Biden Joins the Israel Outrage Bandwagon
The Netanyahu government has few friends.
As the fallout from the IDF strikes that killed seven international aid workers continues, we’re seeing a lot of premature outrage.
The White House released a “Statement from President Joe Biden on the Death of World Central Kitchen Workers in Gaza.” The substantive portion:
I am outraged and heartbroken by the deaths of seven humanitarian workers from World Central Kitchen, including one American, in Gaza yesterday. They were providing food to hungry civilians in the middle of a war. They were brave and selfless. Their deaths are a tragedy.
Israel has pledged to conduct a thorough investigation into why the aid workers’ vehicles were hit by airstrikes. That investigation must be swift, it must bring accountability, and its findings must be made public.
Even more tragically, this is not a stand-alone incident. This conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed. This is a major reason why distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza has been so difficult – because Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately needed help to civilians. Incidents like yesterday’s simply should not happen. Israel has also not done enough to protect civilians. The United States has repeatedly urged Israel to deconflict their military operations against Hamas with humanitarian operations, in order to avoid civilian casualties.
The United States will continue to do all we can to deliver humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians in Gaza, through all available means. I will continue to press Israel to do more to facilitate that aid. And we are pushing hard for an immediate ceasefire as part of a hostage deal. I have a team in Cairo working on this right now.
The notion that it’s possible to operate in complete safety in the midst of a horrific war, whether for reporters or humanitarian assistance workers, is misguided. “Outrage” over the specific incident before the investigation is complete is wildly premature, unless US intelligence is telling the President more than is known publicly. His wider concern that Israel is doing too little to protect civilians, however, may be correct.
Regardless, to the extent it had sympathy in the wake of the October 7 massacre, Israel is quickly losing world support. It’s not just the WFK strikes, after all.
NYT (“In a U.N. meeting, U.S., Britain and France do not join the condemnation of an Israeli strike in Syria.”):
In an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, the majority of diplomats condemned Israel, saying that it had violated international laws and breached the U.N. charter that protects diplomatic premises when it bombed an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria.
The United States, France and Britain did not condemn Israel, but they joined other nations in reiterating that diplomatic structures should be considered off limits during wartime and that the airstrikes, on Monday in Damascus, the Syrian capital, had risked plunging the Middle East into further instability.
“Any miscalculation could lead to broader conflict in an already volatile region, with devastating consequences for civilians who are already seeing unprecedented suffering,” Khaled Khiari, the U.N. assistant secretary general, told the Council.
Russia, a close ally of Iran, had called for the meeting to discuss Israel’s attack, after Iran’s mission to the U.N. submitted a letter to the world body arguing that the airstrikes had violated international law. The attacks killed seven members of Iran’s Quds forces, including three generals.
Iran and Syria both attended the meeting and addressed the Council. Israel, which did not attend the meeting, has said that the target was not a diplomatic one because it had been used frequently by Iran’s military commanders and personnel in Syria.
Robert A. Wood, the U.S. representative at the meeting, told the Council that Washington had communicated to Iran that it was not involved in the attack and had no prior knowledge of it. Mr. Wood did not directly criticize Israel, saying instead that the United States was concerned about Iran and its proxy militia’s use of Syrian territory to attack Israeli targets and American bases.
“Any confirmed attack on property that was in fact a diplomatic facility would be of concern to the United States,” Mr. Wood said. “Diplomatic missions and their property, as well as official diplomatic residents, must be protected even in and especially in terms of armed conflict.”
Russia’s ambassador to the U.N., Vasily Nebenzya, said his country was extremely concerned by what he called Israel’s disregard of international rules, and described the attacks as “reckless actions.” Mr. Nebenzya also lashed out at the United States, Britain and France for their “verbal gymnastics” in applying double standards by refusing to directly criticize Israel.
“If it was your embassy that was attacked or your consulate in the region, would you respond in the same way?” Mr. Nebenzya said. “This is your rules-based order in all its glory.”
Which, frankly, is absolute nonsense. If our consular buildings were the headquarters of a globally recognized terrorist group, they would absolutely be legitimate targets. France would not hesitate to do it were its citizens being targeted.
Still, as noted at the time, the risk of escalation is high.
NYT (“Fears grow that an Israeli strike in Syria could spur retaliatory attacks.“):
Current and former U.S. officials expressed fears on Tuesday that Israel’s airstrike on an Iranian embassy compound in Syria could escalate hostilities in the region and prompt retaliatory strikes against Israel and its American ally.
