Ezra Klein on Israel and Hamas
The best statement on the complexity of the Israel-Hamas conflict that I have heard/read.
I highly recommend this audio essay from The Ezra Klein Show, Israel Is Giving Hamas What It Wants. The transcript can be read via the link if you prefer not to listen. The overall essay is one of the best, in my view, outlining the situation and reflecting my overall position.
I would especially note the following passage, as it eloquently captures my views about the dangers inherent in an Israeli overreaction and why I said that some of the commenters sounded like Dick Cheney to me.
Israel’s 9/11 — that’s been the refrain. And I fear that analogy carries more truth than the people making it want it to. Because what was 9/11? It was an attack that drowned an entire country — our country, my country, America — in terror and in rage. It drove us mad with fear.
And in response, we shredded our own liberties. We invaded Afghanistan. We invaded Iraq. Our response to 9/11 led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. It made us weaker. It made us poorer. It made us hated around the world. We didn’t pull our forces out of Afghanistan until 2021, 20 years later. And when we left, we did so in humiliation and catastrophe and defeat, abandoning the country to the Taliban.
Our politics still haven’t recovered from the ravages of that era. It was, in large part, the invasion of Iraq that discredited the Republican Party’s leadership class, leading directly to the rise of Donald Trump. 9/11 created a permission structure in American politics to do incredibly stupid brutal things, and we are still paying the costs. Perhaps we always will be.
[…]
If you loathe Hamas, and you should loathe Hamas, you should assume that the place they’re trying to lead us is not where we should be trying to go. If you don’t think Netanyahu’s rule has made Israel safer, or more united, or closer to a resolution of the fundamental threats that face it — and it hasn’t — you should not yourself be cowed into trusting his instincts in this moment. That’s a lesson Americans learned, or should have learned, from 9/11, the one we have to pass on now.
Terrorists want you to act in a haze of fury and fear. The only antidote is to open yourself to criticism and second-guessing. If you don’t, you find yourself doing exactly what they wanted you to do. And you can do terrible damage to yourself and terrible damage to the world, damage they could have never inflicted on their own.
I really do think that the US’s reaction to 9/11 (to include myself, by the way) should be taken as a massive cautionary tale.
At any rate, I commend the entire piece. I think it is just over a 15-minute listen.
It’s the usual liberal mush. Hamas is evil, vengeance is reasonable and necessary but not really because innocents might be killed, so something should be done but I don’t know what, so I’m presenting my non-plan for inaction. The important thing is not to have a plan, not to actually do anything, but to posture as impotently reasonable. TLDR: Die, Jews, and just kind of deal with it.
There is no easy solution here. There isn’t even a really hard solution here. There is however a lot of people sanctimoniously demanding that someone do something to make it all end happily. This is the thinking of children, wondering why mommy can’t keep them from getting measles but without the shot. Wah. Sometimes all the choices suck and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. That’s what makes this a tragedy and not a sitcom.
The comparison with 911 is wrong. The existence of the United States was never in question. Israel’s existence is very much in question. And, by the way, despite our failure in Afghanistan I can’t help but observe that the Taliban is keeping a very tight lid on Al Qaeda. We are not seeing a new wave of terrorism coming out of Afghanistan because even the Taliban realize we don’t need forces in-country to fly B-52s over Kabul.
I despise Netanyahu and the settlers and Likud. The Palestinians have genuine beef, they’ve been screwed by history. There: nuance, context. So? So with all that context, so what? Right: so not a damn thing, because see paragraph 1 above: there is no solution. It doesn’t matter if Israelis kill 10 Gazan children or a thousand, the same people will hate Israel with the same ferocity. And if they don’t hit Hamas hard enough, Hamas declares victory and gets ready for the next round.
By the way the whole ‘retaliation will only breed more terrorists’ is bullshit, it’s a romantic western notion that ignores history. Seen many ISIS around lately? The Saudis are ready to hop in bed with Israel, where’s Al Qaeda which so famously freaked out over US bases in the KSA? Their ‘just grievances’ weren’t addressed, they were just killed. Which is what Israel proposes to do to Hamas.
@Michael Reynolds:
Thank you, Michael, for finally stating the key axiom that makes the rest of your position explicable.
