Of Two Minds on the Hamas Israel War.

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On the One Hand: Bunch of stuff in the papers and–for all I know–on television news as well about the “rising tide of anti-Semitism” in Europe, America, Russia, and even China.  Some Jews in the US buying guns, just in case.  No more Tree of Life stuff: “I see an anti-Semite with a gun, I shoot the bastard; that’s my policy.”[1]

This is an age-old story.  Kishinev[2]; the Dreyfus Case[3]; the “Jewish census” by the German Army in WWI[4]; various “numerical limits” on everything from the number of Jewish dentists in Hungary to Jewish blacksmiths in Rumania to Jewish undergraduates in the Ivy League[5]; various kinds of “genteel” anti-Semitism[6]; Kielce[7]; the rue Copernic[8]; the Buenos Aires community center.[9] 

It’s too bad that the Jews don’t have a country of their own.  One that has the will and the means to defend itself against attack by enemies either close at hand or operating at arms-length.  Like the US after 9/11: invade Afghanistan, invade Iraq, send the Special Forces scalp-hunting in Somalia, and no American cares if the League of Nations tries dragging on our coat-tails.  

Maybe the US can operate as a normal nation-state because memory in international opinion has a short half-life.  I see that another Iranian girl has died under murky circumstances after contact with the morals police.  I see that Saudi Arabia gets the World Cup for 2034 or so.  I don’t see much on Uighurs, so maybe that one got sorted out to everyone’s satisfaction.

So perhaps if the Jews had a country of their own, the anti-Semitism would stop? 

On the Other Hand: We all want the bombing of Gaza to stop.  It isn’t just Israel that is involved in this war.  Hamas has responsibilities and choices too.   Like Japan in 1941, it started a war that it cannot win. 

Here’s a simple solution.  Hamas surrenders.  Lays down all its arms.  Turns over all its war criminals—all of them–to the International Criminal Court,[10] rather than to Israel.  They get taken to the Netherlands and are held while their cases are investigated[11] and tried.  

The League of Nations could propose this and Hamas could accept out of their deep humanitarian concern for the people of Gaza.   Israel would stop bombing.  What the UN and the European Union and US media all refer to as “innocent civilians” would no longer suffer loss of life and limb, house and home, livelihood and sanity.  These people are, after all, the families, friends, and neighbors of the Hamas soldiers.  Hamas isn’t like ISIS.  It didn’t recruit from all over the Muslim world.  So it could demonstrate the depths of its humanity by ending the war. 

[1] Stole that one, obviously.  Intent to Commit Rape — My Policy — Shoot the Bastard – Clint Eastwood – YouTube 

[2] Kishinev pogrom – Wikipedia 

[3] I gotta give you a reference to the Dreyfus case?  Shame on you. 

[4] Judenzählung – Wikipedia 

[5] Jewish quota – Wikipedia 

[6] See: An Education #8 Movie CLIP – Hard and Boring (2009) HD – YouTube and Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) – Hotel registration [HD] – YouTube

[7] Kielce pogrom – Wikipedia  Like Kishinev, not so genteel. 

[8] 1980 Paris synagogue bombing – Wikipedia 

[9] AMIA bombing – Wikipedia 

[10] ICC doesn’t assign the death penalty, just some term of imprisonment in a reasonably comfy European prison. 

[11] Lots of video evidence of who did what. 

The World Will Not Just Go Away.

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            Under Xi Jinping, China’s rise as an economic and military power sent shock-waves around the world.  President Obama called for a “pivot to Asia,” although he failed to un-moor the United States from European and Middle Eastern entanglements.  President Trump actually did begin a pivot to Asia, both by confronting Chinese economic practices and by beginning to walk away from European and Middle Eastern entanglements.  However sensible his policies, Trump could not overcome domestic the reaction to his own multiple divergences from our behavioral norms.  Now President Biden finds himself facing far greater difficulties in Europe, in the Middle East, and in Asia than did either predecessor.  The three crises are linked. 

            The first crisis is the Chinese attempt to assert its hegemony over the Far East and to extend its influence well beyond that region.  The second crisis is the Ukraine-Russia War.  The third crisis is the Israel-Hamas War, or—more exactly—the wars fueled by Iran’s regional aggressiveness.  All are what might be labelled “revisionist” powers.[1] 

Xi Jinping’s pressure on the system is by far the most important.  China’s economic and military build-up became eye-catching, and recently its assertion of control over the South China Sea alarming.  China is indifferent to or irritated by calls to conform to the “rules-based order” created under American leadership since 1945. 