The officials said the attack, which killed three generals in Iran’s Quds Force and four other officers on Monday, had dealt a serious blow to the force, the external military and intelligence service of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Ralph Goff, a former senior C.I.A. official who served in the Middle East, called Israel’s strike “incredibly reckless.”
“It will only result in escalation by Iran and its proxies, which is very dangerous” to American troops in the region who could be targeted in retaliatory strikes by Tehran’s proxies, Mr. Goff said.
Indeed, after the Israeli strike in Damascus, Syria’s capital, American troops based in southeastern Syria knocked down an attack drone, a Defense Department official said. It was unclear if the drone was aimed at the U.S. forces, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational details. If it were, it would be the first attack by Iran-backed militias against American troops in Iraq or Syria in nearly two months. No injuries or damage were reported.
The official said there had been no further attacks overnight, but that Pentagon officials were monitoring the situation closely.
Mr. Goff said the deadly strike in Syria fit Israel’s “longer-term strategy of degrading” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force unit, and “punishing them for ongoing plots to kill or kidnap Israeli Jews around the world.”
In the yearslong shadow war between Iran and Israel, Syria has been key terrain for Israel as it works to degrade Iran’s ability to move advanced weaponry by land and air closer to Israel’s borders.
“The strike yesterday is a significant escalation and risks tipping an already volatile, unstable region into full-scale war,” said Dana Stroul, formerly the Pentagon’s top Middle East policy official who is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “This is the Israeli version of the U.S. strike on Qassim Suleimani,” she said, referring to the former longtime leader of the Quds Force, who was killed by an American drone strike near the Baghdad airport in 2020.
Ms. Stroul said assessing the post-Suleimani era is instructive because the command and control of the Quds Force was degraded.
“We have seen Iran-backed militia groups take decisions into their own hands under the leadership of Qaani, as well the rise of rival power centers in Iran,” Ms. Stroul said, referring to Gen. Ismail Qaani, the current Quds Force commander. “This has led to a more diffuse, but not less lethal, Quds Force-led network abroad. But Iran’s core strategy never changed. Tehran will continue to invest in its terrorist network abroad in order to keep the fight away from its own borders.”
More broadly, Ms. Stroul said, the message is that Islamic Revolutionary Guards “operatives and leaders are not safe anywhere.”
She continued: “It should have strategic effect on how the Quds Force operates abroad and should erode any semblance of invincibility or deniability that this terrorist organization only brings instability and violence to the places it seeks to operate.”
Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., a retired four-star general and former leader of the Pentagon’s Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, said the deaths of the senior Quds Force officers was “a blow.”
“Their long-term, carefully developed relationships will be lost,” he said.
Ms. Stroul said the strike would further inflame Tehran. “The question is, will Iran respond in a manner that de-escalates the situation, or will it climb further up the escalation ladder?” she said.
Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman, sought on Tuesday to tamp down fears of escalation, saying that the United States had no involvement in the airstrike and did not know about it ahead of time.
Ms. Singh said at a news conference that the message had also been conveyed directly to Iran. “Tensions being high in the region, we wanted to make it very clear in private channels that the U.S. had no involvement in the strike in Damascus.”
General McKenzie said he expected Iran would retaliate in some way, but he downplayed fears of a major escalation of hostilities between Israel and Iran.
“Iran’s options to hit Israel are very, very limited,” General McKenzie said. “And the Israelis aren’t going to back down.”
I’m reminded of former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown’s assessment of US-Soviet arms control: “When we build, they build. When we stop, they build.” Iran has been attacking Israel for decades. The notion that not hitting back is going to make them stop is ludicrous.
As to the wreckless of the attack, I’ll cite Bubba of jukebox-shooting fame: “reckless hell, I hit just where I was aimin.'” While I’m skeptical that decapitation strikes are strategically effective, they surely have some psychological impact. And it’s not obvious what other option Israel has at combatting Iran’s chief irregular warfare asset.
The larger picture, though, is the humanitarian catastrophe that is the war in Gaza. The best available estimates have more than 30,000 dead as of late February. That’s more than any Arab-Israeli war since Lebanon in 1982. Oxfam estimated that the toll is some 250 per day, the highest of any recent conflict. Israel claims that more than 10,000 of those are Hamas fighters, out of an estimated 30,000 at the beginning of the war; that’s almost certainly exaggerated.
And, as I’ve argued throughout the conflict, it’s not at all clear what the Netanyahu government’s plan is, or, indeed, whether they have one. This war has been too destructive to chalk it up to “mowing the grass.” Even if the IDF manages to kill 20,000—or, hell, 30,000—Hamas fighters, what’s next? What’s the plan for postwar Gaza?
