apartheid. The younger generations only know this side of Israel. They do not have the deeper history, and social media is not conducive to learning or understanding that history.
So while the Israelis you have spoken with feel abandoned by the rest of the world, they seem to have a serious lack of self awareness of how their government’s actions have set up this current situation. Clearly it is far from universal within Israel and the US Jewish community as there are loud voices who have been pointing out these problems for 15 plus years.
The only way forward must start with a first step, and that is a new government that gets rid of the far right and embraces a two state solution and gains strategic empathy. Absent this step, nothing will change.
Sometimes it looks to me like Netanyahu and the more vitriolic Hamas leaders are engaged in mutual backscratching. He gets to stay in power until all his stated goals are met, and they stay in power with their under-the-table funding in place
Exactly!
This is an excellent review of the current situation and its complexities. The conclusion however is giving me difficulties, where you say: "If the US, Europeans, and Arabs really want to get a grip on this situation they are going to have to go beyond attempts to mediate between recalcitrant parties and engage more directly with the situation. Gallant wants them to take responsibility for the governance and reconstruction of Gaza. It is not clear who else could play this role, but if they do so, it should be on their terms, with Palestinian aspirations fully addressed."
I don't know what "engage more directly with the situation" means. Nor do I see what the rationale would be for other countries to rebuild what Israel destroyed, nor how we could rest assured that the interests of those other countries and of the Palestinians (who are divided on fundamental issues) would necessarily converge.
I keep coming back to my basic perception that there will not be sustainable peace in that region until the warring parties come to the inevitable conclusion that both of them are there to stay and they will need to develop rules of the game - between themselves - for living with each other. Who knows how long this will take to happen, but don't expect much resolution till it does.
Exactly. One state - a United States of Israel/Palestine. A place where the founders can see that the rule of law applies and all citizens have rights. al me idealistic but it can be achieved if there is a will.
Founders and funders. Call me an idealist.
If anything at all were likely to happen, it is more likely to be a two-state construct. Part of the reason is that most Israelis and foreign Jewish communities consider Israel to be the homeland of the Jews (i.e. a convergence of the religion and the State, making it a "kind of" democratic theocracy -perhaps a contradiction in terms). Another part of the reason is the mistrust that many Palestinians would feel about their place in such a unified State, whether they would be first-class citizens or not. A two-State solution would pose less potential conflict of religion, values, trust and status between these groups.
Israel's recent governments have shown contempt for a two state solution, and clearly a large chunk of their electorate share that contempt. But from the outside view point the current West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as a two state solution is bound to be and remain unstable, as it allows extremists from both populations to exert violence and indignities on the other . What it resembles is South Africa during its Bantustans period.
As with South Africa, the only stable solution will actually be a one state solution, however repugnant this may be to some on both sides. This is what outsiders should be demanding, not patch up solutions to allow Israel to carry on as before.
Both Sinwar and Netanyahu “would prefer that all talk of Gaza’s future be put off until the fighting is over”. The two are like the generals of World War I who were allowed to decide the purpose of war. They are willing to fight until the last Israeli AND the last Arab.
“.. if Hamas remains active but excluded, it can cause trouble for whoever tries to run Gaza..” Yes, and if a well-meaning coalition controls Gaza and allows something that Israel doesn't like, Israel can cause trouble as well.
"Hamas gave no impression of having thought through the implications of the vicious attacks on 7 October, other than to force the plight of the Palestinians back on to the international agenda"
From what I understand, Hamas has a Poltical and a Military Wing, but also the last wing is infitrated by simple dregs of society who feel power with guns in their hands, and do awful deeds to those over whom they have power. For example, see the example of the American soldiers at Abu Ghraib. The actions of these people may not represent the strategies of the institutions they are part of. It is possible that lot of what happened in October 7th was the unintended consequence of such non-idealisitc dregs acting without permission, and Hamas has to accept this now and deal with it.
You may well be right, Lokyi but the sheer scale of the atrocities committed on that day makes it hard for me to believe that it was just a minority of dregs that got carried away. At the very least a sizeable proportion of the non-dregs seem to have followed their bad example.
This is the most clear-minded and compelling explanation of the current conflict that I’ve read. So many insights. Thanks.
The day after - after what? This war has shown an exponentially escalating cycle of destruction since the Hamas atrocity. The scale of destruction seems to be unusually high. It would be good to have some analysis of some of the factors underlying this escalation - for example the level of US military support; the use of AI by the IDF in target identification - massively increasing the rate of target identification and destruction; the massive movements of people in a restricted area (no safe zones?). Then there is the potential for further escalating mortality - estimates of 60 x previous mortality under comparable conditions of displacement and deprivation would predict mortality of up to half a million, or a quarter of the Gazan population (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/29/health-organisations-disease-gaza-population-outbreaks-conflict).
Does the evidence suggest an exceptional rate or level of destruction, and if so what are the implications of this for the next stage of the war?
Going of reporting, a lot of Gaza is now uninhabitable rubble. What if , for whatever combinations of reasons, all those ruined buildings are not rebuilt?