It has been foreseen that China could try to push the United States down into being the second power in East Asia, or exclude it entirely.  As a first step, China may try to take Taiwan.  It may do so by direct assault or by blockade.  Either way, the United States would be drawn into an air and naval war in East Asia. 

Why?  Because Taiwan, and South Korea, and Japan—major industrial nations and American trading partners—depend on open sea ways for prosperity and survival.  All import food, energy, and raw materials in order to export manufactured goods.  The costs of such a war would hit the whole world.  Supply chains would be disrupted, as would international payments.  Public and private financial systems would be badly stressed.  The risks to China also are enormous.  The war would be fought on China’s door-step, even if it could be limited to a conventional war.  Chinese trade, and especially energy imports, would be badly disrupted.  So China profits from the distracting conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. 

            Until recently, the “world order” seemed solid, rational, and productive.  Decades of good times seemed to prove it.  Now, as in Ukraine and Israel, war “might come with dangerous and surprising suddenness.”[2] 

A conservative interpretation of the issues focuses too narrowly on the Biden administration.  “The most important international development on President Biden’s watch has been the erosion of America’s deterrence.”[3]  That erosion or decay has complex origins.  In truth, some of the biggest cracks have appeared during the Biden administration.  But it has been a long time developing.  It will take a long time to repair.  Start now.  We all have a role to play. 

[1] Between the two World Wars, countries that wanted to re-write (revise) the post-WWI peace settlements included Germany (under both the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich) , the Soviet Union, the Japanese Empire, Fascist Italy, Hungary, and Rumania. 

[2] US Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew to the State Department before Pearl Harbor. 

[3] Walter Russell Mead, “How China Could Turn Crisis to Catastrophe,” WSJ, 24 October 2023. 

War Movies The Planter’s Wife 1952.

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A number of forces converged to create the “Malayan Emergency” (1948-1953).  For one thing, Western European economic reconstruction required a lot of raw materials.  Tin and rubber were enormously valuable raw materials.  Malaya produced both in abundance.  For another thing, as a result of the Second World War and its aftermath, Britain owed heaps of money to other countries (the US and British Commonwealth countries).  A steady supply of tin and rubber would help both European reconstruction and the British balance of payments.[1]  For yet another thing, Malaya had a large minority population of ethnic Chinese.[2]  They were at odds with the Malay majority.  The Malaysian Chinese could not but be engaged with the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communists.  Unrest rooted in the Chinese population fit within the context of the developing Cold War.  So, the British fought. 

            The Malaysian Communist Party (MCP, overwhelmingly ethnic Chinese) had little difficulty standing-up a competent insurgent force.  The British had trained and armed Malayan Communists for guerrilla war against the Japanese from 1942 to 1945.  The insurgent strategy lay in launching terrorist actions from the safe-haven of the jungle against British economic interests, institutions, and individuals.  In June 1948, ethnic Chinese Communists killed the British managers of three plantations.  In 1950, after a year or so of fiddling about, the British carried out a huge campaign of relocating the rural Chinese to “new villages.”  This cut off the guerrillas in the jungle from their base of support.[3]  Combined with military operations, these measures largely crushed the insurgency by early 1953. 

By the early 1950s, the Rank Organization—Britain’s Hollywood—was looking for topical movies that could make a solid profit.  For Britain, the loss of the Empire was about as topical as you could get.  A first effort came in “The Planter’s Wife” (dir. Ken Annakin, 1952). 

            The story takes place in a compressed period of time.  Understandably wrought-up by Communist insurgents’ murder of his neighbors, resolute British planter Jim Frazer (Jack Hawkins) busily fortifies his house and roots out suspicious employees.  His American wife Liz (Claudette Colbert) feels neglected, but also afraid of the rising tide of violence.  She wants Jim to sell out and take them and their son, Mike, home to Britain.  Jim won’t agree, so—she confides to a friend, the local British police chief—Liz plans to scarper with the boy and never come back.[4]  The rebels short-circuit her plans with a series of attacks on the house.  Forced to choose, Liz fights hard for their safety.  At the last moment, patrolling British troops fall on the rebels clustered around the house.  Afterwards, Liz decides that she will stay in Malaya with Jim.  Still, just to be safe, Mike gets shipped off to Britain.[5] 

            “The Planter’s Wife” is a simple, formulaic story.  However, it captures one thread in the British debate on empire.  Does a war-weary country pre-occupied with domestic reform stand and fight against savages?  Or do fears that Britain isn’t strong enough, or revulsion at harsh measures, or disgust with Empire counsel retreat?  See: The Planter’s Wife (1952) – YouTube 

[1] See Corelli Barnet’s essay.  BBC – History – British History in depth: The Wasting of Britain’s Marshall Aid

[2] See: Malaysian Chinese – Wikipedia 

[3] See: The Briggs Plan.  Briggs Plan – Wikipedia 

[4] Probably, Jim represents Britain, Liz represents the United States, and Mike represents the colonies. 