This, combined with other readings on the topic, bring up these thoughts:
James, I appreciate your general caution, but I urge you to think about this from a political perspective. First, I suspect US intelligence has more info on this incident than the general public.
But let’s assume that isn’t the case. Here’s are public facts that, as far as I can tell, no one is disputing:
– WCK had communicated directly with the Israeli government about their logistics, shared this route with them, and obtained expressed permission to take it. If my understanding is correct, they even got permission to take the route at that specific time.
– WKC was assured that this was a safe corridor by the Israeli government.
– WCK was the Israeli government’s partner is starting to get humanitarian aid to Gaza.
– By all accounts, this attack happened outside of any active conflict zone or immediate combat operation that would have necessitated the immediate use of a drone.
(here’s one round-up article: https://thehill.com/policy/international/4570649-what-to-know-about-the-world-central-kitchen-attack-in-gaza/)
And that’s all before we get to the fact that the strike was based on flawed intelligence that there was a single potential fighter in the convoy. I realize this sounds like second-guessing, but it seems to me that there were other traditionally used methods to deal with this problem, including checkpoints and stops.
I understand a perspective that the Israeli strategy involves avoiding checkpoints to minimize danger to troops, but remotely killing 7 aide workers from the only organization that you are willing to allow to provide aid is beyond reckless. Your target not even being in the convoy that was moving through a noncombat zone on a path you had approved for them to take is outrageous.
Or rather, it’s outrageous to a lot of the voting population in nations that have been Israel’s allied states. This gets to how this is increasingly a political problem for Biden (and it would be for any President who wasn’t generally ride-or-die Israel).
There’s also a bigger issue on the horizon: famine.
A significant portion of those numbers were directly killed in combat operations. What all experts are pointing to is that, even if the fighting stops tomorrow, the number of combat deaths may be matched by those killed by famine, disease, and overall lack of medical treatment for chronic conditions.
The killing of the WCK aid workers–intentional or not (and again, there can be varying degrees of intentionality here)–is having a profound impact on the aid situation. Agencies are understandably suspending their operations. After all, if this is the way Israel treats its on the ground partners–including their response that so far has been “we made a oopsie, but hey that’s war for you”–is only going to make an existing crisis worse (and further harm domestic opinion Israel’s allied states).
https://apnews.com/article/world-central-kitchen-gaza-humanitarian-aid-suspension-4a2d5bfa131ccd9984fe47076880b6b9
@Matt Bernius:
In addition to this, the convoy was attacked three times until everyone was dead.
Outrage is warranted, I’d say.
It has long been the policy of the Israeli government to try to get the US to go to war with Iran on its behalf. Biden needs to make it clear this is not going to happen.
It has recently been the policy of Israel that they only need the Republicans and the Religious Right as American allies and they are free to treat Democrats with scorn and contempt. They are actively and publicly meddling in US domestic politics.
Biden is absolutely correct in putting distance between us and Israel. Whatever that country was 50 years ago, it is not that country today. It is just another f*cked up Middle Eastern / North African country engaging in wars over territory. We should not be allied with it in any special way, but rather cooperate when mutually beneficial ala Saudi Arabia or Jordan.
We’re still criticizing them with one hand while sending billions in aid with the other. I begrudge Israel every small arms round, 155 shell, and airplane that would serve our interests better in Ukraine.
“…unless US intelligence is telling the President more than is known publicly.”
They damn well better be – what else are we paying them for?
@drj:
Ok, so here comes the part where I will appear (and perhaps I am) arguing out of both sides of my mouth.
From a public outrage thing, I totally get why the three attempts are outrageous.
And, I also understand that once the drone operator decided that the transport was a valid target (and got whatever approval was required to initiate the strike), attacking it three times is what I would expect. I wouldn’t expect that the drone operator would check back with their commander after each miss.
That said, what will be important to investigate is the degree to which the convoy communicated with its military contacts about coming under fire during the incident—I haven’t seen any reportage about that. If it turns out that they informed the government and there was no way in real time to stop the attack… then things will get increasingly worse for Israel and it’s allies.
@Matt Bernius:
Here’s what bothers me: how do you know who is inside a car?
I can think of three ways.
1) You’re inside the car and can see who’s in it.
2) You see the target board the car.
3) You get a tip that the target boarded the car.
Option 1 seems unlikely. The other two involve identifying the vehicle in question as well as its route. This should be correlated with known movements of friendly and neutral traffic in the area.
So there seems to be incompetence or depraved indifference involved.