@DrDaveT:
No, the key axiom is: there is at present no good solution, so it’s down to brute force and competitive virtue signaling. We’re watching a train wreck in slow-motion and crying, “Oh no!”
Gee, it turns out Hamas did burn people alive and cut off heads:
@DrDaveT:
“This Should Clarify”
Some discussion of currently trendy thinking.
Nice piece, thanks for sharing.
Unlike Bush post-9/11, Netanyahu’s current standing in Israel is, um, not good to say the least. Most Israelis seem to understand, at least right, that empowering Netanyahu and his extremist conservative yahoos was a grave error that helped create this hellish moment.
The question is after Hamas is neutered (if), and after Netanyahu is gone, what comes next. Are Benny Gantz or Yair Lapid and Mahmoud ABBA’s able to recommit to an honest and two-state solution — and will Israelis and Palestinians actually let them deal? I don’t see it happening. And if not, what then? Endless bloodshed?
Either way, the US cannot allow itself drawn into a boots-on-the-ground Middle Eastern war anti-democratic authoritarians, and there’s no good reason why the US should tie our global reputation to the decisions of a government led by Netanyahu or anyone like him.
Calling it “Israel’s 9-11” is just as useless as calling it “Israel’s Pearl Harbor” because invoking historical comparisons like that tends to obscure key differences and suggest a course of action which probably isn’t wise.
The key point, that Israel can be making some of the same mistakes as we did after 9-11 could easily be true, but in order to verify that, one needs to imagine a different, better, course of action.
I don’t have any in mind, frankly, but that’s why I don’t pose as a pundit offering advice to world leaders.
I really don’t know if there is any level of killing and destruction which can convince the Palestinians (and their chosen leaders) to accept Israel’s right to exist which is a precondition to any solution.
@Michael Reynolds:
Here is another piece expanding on your point:
“Persuasion”
@Michael Reynolds:
Given that Israel has one third of the population stuck in reservations with greatly limited rights, massive poverty, a blockade and frequent bombing from their Air Force, I think that Israel’s existence in its current state should be questioned.
It’s also just not a stable situation, unless you are ok with periodic attacks from the occupied territories and then another wave of violence every few years.
If you’re looking for an American historical analogy, Custer’s Last Stand might be a better analogy — a sudden victory by The Other than leads to a massive backlash.
@charontwo:
It’s the apartheid. It’s the directly benefiting from ongoing oppression of a third of the people in the borders of their country. It’s the failure to do anything to create a more stable situation.
This isn’t a hard or profound question.
Let’s say you have a friend who is fond of binge drinking once a week, and drives home, a wee bit drunk. When the inevitable happens and he smashes into a tree and is injured, do you feel bad? Sure. Do you feel that it is grossly unfair? No, it was basically inevitable and you’ve kind of built that expected tragedy into the relationship years ago.
That’s a lot of people’s relationship with Israel. They are a lot more like us than the Palestinians are, so we are generally friendly with them. But this is as inevitable as that tree. We’ve mentioned the Palestinians and the drinking before, but there’s only so much you can do for someone who doesn’t want help.
@Michael Reynolds:
Quite.
On that basis Germany and Japan should have been hotbeds of revenge seeking terrorism and radical revanchism after WW2.
As it turns out, having your armed forces mashed into a bloody pulp, and your cities bombed into smoking rubble, actually inclines a lot of people to decide there’s something to be said for the quiet life.
There were no “good solutions” to the “German question”.
So it was eventually resolved with a very bad solution.
For the Germans.
Who were, generally, sensible enough to look at East Prussia, Silesia, the DDR, and the Morgenthau Plan, not to mention Hiroshima, and decide it could have ended up even worse.
It’s very likely that if Israel pulled out of the West Bank tomorrow, and left Gaza alone, Hamas would remain entrenched in Gaza, and still determined on its minimal goal of “right of return” = “from the River to the Sea” = the end of Israel.
A West Bank settlement would, in and of itself, do nothing to make life in Gaza any better, and is not likely to modify Hamas’s rule of force there.
An observation:
People in the West tend to forget that about half the population of Israel is descended NOT from the voluntary settlers and Holocaust survivor refugees from European Jewry, but of the Mizrahim, the Jews of the Arab Middle East, who were pogrom-ed and expropriated in the aftermath of Israel’s survival in 1948.
At as time when the West Bank and Gaza were controlled by Jordan and Egypt, respectively.