[5] Probably to Gordonstoun School.  See: Gordonstoun – Wikipedia 

War Movies Something of Value 1957.

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            Robert Ruark, Jr. (1915-1965) grew up as the product of an unhappy marriage and in straightened circumstances in Wilmington, NC.  Worse still, he was super-smart, so he had few school friends.[1]  Maybe this is what made him irascible all the rest of his life.  Something did.  He did have a beloved grandfather who took him hunting and fishing.  He tried office work, then went to sea on a merchant ship, then worked his way up the greasy pole of newspaper work, then went back to sea as a Navy officer during the Second World War, and then came back to Washington, DC, as a very readable newspaper and magazine[2] columnist.  In 1950, having shot examples of most of what the United States had to offer, he went to East Africa to go big-game hunting.  He stayed for a while, then came back later. 

Ruark’s visit coincided with the “Mau Mau Emergency” (1952-1956) in British-ruled Kenya.  In brief compass, in Kenya the usual grievances of the subject people were compounded by the presence of a white settler community in a part of the colony.[3]  The nationalist movement came to be centered in the Kikuyu tribe.  The rebels came to be called the “Mau Mau.” 

Out of Ruark’s African trips came his novel Something of Value (1955).  It is long, covers a long span of time, and is filled with all sorts of subordinate stories.  Still, there’s an “axial principle”[4] running through the book.  People from different cultures can co-exist so long as there is mutual respect between them.  Most of the British could not extend respect to the Africans or their culture.  There was a color-bar; there was racialized justice; most of all, there was a complete disdain for African values and social organization.  All the British did, in Ruark’s view, was to undermine traditional authority and beliefs.  This left young people, especially young men, adrift.  They caught onto all sorts of harmful ideas.  After that, hatred elicited hatred in a worsening spiral. 

The rebellion was as much a civil war among the Kikuyu as it was an independence struggle.  The British deployed the then-new techniques of counter-insurgency war: sweeps and mass detainments of suspects; enhanced interrogation, and small unit operations against the enemy; and concentration in new villages.  The British also made political concessions. 

The rebellion was very bloody, so it caught a lot of international attention.  The novel became a best seller.  MGM bought the rights to make a “ripped from the headlines” movie.

Richard Brooks both wrote the screen-play and directed.  Rock Hudson and Sidney Poitier played the childhood-friends who become opponents; Dana Winter plays Hudson’s wife; and a bunch of black actors got work. 

The portrayal of the fight against Mau Mau doesn’t center on British military operations (open and covert) against the rebels.  Instead, it follows the struggle waged by the white settlers.  Brooks, like Ruark, said what he thought should be said.  The movie doesn’t hide all the violence perpetrated in the movie by white settlers (called “the white Mau Mau” by one British officer), as well as by blacks.  The book and movie profit from being based on Ruark’s experience and views—however partial. 

[1] Always was that way; always will be that way.  Just try not to end up in a bell tower with a rifle. 

[2] Especially for Field and Stream. 

[3] This made it a bit like French Algeria, albeit on a much smaller scale.  Same psychology was at work. 

[4] Like a laundry line on which one hangs all sorts of stuff. 

War Movies Guns at Batasi 1964.

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            “Guns at Batasi” (dir. John Guillermin, 1964) is set in an un-named African country just after it has gained independence from Britain.  A British military mission continues to train the army of the newly independent country.  It’s easy duty for the British officers and non-coms: peacetime soldiering in an exotic place in which their respective quarters provide the essential comforts of home along with inexpensive servants. 

The officers invite the white nurses from a local hospital to a formal dinner.  They palm off Miss Barker-Wise–a visiting old “battle-axe” Labour Member of Parliament with very progressive opinions—on the sergeants.  Soon, they are joined by Karen Eriksson, a UN secretary in transit, and Private Wilkes, a young soldier only too happy to be headed home at the end of his National Service.[1] 

            Yet all is not well.  It’s no easy job to make a “nation” where tribal identities remain powerful, and where the minority which struggled for independence fight over the prizes.[2]  A group of officers launches a coup against the government.  As part of this action, rebels at Batasi seize the base, attack the officers loyal to the government, and confine the British soldiers to their quarters. 