BTW, Nicholas Grossman, who is a recognized expert on drone warfare (including the legal use during conflicts) posted the following which reflects my POV on the issue:
Grossman is by no means a dove.
The overall message is that regardless of what top commanders say, the military’s actions suggest that the lives of Isreali soldiers are worth more than civilians in Gaza, reporters, or foreign aid workers. That’s not a great hill for an allied nation to die on.
@Matt Bernius:
If for no other reason than PR, Biden is right to call Israel out on this. Too much, too visible to sweep under the rug. And chef Andrés is a secular saint.
@gVOR10:
The only way to get Ukraine what it needs from Congress is to leverage Israel aid to force the Evangelical MAGAts.
@MarkedMan:
One of the reasons that calls for ‘cutting them off’ is futile is that it would take Congress about five minutes to appropriate whatever Israel wants.
But I fear Israel has another option, beyond the GOP and pro-Israel Dems. I think their future is as allies of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The KSA needs a fukton of tech to build their miles-long NEOM. Who are they going to call for that? Egypt? Iraq? China could do it, but far better for Saudis to avoid getting in the middle of that superpower pissing match.
And I believe in Sunni eyes this whole Hamas war is just part of the Saudi-Iranian fight, which is why there’s barely a whisper from the famous ‘Arab Street.’ (Which were always in large part government-sponsored rent-a-mobs.) Who’s going to help MBS fight Iran if not us? Israel. The interests are aligned.
In fact, should MBS decide he needs nukes, who’s going to help him build them? The nuclear power right next door.
I suspect our time in the ME is fading whether we like it or not. We’re only really needed for our naval forces in the Red Sea and Gulf.
A phrase you often hear in left wing circles is “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism”. This phrase arose in response to the common situation of trying to obtain some good from an ethical supplier and either being unable to evaluate the options because the complex supply chains make it impossible to know where things are really coming from, or even worse knowing that all of the options are unethical, but in different ways.
The phrase was intended to remind us to extend ourselves a little grace and to just focus on doing the best we can and not blaming ourselves for the immorality of a system we didn’t design or volunteer to participate in.
The problem is that some people started using it as an excuse to not care about the ethics of suppliers at all and just ignore openly criminal behavior.
I see a similar thing happening to “innocents die in war”. The point of that phrase is that we should avoid resolving disputes through violence at all costs, not that reckless disregard for collateral damage is no big deal.
@Michael Reynolds:
On this, we agree, sir. If we live in a just world, it is a matter of when, not if, Chef Andres gets his well-deserved Nobel peace prize.
It’s interesting to compare/contrast this with the 2021 drone strike in Afghanistan in the closing days of that conflict that killed a family and not terrorists. There are actually a lot of parallels in the situations.
@Matt Bernius:
I think Grossman is mistaken in the seemingly common assumption that Israel knew it was striking aid vehicles and did so just because some guy “snuck” into an SUV.
The logic of that scenario makes zero sense.
The much more likely and common explanation is that the vehicles were initially misidentified as not being aid vehicles but enemy vehicles, and whatever processes Israel might have had to cross-check that and deconflict were not followed. This is very often what happens in these situations, including the 2021 US drone strike in Afghanistan and many, many others over the last two decades.
@Andy:
You obviously have more on the ground expertise than I have. As such I have a question based on this comment:
Can you unpack for those of us who haven’t served how this bad of a cross-checking failure happens?
The reporting is that the cars had been checked and the military had approved the route. So is it the case that drone ops didn’t look to see that approval?
And given that this was not in an active conflict zone, what procedure should be followed in a case like this (especially when the vehicles had roof wraps that clearly identified them as aid vehicles)?
Or is the assumption that an aid vehicle is never an aid vehicle?
Or is the assumption that any threat is imminent enough to make this the primary response–even if the threat is not currently engaged in combat.
I understand comms failures, but this seems like a cascade of errors and miscommunications. That said, at the end of the day, I’ve never been involved in these types of operations.
Like all of us Grossman is working with public information. However, given his past outputs on the topic, I’m unconvinced his reading is unwarranted.
Are you thinking of the one that occurred after the airport bombing and in proximity of the airport? If so I’d love an unpacking of that. I remember the generalities of that case, but would love to understand more of the comparable details. (BTW, that’s totally a round-to-it request).
@Michael Reynolds:
Yep. It will be a long, slow process and I’m glad Biden is positioning us to begin that process (or to coax Israel back onto a sane pathway, but that doesn’t seem very likely). I suspect it will be similar to the US and the rest of the West moving away from South Africa. South Africa was sure the West had their back regardless of what they did, until their support dried up. The Congressional Hawks, Dem or Repub, would never back away, or so SA though. It takes a long time to turn something with that momentum but once it has reached a certain point it can’t be turned back.