And that the Palestinian fedayeen and the PLO regularly attacked Israel during the 20 years between 1948 and 1968, when the West Bank and Gaza were not occupied.
And Egypt, Syria and (half-heartedly) Jordan continued to plan for the extirpation of Israel.
So, a lot of Israelis are understandably skeptical about assertions that this time their enemies would be willing to make a lasting resolution.
Please note: this does not mean I think either Likud or the West Bank militant settlers are either justified or sensible in their policies.
IMUHO Israel would do better, militarily, morally, and political propaganda wise, to vacate the West Bank unilaterally.
But, as said, that would likely do little to change the situation in Gaza one iota.
This assumes Netanyahu is now the main decider.
I seriously doubt that.
More likely the Matkal, that is, the IDF, is now in the driving seat, Halevi and Gallant controlling the operations, with Netanyahu and Gantz as roughly equal in signing off their recommendations. And if Gantz is not consulting Lapid, I’d be surprised.
It’s obvious that Netanyahu is finished, politically.
@JohnSF:
Hamas’ political leadership is based in Qatar. There is a lot of money flowing into Gaza through places like Qatar, it all goes to buying weapons and ordnance, building tunnels, building weapon manufacturing facilities, like that. In general, supporting Hamas’ religious/military agenda and political entrenchment..
And, BTW, Hamas is closely associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
“By the way the whole ‘retaliation will only breed more terrorists’ is bullshit, it’s a romantic western notion that ignores history. Seen many ISIS around lately? ”
It’s pretty much what we found in Iraq and Afghanistan. Early in Iraq we weren’t so careful about Iraqi lives, we were torturing them and we had contractors shooting stuff up for fun. Resistance increased and the population didnt see much reason to support our efforts. We cut back on that and more selectively killed AQ/ISIS and they became less of a problem. (They also moved out of the country.) It helped that ISI/AQ was incredibly brutal so once the tribes saw that our behavior was markedly better than ours they became helpful. We saw some of the same in Afghanistan. We had major problems with intel as the Afghanis were using us to get revenge on neighbors and we famously bombed wedding parties and other groups that were not Taliban. This made people sympathetic to the Taliban and not helpful to us as well as providing more recruits. Anyway, read Kilcullen’s Accidental Guerrilla. He covers not only Iraq and Afghanistan but IIRC 4 or 5 other conflicts like East Timor.
Steve
@charontwo:
Indeed, Ikhwanites allied with Iranians, which is a fairly surprising turn of events.
It’s a funny old world.
In very bad way sometimes.
@JohnSF:
I suppose that if the Israelis take over Gaza and then pour billions into creating a democratic state (while also working on their own) we might have an analogy here.
@Michael Reynolds: Where is anyone (i.e., Klein or myself) objecting to Israel taking out Hamas? It would be nice if you addressed the actual points being made.
And speaking of history, I would note that the history of the region is very much one of violence begetting violence. But let’s not conflate Hamas with all Gazans, because the treatment of Gazans is the issue that Klein (and myself) are concerned about–not about going after Hamas.
@steve: Of course, part of the point about Iraq is that ISIS emerged in reaction to the US invasion.
@Chip Daniels: For me the issue is not whether 9/11 is a a great analogy. The point for me, and in the quoted passage, is the way in which US reaction to 9/11 had some costly consequences for the US, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
@Michael Reynolds: Was someone around here denying Hamas’ brutality?
@Michael Reynolds: How the force is used is still a relevant question.
@Steven L. Taylor:
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/on-strategy-law-and-morality-in-israel-s-gaza-operation
snip
Lots more at the link than the quoted excerpts.
See the paragraph I emphasized:
@charontwo: Do you think I am saying that Israel should not respond militarily?
@charontwo: Also: did you read/listen to the entire Klein piece?
@Steven L. Taylor:
I read your description of it and I am sure I have read a vast number of pieces making similar points.
I have yet to listen to my first podcast, I just do not have the patience for podcasts as I read a lot faster than people talk.
I looked at the NYT site but could not find the transcript.