Re: Israel ally with other repressive regimes, such as Saudi Arabia. It’s inevitable. Repressive regimes and regimes raging war for territorial gains are pariahs except to other such regimes.
@Matt Bernius:
Last I heard was that there was supposed to be one armed militant. (A claim that doesn’t exactly bear scrutiny, but whatever.)
Destroying three trucks and killing seven civilians in order to get one supposed militant who wasn’t at that time a direct threat to anyone is clearly disproportional.
That there were three separate strikes does matter, in fact.
@Matt Bernius:
I can only speak in generalities, so keep that in mind.
Several possibilities here. I’m guessing, but the military elements who check and approve the route probably report that info into a database or some other reporting method which the combat units have access to and are supposed to check as part of the target identification process before striking. At least that’s the way the US did it, but my understanding is that Israel operates similarly. There will also likely be a command-and-control network for exchanging live information – in the US this was both a voice comms network and a chat room network, where all the various players could communicate and also where the authority for strikes was given. Whoever was tasked with tracking noncombatant vehicles and convoys would be part of one or both of these, would be seeing the drone video feeds, and would have the info to know or raise questions prior to a strike authorization.
Now, I don’t know how Israel does things, but clearly, something broke in whatever process there is between the elements that coordinate and approve routes and the drone operations and whoever is the approval authority for strikes. At least that’s my view. I do not subscribe to the theory that Israel knew it was an aid convoy and decided to attack anyway for reasons that I would hope are obvious.
I think it is an active combat zone. There is still a lot of fighting going on in different parts of Gaza – for example, the Shifa hospital complex was just recleared of several hundred Hamas fighters after two weeks of fighting. Similarly in Iraq and Afghanistan, we followed and blew up lots of vehicles that you might not think were in an “active combat zone” but those wars, like in Gaza, aren’t entirely conventional wars with neat front lines. The opponents are using unconventional tactics and operate in rear areas dressed as civilians, so all of Gaza is a combat zone, and I doubt there is any place that is considered secure.
Secondly, these attacks took place at night. The roof wraps are not visible on the infrared cameras used by drones at night. On IR, these look like any other SUV. There was no way for the drone operators to visually identify these vehicles as aid vehicles. This is why the coordination and deconfliction process is so important.
One potential change is that Israel could give aid vehicles IR beacons as identification at night. Of course, once Hamas found out, they would try to use that for protection, but it’s something worth doing.
In a war, once you’ve determined that something or someone is an enemy, you can kill it at any time. There is no requirement that there be an imminent threat. This is not counterterrorism. On the missions I was involved with, once the decision was made to strike, the focus shifted to optimizing weapon employment to ensure a high probability of kill, and collateral damage reduction. We would wait to strike, for example, until a vehicle was in an open area with no one else around.
But it’s important to stress that in war, the enemy can be killed anywhere, anytime. We have, in past wars, hit barracks with Tomahawks in first strikes hoping to kill a lot of soldiers while they sleep. There is no moral or legal requirement to allow the enemy time to present a threat first – indeed, allowing an enemy to do that is foolish. People really should not confuse what is going on with counter-terrorism operations.
I think it is very likely a cascade of failures. For big mistakes, that is almost always the case. Very rarely is something like this due to a single point of failure.
@MarkedMan: The idea of Saudi Arabia as a reliable ally/intermediary strikes me as peculiar, but we’re living in strange times, I guess.
@Andy:
In cases when there is a real risk of collateral damage, this is, of course, entirely wrong.
@Andy: I find the comparison less interesting given that I was outraged about the previous one, too.
@Kathy:
At this point I’m reluctant to grant the IDF enough credibility to believe this mysterious gunman ever existed. The Gaza version of ” he reached for his waistband”.
@Andy:
Because tribalism prompts some of us to search for tortured excuses for the militaristic misadventures of America and our allies?
No one is confusing the Netanyahu’s IDF’s wanton hot mess recklessness and indiscriminate killing with counter-terrorism.
@drj:
If you’d read my entire comment, you would have seen where I acknowledged collateral damage risk.
But yes, “anytime” is contingent on other factors. I used that wording to address the incorrect assumption that Israel is or should be required to wait for a threat to materialize, much less an imminent one, before attacking. They do not need to wait.
And in this case, they hit the vehicle with low-collateral damage weapons and struck them in areas where other people would not be killed. Once they made the terrible error of striking the wrong targets, they did so in a way that avoided collateral damage.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Understandably so.