I dont know if you would call it a hotbed of revenge but there were hundreds of attacks on US citizens/soldier in Germany in the first 3 years after the war. There were many acts of sabotage ad they didnt keep track of fights were no one was seriously hurt. As I recall this was not such an issue in Japan probably because the Emperor had approved the surrender.
https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/Other/14-F-0091_attacks_on_American_troops_postwar_Germany.pdf
Steve
“Of course, part of the point about Iraq is that ISIS emerged in reaction to the US invasion.”
Not just the invasion but also the way we did it. Shinseki told Congress and the Bush admin that we needed a lot more troops and especially military police. Absent that we would have a lot more chaos and civilian deaths. That helped create ISIS and our behaviors after the occupation provided more recruits.
Steve
@Michael Reynolds: With all due respect, Michael, you’re sounding just like Homer Simpson when he changed his name and persona to Max Power:
Homer: There’s three ways to do things: The right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way.
Bart: Isn’t that the wrong way?
Homer: Yeah, but faster!
@charontwo: Nice to see that your focus is not where it should be — on Israel and Hamas and what can be done, but on using this horror show as an excuse to attack those Americans whose politics you dislike. Now that’s helpful!
Remember, kids, cancel culture is very very very bad, probably the worst thing that can happen in the world. Unless, of course, we’re talking about someone who dislikes Israel, and then they should be driven out of all society, because that’s just right.
@steve:
There’s no shortage of Palestinians that hate Hamas, but Netanyahu infamously sidelined them to explicitly bolster Hamas. Years and years into that awful policy, there’s a giant trust deficit on all sides. At least Lapid and Abbas claim to be committed to a two-state solution, but more extreme voices on both sides seem to have more power.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Supporting your point, we didn’t do that because we’re nice guys. Partly it was recognition that what we had done, the punitive treaty of Versailles, had proven to be a disaster. But mostly it was that we wanted the West Germans and Japanese as allies against Russia and China. One wonders if the Israelis couldn’t find selfish reasons to be generous. Or at least take a long term view.
@gVOR10: Indeed: the Cold War helped that policy decision for sure.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Well, the DDR did not have billions poured in, and was not a democratic state, and was fairly peaceful.
@gVOR10:
Not at the outset. The MacArthur reforms in Japan were being implemented before the Cold War began (taking 1947 as the start date). As were the initial stages of democratisation in Germany.
And the economic revival of Germany was arguably more part of the initiation of the Cold War, than a response to it, based on the realisation that without reviving at least W German industry, France, the Low Countries and Italy etc were also going to flatline.
The “disastrousness” and “punitiveness” of Versailles is an entrenched truism, but debateable.
There is a good case for arguing that its main failing was not vindictiveness, but in it being not nearly punitive enough with regard to Germany, its lack of enforcement mechanisms, and hence the ability of Germany to renege upon it.
@JohnSF:
Regarding the usefulness of retaliation, when did the violence in Northern Ireland stop? When 1 Para gunned down unarmed protestors in Derry? When the British security services ran their own death squads/death squad-adjacent units (Military Reaction Force, Force Research Unit, the RUC’s Special Patrol Group)?
Or perhaps when the Good Friday Agreement finally gave the Northern Irish Catholics a good reason to believe that they were no longer doomed to remain second-class citizens in their own country?
And speaking of Germany (and regardless of what was being intended after the end of WW2), what was it that finally removed the threat of German militarism?
Forced disarmament or Germany’s inclusion in various European and transatlantic structures?
The fact of the matter is that unless you’re willing to contemplate genocide, you can’t just rely on the stick alone.
(And it goes without saying that the Northern Irish Catholics never had it as bad as the Gazans. And still they wouldn’t stop committing violence until they got a fair deal.)
@charontwo: Here’s the transcript of the Klein monologue. It’s relatively short.
The Ben Wittes piece you linked is characteristically thoughtful. He previewed it a few days ago but I never got around to reading the finished piece until you linked it.
While I agree with the setup you excerpted, I also agree with where he winds up: that Israel has a moral and perhaps legal duty to act strategically. I agree with him (and you and MR) that even a constrained Israeli response is going to kill a lot of noncombatants; that’s simply the nature of a war under these circumstances. There is simply a lot in the actions they’ve taken (the illegal cutting off of food and water) and language they’ve used (“animals” and the like seemingly in reference to the Palestinians writ large vice just Hamas) that make me think war crimes are coming.
Oh: I’ve been following Klein for 20-plus years now. He’s given me no reason to think that he’s a Jew-hater.