It’s useful to compare not only the differences in reactions to similar events, but also as a example of what can go wrong in war time. There are a bunch of examples where the US made huge errors that are directly comparable to this incident IMO.
@Matt Bernius: I’ve seen reports that NGOs and governments have been complaining that Israel failed to set up a robust deconfliction apparatus as is common in other conflict zones.
I just saw some IDF spokesperson (star mean general on IDF uniforms?) saying that it was a confusing military situation and that the IFD will conduct a thorough, transparent investigation. Maddening. It’s a confusing military situation the IDF created and apparently has done little to mitigate. And if you believe it’s going to be thorough and transparent I have a $59.99 bible for you. Just maddening.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: The comparison actually is apt, but not because it plays into any one government’s attempts to blunt critique by playing victim.
The outrage comparison with dead Afghan civilians shows, again, how little we value the lives of brown people. As would the more apt and immediate comparison between the WFK aid workers and, you know, the tends of thousands of dead civilians Gazans whose deaths the IDF is pretending to try to avoid — including the Arab journalists it’s killed.
The comparison will also prompt memory of Biden getting the United States Congress authorizing payments of millions of dollars to the surviving family, and trying to relocate them to the US while paying for their legal representation.
Will Netanyahu urge the Knesset to authorize millions to any family whose people were killed in error in Gaza, or offer relocation to Israel? Oh.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
We have had military installations in Saudi Arabia since 1961.
NYT posted a Guest Essay from Chef Andres. Guest link, please read the whole thing.
Benny Gantz, Israeli war cabinet minister, has just called for elections to be held in September. These events feeling like a turning point.
Hamas is winning this war. Hamas wanted this war, Israel gave them this war, and Hamas is winning this war. Israel will be far more isolated and alone after this war than before it, even if they win every battle.
And it’s worth noting that we don’t hear of a lot of Hamas troops fighting Israeli occupation. They’re mostly stepping out of the way, and drifting into the population. (Someone is going to mention war crimes, and it won’t be wrong, but it changes nothing.)
It was dumb for Israel to give Hamas the war they wanted. It was dumb six months ago, and it is dumb now. Israel needs to de-escalate and unwind their war, and shift to a less destructive strategy that kills fewer random Palestinians.
@DK:
Who is being the tribalist? Those who have lept to the conclusion that Israel, completely contrary to basic logic and its own interests, deliberately and knowingly struck an aid convoy? The venn diagram just happens to coincide with the group that hates Israel?
I am merely extremely skeptical of that claim not because of some tribal affinity for Israel; it’s because of the historical record that incidents like these are almost always mistakes and not the sort of malevolence being alleged, and secondly, because the scenario being described is logically absurd on a number of levels.
However, if evidence comes out showing that theory is right, then I’ll change my view based on changed facts.
If you want to revisit this in the future when all the facts are in and have a mea culpa to see who was and wasn’t correct, I’m very much willing to do that.
On the contrary, there is much confusion and magical thinking, and also the asymmetry where de facto Hamas sympathizers continually ignore the realities of urban warfare, demand magical solutions only from one side of the conflict, and blame all the killing only on one side.
As for “Netanyahu’s IDF” you are smart and well-informed enough to know that Israel is democracy currently under a unity government with the war managed by a war cabinet and not directly by Netanyahu. It is, in short, not “Netanyahu’s IDF.”
@Neil Hudelson:
Yep, very much a turning point. I think Israel’s war is effectively over at this point. An offensive in Rafah is very unlikely. Hamas will survive and retake Gaza. Israel will pay a very high price to get hostages back with a very weak hand. Overall, my estimate is that this will result in a strategic loss for Israel, a pyrrhic victory for Hamas, and a very uncertain future.
@Andy:
The United States is not a functioning democracy. Israel, less so.
You know that Hamas and Israel both receive blame for deaths in Gaza. Much like Netanyahu is doing — and like Trump would do — you’re just not telling the truth. A desperate attempt to blunt criticism of Israeli misconduct with a lame strawman argument.
That may work with childish fringe leftists and the easily-manipulated deplorables of MAGA-land, but you ought to know better here.
Those being tribalist are they who are incapable of recognizing Israeli or Palestinian transgressions — as demonstrated by meeting any critique of said transgressions with sophmoric “look over there instead!” whining about asymmetry. Symmetry or asymmetry: Netanyahu is a failed leader and his IDF is a hot mess. Netanyahu has been in in charge of Israel for most of the past two decades. Thus, the buck stops at his desk more than any other “democratic” leader. Yes, it is his IDF. Absolutely.