@Gustopher:
You, supporting collective punishment for the behavior of Netanyahu, his unpopular government and the West Bank settlers.
Targeting a bunch of pacifists, left-leaning kibbutzim along with teenagers at a rave “for peace.” And lots of children.
Some of the websites I check still blame Israel for bombing the alhi hospital because, doncha know, the IDF and Israeli government lie, so initial Hamas exaggerations still good to go. Revealing confirmation bias is my opinion.
the larger quote you excerpted:
@Steven L. Taylor:
No, but that is a sentiment I see expressed frequently, including by a few of the screen handles here at OTB.
@James Joyner:
Above is what I see at your link, same as what I have seen before. I still can not find an actual transcript.
Separate point: I see lots of pundits asserting that Israel is preparing to make a big mistake – and yet, what Israel is really planning is not yet publically known.
@charontwo:
Yeah, right.
If you are
unableunwilling to distinguish between “Israel shouldn’t be deliberately committing war crimes” and “Israel should refrain from responding with military means” that is on you.@drj:
That’s one reading of the Northern Ireland peace process.
There are alternative views, stressing that the replacement of the Unionist controlled devolved government by British direct rule in 1972 (imperfectly) removed the second-class status of Catholics, which was a function of the misrule by the Unionist majority in the Six Counties.
After that the main problem was bringing SinnFein/IRA to accept Ireland would not be unified by force, and the Unionists to accept that they would not be allowed to use revived NI assembly to re-impose their privilege and that an all-Ireland aspect would be part of the settlement.
Greatly aided by the massive success in suborning the IRA by British intelligence, and bribing both sides by dangling the prospect of sharing the budgetary spoils of Stormont.
The relevance to Gaza appears limited, as neither side looks likely to accept a one-state solution on the basis of equal standing.
The majority of Unionists always regarded themselves as Irish, an attitude which sometimes surprises outsiders. (As does the fact that some “Catholics” were not Nationalists.)
There is no such commonality between Palestinians and Israelis.
As to (West) Germany, it only disarmed for the ten years from 1945 to 1955, and you also need to account for Austria and East Germany as well as West Germany.
Neither Austria nor East Germany were included in pan-European and/or transatlantic structures until the 1990’s.
@James Joyner:
Hard disagree. Analogies are only useful to the extent the analogy compares truly similar situations, which IMO neither the 9/11 attack or the PNAC motivated and grossly fubarred Iraq adventure were.
Osama’s people were not part of a government, Hamas is the people in control .in Gaza. Saudi Arabia lacks a border with the U.S.
Pearl Harbor might be a bit better, at least the Japanese navy was an arm of government. Still not a very useful analogy IMO.
@drj:
That is an extraordinarily dishonest assertion. Lots of you all appear to regard Israel as incapable or unwilling of military means that do not feature war crimes.
I need to go now, will be back a while later.
@charontwo: At least in Chrome, there’s a button with TRANSCRIPT in it right below the sub-headline.
@James Joyner:
They also have pragmatic reasons to think strategically, have I ever suggested otherwise?
@James Joyner:
Thanks, the button was so grayed out I did not see it.
@JohnSF:
Even your “alternative views” (which I don’t see as being very different from what I was describing) contain a lot of carrot. Where is the carrot for the Palestinians?
Far more relevant than the analogy of Germany that you embraced, though.
Oh, come on.
You know as well as I do that the DDR was part of alternative Moscow-directed structures that gave the East Germans enough say in their own government to keep the population largely compliant (and kept them from trying anything abroad). Austria was pretty much left alone and far too small to do anything by itself. Who were they going to attack? The Warsaw Pact?
(And, of course, of the FRG, DDR, and Austria, it was the regime most dependent on control imposed from abroad that didn’t last.)
This is silly nitpicking.
@drj:
Maybe it is silly nitpicking, but there was no great momentum in West Germany for revanchism in the decade when it was disarmed and formally an occupied country.
The West Bank might be such.
But in 2000 Palestinian representatives rejected an offer of rule over 92% of the West Bank, with some compensating territory from Israel.
Also, there seems to be no carrot on hand re. Gaza at all; you might think that Palestinian control of the West Bank would reconcile Gazans to their lot.
Perhaps, but I doubt it.
And as regards Northern Ireland, you are missing that the carrot was not very much.
Essentially Sinn Fein accepted that the IRA strategy of “armed struggle” to end in uniting Ireland had failed.
@Gustopher:
This rather assumes that an offer regarding the West Bank would resolve the issue.
It’s worth trying, but IMO is still likely to fail.
– The 2000 offer (92% of the West Bank, some territorial compensation, limited control for Palestinians over East Jerusalem) was about as far as any Israeli offer is likely to go, and was rejected by the Palestinians.
– A better situation in the West Bank would do little to alleviate the situation of the population of Gaza.
– Fatah and the Fedayeen were attacking Israel for 20 years before it occupied the West Bank and Gaza; and at the same time as the Mizrahi Jews were being pogromed and expelled across the Middle East and North Africa.
It’s arguable that the Mizrahi had a lot more in common with the Palestinians and other Arabs than they did, or do, with Americans.
OK, I have read the Klein piece, finally.
– Cutting off the water was stupid, no doubt. Ostensibly, it was a ploy to get back the hostages, trade water restoration for them. Clearly stupid, Hamas would benefit too much from people suffering, maybe dying, resulting in a hit to Israel’s moral standing.
– Gallant and Ben-Gvir are not all powerful any more than Lindsay Graham and Tom Cotton are. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are pretty discredited, they do not have bright political futures.
– Klein spends a lot of effort comparing American responses to this, 10/07, and 9/11 – yeah, there are a lot of similarities in American behavior. And it’s true the Bush response to 9/11 surpassed any reasonable Osama expectations for an excessive and inappropriate response, so that much is a parallel to Hamas motivation.
@JohnSF: True. The Treaty of Sevres with the Ottomans was more punitive, but that was largely because Great Britain, France, Greece, and Italy all had designs on some Ottoman territories.
Hamas and other like minded terrorists, as well as many everyday Palestinians, do not recognize Israel’s right to exist. In turn, under this unconditional threat, Israel balks at any notion of a Palestinian self-governing state. This toxic environment of petrified ideologies, religiosities, and racial identities, as well as nefarious territorial designs, contributes to an unending cycle of hate and retribution. The path to peace has long been seen as the “two state” solution. Too many in the breach of this conflict see the solution as being the final eradication of their proximate enemy. The disparate who wail in the sadness of this situation, and who are ever resolved to hate and kill, must somehow be reclaimed into peace with their neighbors. The hard work to end this nightmare must continue.
@JohnSF: We can quibble about timing and motivation, but the reality remains that there was a substantial investment in Japan and West Germany, as well as full entry back into the international system that makes analogizing to the Palestinian situation problematic.
@charontwo: You are missing the obvious point that he is making in terms of action and reaction.
Further, he is obviously building off of the way the event has been talked about not directly saying that what happened was identical in all ways to 9/11, as that isn’t the point he is trying to make.
It is perfectly fine to disagree with him (or me) but it seems requisite for constructive conversation that we at least not talk past one another.
@charontwo: Thanks for taking the time to read and respond.
@drj: Indeed.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Certainly true.
But my quibble remains,and it’s a rather large one.
I suspect the experience of utter and catastrophic defeat was also a major factor in shaping public and elite perceptions regarding the utility of war.
Carrot and a experience of a very ruthlessly wielded stick.
The problem regarding Palestine is that carrots that would be appetizing to the Palestinians seem in short supply.
And as I have pointed out, the Israeli experience is that what might be thought reasonable carrots ie acceptance of 1948 Israel; the 2000 offer were not only rejected but responded to by the violence of the fedayeen and the intifada.
I seriously doubt there is any good outcome to be had in the short to medium term.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I have not been able to bring myself to participate in the squaring the circle thread, I can not see a way to avoid being totally Debbie Downer, not a status I find appealing.
We appear to be presented with a choice between “Do Nothing” and “Destroy Gaza and Hamas with it”.
This is a false dichotomy. Ezra gives a good read of what Hamas was trying to provoke. What they wanted to accomplish with the attacks, which has been puzzling me. They want their survival to be equated with the survival of the general citizenry of Gaza. The thing that would be effective, that would neutralize them, would be to drive a wedge between those two things.