Anyone who can think further than Netanyahu’s perpetual-victim propaganda knows it’s no to conclude Israel would act in its own interest. Netanyahu’s incompetence in Gaza and elsewhere combines Bush-level arrogance with Trump-level malevolence. Netanyahu and his supporters have made Israel less safe. The list of egregious errors before, on, and after 7 Oct are legion.
Imagine excusing Netanyahu’s Israel repeatedly walking face-first into misguided decisions they thought were in their interest. They wouldn’t act out of their interest? They already do all the time, from funding and boosting Hamas to alienating allies to enabling settler terrorism in the West Bank.
Loyalty is admirable. Enabling is not. You don’t need haters when your supposed friends prop-up your self-destructive behaviors. In my book, hatred is as hatred does.
@Andy:
Thank you, as always, for the care in the explanation. That was super thorough. I don’t have any questions as this is passing way beyond my knowledge to ask any more (semi-)intelligent questions.
@gVOR10:
That essay is powerful.
@Andy:
Israel is a democracy in the same way 1980’s South Africa was a democracy – for certain people, with huge segments of the population defined out of having any rights, and another significant segment of the population having reduced defacto rights. But yes, for one section of the population, it is a democracy.
@Andy: Those who have lept to the conclusion that Israel, completely contrary to basic logic and its own interests, deliberately and knowingly struck an aid convoy? The venn diagram just happens to coincide with the group that hates Israel?
Half of this country, including virtually the entire Republican party, will back anything Israel does unless they go nuclear. I think Israel knew what they were doing and decided that the hell with aid workers, no one is telling us what to do. But that is my opinion. I do consider your last remark about the ven diagram to be totally disingenuous. Israel has crossed many lines they have never crossed before, and it is not just Israel haters that strenuously oppose their actions.
@SenyorDave:
As a past and future therapist, let me warn nobody in particular that if you start getting massive amounts of negative feedback, especially if from a huge swath of your closest allies, and the response of some of your alleged loved ones is, “Ignore it! They’re all just haters!”…
…you should run. Those loved one are lying to you. About what you are doing, about the substance of the critique you’re hearing, and about knowing how to be a good friend.
Seen it many times. Enablers are just as dangerous as enemies. And typically, they are looking out for their own ego and comfort, not your best interest.
@MarkedMan: So I’m not allowed to be puzzled by the idea of KSA as a reliable ally? My mistake!! 🙁
ETA: RE Next comment down:
It’s very kind of Chef Andres to believe that Israelis are better than how the war is being fought considering that they keep electing a government that fights wars this way. Once again, I find yet another person that is a better human than I am. But at least I have goals to aspire to while I’m misunderstanding what I’m allowed to be mystified by.
@Andy: “Who is being the tribalist? Those who have lept to the conclusion that Israel, completely contrary to basic logic and its own interests, deliberately and knowingly struck an aid convoy? The venn diagram just happens to coincide with the group that hates Israel?”
You can ask either James or Stephen about non-unitary actors.
A stunning (not in a good way) investigation:
@drj: That seems of a piece with whatever shitty process led to the strike on the WCK people.
Also, as reported yesterday by Haaretz:
No control from the top, no discipline from the bottom. This was always going to happen. It was never a matter of if, always a matter of when.
Also reported in the WaPo earlier today is that WCK had previously complained to the IDF that IDF snipers were shooting at WCK vehicles. Make of that what you will.
@Mikey:
It reminds me of Stochastic Terrorism. You demonize people, dehumanize people, and then when the inevitable happens to those people or the people who are feeding them, it’s a “tragedy”
Is it a breakdown of discipline, or a very deliberate loose discipline?
@Andy:
Israel has certainly been acting as they are pretty ok with creating a humanitarian disaster in Gaza. From the beginning, cutting access to food, water and power.
They accused UN relief workers of being involved with Hamas and the 10/6 attacks, and drove them out. US intelligence has “low confidence” in those allegations. And now CWK is halting or pausing operations.
I’m not sure that you and the Israeli government agree on what Israel’s interests are.
They may not have deliberately set out to kill some aid workers, but I don’t think they are particularly bothered by it either.
The Israeli government has shared no goals as to what they are expecting the post-war status quo of Gaza to be. They either don’t have a plan, or this is the plan. It’s either an indifference to the death and suffering, or the death and suffering is the goal.
But then, they’ve also had no plan for the Palestinians for the past few decades. A two state solution is off the table, as is integrating the Palestinians into Israeli society as equals. They just want their excess population — largely people born in occupied territories, under the occupation at this point — to go away.
Israel is a country with 6 million “Israelis”, and three million Palestinians, where the Palestinians have greatly curtailed rights and freedom of movement. I think any country that subjects one third of its population to this treatment deserves at least a little condemnation, if not outright hate.
@Mikey:
And a true friend will tell you when you’re out of control, that you’re headed down a dark path, and that you need to pull your shit together. A true friend will tell you when you’re being an asshole. Further, a true friend will decline to participate in or co-sign your victim-mentality, self-harm and suicidal ideation.
A true friend does not run interference for your antisocial behaviors, nor provide ammunition and tequila shots while you’re busy shooting yourself in the foot.
It’s long been clear that Netanyahu, like Trump, is a selfish, self-serving prick who cares only about himself — not the nation he purports to lead. Like the leftists who claim to support Palestinians but who are angling for a renewed Trump-Netanyahu alliance, it’s not at all clear that Israel’s more moderate and conservative so-called friends actually care about making Israelis safer and more secure. Seems they’re more wedded to the comfort of the status quo and their own priors, no matter the actual damage to Israel.
Folks like Chuck Schumer, and the Israelis in the streets of Tel Aviv this week demanding Netanyahu’s immediate resignation, are doing what Israel’s fake friends won’t.
@Gustopher:
This from Haaretz would tell you it’s the latter:
@Andy: “Who is being the tribalist? Those who have lept to the conclusion that Israel, completely contrary to basic logic and its own interests, deliberately and knowingly struck an aid convoy? The venn diagram just happens to coincide with the group that hates Israel?”
You know, there has been a lot of discussion of the likely interests of the people and factions running Israel. For many of them, their interests might well be served by, umm, ‘optimizing collateral damage’.
@Andy:
OK, so in your expert opinion: how many innocent civilians is it OK to kill per Hamas fighter, in this case? One? Five? A thousand? Presumably somewhere in there you would acknowledge a failure of proportionality… where is that line?
Now, throw in deliberately starving civilians to death, including children. How many deaths are justified, per Hamas fighter inconvenienced?
The attack on the WCK convoy didn’t happen in isolation. It happened as yet one more event in a systematic pattern of indifference to or (worse yet) deliberate infliction of civilian casualties. This is not “it’s a war, shit happens”. You can’t divorce the drone operations ROE from cutting off food and water, from herding people from their homes, from bombing hospitals where there might maybe be some bad guys. Occam’s Razor is not on your side here.
@Andy:
A recent article from Haaretz had some interesting quotes down from the top aways, a reservist saying there are no clear ROEs, which would fit the events we are seeing.
To me this suggests the IDF is not in the habit of establishing clear ROEs like we do. They may be learning the hard way, I guess, that they need to.
@DrDaveT: silly question… Israel can’t fail, it can only be failed.
Too many comments about Gaza refer to a “horrific war” as if it’s an act of God; an unavoidable situation in which the IDF has to do its best to fight the enemy while trying to limit civilian casualties.
The truth is that the IDF is engaged on a military operation of choice, which the Netanyahu government decided to launch in the full knowledge that massive Palestinian death and suffering were inevitable. Whether these were regarded as flaws or features of the operation, Israel is solely responsible for the consequences of the “horrific war” that followed.
It’s timely to recall the editorial that Haaretz published on the day following the Hamas attack. An editorial whose sentiments have been brushed aside in most commentary on the conflict that has been published since.
“A recent article from Haaretz had some interesting quotes…, a reservist saying there are no clear ROEs, which would fit the events we are seeing.”
I think we can acknowledge that Israel has very different standards than the U.S. in the conduct of military operations, and they haven’t been more measured and discriminating in Gaza despite urging from the Biden administration.
During an interview this evening, a retired U.S. LTG Hodges repeatedly made the point that the IDF has a much higher tolerance for collateral damage than the U.S. Former deputy Nat Sec Advisor Rhodes’ responded to Netanyahu’s “this happens” with “No, it doesn’t…”
@Matt Bernius: @Matt Bernius:
Hi Matt, like your posts. Some sources say there was a Hamas member at the WCK depot but he did not go in the convoy. Could this be a Hamas “sting”? The Israelis may have traced an important Hamas operative’s cell phone. They programmed the drone to strike this phone. But Hamas guessed they would do this this and planted the cell-phone in a food truck. When it was hit, Palestinian by-standers rushed to help the wounded into the next vehicle. Someone also put the phone in the next vehicle. And so on till all vehicles were struck. This has been brilliant publicity for Hamas. Their whole war has been about undermining support for Israel. Hamas could well have engineered this.