But no, anything less that would be “mush”, as that rhetoric goes. It’s a predictable response from a people who have been harmed in the way the people of Israel have been harmed. To be sure, I am only about 3 links away from actual hostages, and casualties. Thing is, I have known a few Palestinians, too. Some I liked a lot, some I didn’t. So, I really don’t want to get emotional over this. I don’t trust that language, I don’t trust that emotion, I don’t trust myself when I get to that state.
And, by refusing the emotion, some of y’all are probably not going to trust me. So it goes.
@Steven L. Taylor:
The issue I have with Klein’s piece is the same as most pieces by pundits (even smart ones like Klein) when it comes to intractable problems – it’s good at describing the broad context of the problem and why it is so intractable, but it offers nothing in terms of “what should be done” or suggesting an alternative. That goes for what he says about 9/11 and 10/7.
On the former, I think what he says about the lessons of 9/11 is valid, especially with Iraq, but it’s unclear what that means in the real world regarding what the US should have done differently in Afghanistan – even with the benefit of 22 years of hindsight – or what Israel should do without the benefit of any hindsight. Klein offers neither.
And some of our mistakes after 9/11 only appear to be mistakes in hindsight. One example is that we thought we were being noble and wise by not just routing AQ and the Taliban but by attempting to create a better Afghanistan with a representative democratic government. The idea was that we had an obligation to leave Afghanistan better than we found it, which would also prevent the return of groups like AQ and the Taliban. We failed in that goal and should have seen it as folly, but that goal did not come from being “mad with fear,” it came from naive good intentions that everyone wants democracy and that the US has a special role in promoting that.
So what was the alternative to nation-building in Afghanistan?
– Well, we could just not have done anything, leave the Taliban and AQ in place, and maybe try more cruise missile strikes. That was not only politically impossible but also what we had been doing and was, therefore, already a policy failure.
– We could have done the punitive campaign but not the nation-building and left the so-called “Northern Alliance” of warlords in charge and left. Or maybe leave behind a few special operations personnel to continue working with the Northern Alliance and going after AQ. Had we done that, critics today would be blaming us for consigning Afghanistan to another bloody civil war or rule by despotic warlords which could bring about the return of the Taliban, as had previously happened.
No good choices.
To me, it’s a similar situation with Gaza. Hamas is the de facto government of Gaza for better or worse, and whether the people of Gaza support them or not. Hamas, as the de facto government of Gaza, attacked Israel deliberately and with a brutality rare in history. Hamas knowingly and intentionally opened the door to war and all that followed and will follow from war.
Ezra Klein, you, me, and everyone else who has commented on this blog do not have an answer for how to attack, punish, or otherwise get rid of Hamas without a lot of innocent suffering in Gaza, especially considering the extent to which Hamas purposely enables that suffering by its actions each and every day.
The brutal reality is that Hamas ensures there will be maximum civilian suffering. Indeed, this seems to be Hamas’ strategy – start a war against a stronger power and then survive by taking deliberate steps to ensure that lots of civilians will die, that world opinion will blame Israel and force Israel to stop before Hamas is beaten. Seems to be on track to be a successful strategy, given how blame is being apportioned by many.
@Andy: I suppose in regards to Afghanistan the mistake was not, in my mind, going in. The mistake was using the broader 9/11-induced mania to go into Iraq, which diverted resources from Afghanistan and helped lead to the 20 years and ultimate failure of policy there.
And the lesson for dealing with Hamas is similar: it is one thing to go in and root out a specific enemy. It is yet another to have a longer-term solution.
And unlike Afghanistan, which is a world away from the US, Gaza is next door to Israel so an Afghanistan-like outcome will not be to Israel’s long-term security benefit.
Iraq was a mistake, but it’s not one that Israel can repeat. But we’ll see if – in two years – Israel decides to do something similar.
War is inherently uncertain. No one knows the long term impact much less any kind of solution. When it comes to Ukraine and Russia I’ve continually pushed back against various predictions made with too much confidence. This war is no different. I don’t think anyone can say what is going to happen much less what the effects will be. The long-term solution problem and uncertainty also applies to Hamas, who started this war and whose goals Hamas doesn’t have the power to achieve. They don’t know how this will end either, and have chosen war based on a set of assumptions which will be tested.
So I think Klein’s warning is an appropriate one to make – it’s always wise to step back and think about what one is doing – but that doesn’t give us any insight into what should or shouldn’t be done.
@Andy:
Indeed.