            From the moment of the coup onward, the film is driven by Regimental Sergeant Major Lauderdale, the senior non-com.[3]  Lauderdale is introduced as a hawk-eyed martinet, obsessed with hierarchy, tradition, and the perfection of form to be achieved by endless repetition of mindless tasks.  Behind his back, he is a figure of fun to the other non-coms. 

            Crisis reveals a much different and more complicated R.S.M. Lauderdale.  When the wounded and overthrown African commander of the base, Captain Abraham, stumbles into the Sergeants’ Mess, Lauderdale orders him to be hidden and cared for.  He then leads a raid on the armory to acquire a large number of weapons with which to defend the Mess.  Then the new commander and local coup-leader, Lieutenant Boniface arrives to demand the surrender of the weapons and to inquire if Captain Abraham has appeared.  Lauderdale backs him down with a combination of determination, citations from the rule book, and an insistence upon military formalities, all of it spiced with a rage that he can turn on and off at will. 

            Meanwhile, things bubble inside the Mess.  Lauderdale contends with Miss Barker-Wise, who knows Boniface from London and esteems him highly as a “civilized and cultivated man.”  Private Wilkes and Miss Ericsson fall for each other, but try to keep that a secret from the others.  Outside of Lauderdale’s hearing, the sergeants discuss what to do about Captain Abraham.  Each has his reason for liking Abraham or disliking Boniface.  Is it worth dying for? 

For Lauderdale, the motivations are different.  Abraham represents legitimate authority, Boniface represents mutiny.  Abraham is alone and wounded, Boniface and his men are a pack of wolves.  Lauderdale is the senior figure present so he feels responsible for safeguarding his charges.  And virtually all of the action takes place in the large front room of the Sergeants’ Mess of his regiment, which is filled with photographs of soldiers, trophies from peacetime athletics, and momentoes of wars.  Every aspect of his adult life commands his decisions. 

            Then, suddenly, the conflict is resolved by higher authority in a way that illustrates Bismark’s dictum on sausage-making.  The news arrives too late to prevent Lauderdale—and Wilkes—from showing what they’re really made of. 

            “Guns at Batasi” illustrates some of the difficulties in developing Western institutions in non-Western countries.  It also teaches its audience that effective soldiering depends less on technology than it does on things like hard training, experience, and a sense of “esprit de corps.” 

            You can watch the movie at Guns at Batasi (1964) HD 1080p with English & Portuguese subtitles – YouTube        

[1] Barker-Wise is played by Flora Robson, Karen Ericsson by Mia Farrow, and Private Wilkes by John Leyton. 

[2] For another take on this problem, see Eric Ambler, State of Siege (1956).  While not directly related, Nicholas Freeling, Tsing-Boum (1969) centers on the loyalties and betrayals among veterans of France’s war in Indo-China. 

[3] Played by Richard Attenborough. 

Just my opinion and I come in peace.

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            The creation of the state of Israel probably was a mistake. 

Between the two World Wars, emigration from rabidly anti-Semitic Eastern European countries[1] had a great (though not universal appeal) among Eastern European Jews.  Zionism[2] had NOT had a great appeal among the same groups.[3]  During the First World War, a desperate Britain did announce that it favored a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, so long as it didn’t harm the Arab peoples already living there.  Once Britain got Palestine away from the Ottoman Empire (1918), Jewish immigration became possible.  Not many people went.  The arrival in power of Adolf Hitler in the midst of a global economic disaster turned many non-Zionists into Zionists because getting to Palestine looked like the only chance to survive. 

The state of Israel came into being in the aftermath of the Holocaust.  Hundreds of thousands of Jewish survivors of anti-Semitic Nazi barbarism had no desire to remain in Europe.  Many, perhaps most, of these survivors still had no particular desire to go to Palestine. 

Given their ‘druthers, they would have followed a long-standing pattern and gone to the United States.  After the Second World War, the United States did not want to admit up to a million East European Jews.  The United States clung then, as it does today, to a legally regulated and limited immigration.  To admit many Jews would require rejecting an equivalent number of Italians, Irish, and Poles.  These were important established political constituencies.  So, it served American domestic political interests to have the Jews go somewhere else.  America’s loss became Israel’s gain.  Zionists organized the movement of large numbers of Holocaust survivors to British-ruled Palestine. 

            Nationalism came late to the Arabs, but it did begin to take hold during the inter-war years.  Arabs had not liked being ruled by the Turks and they didn’t like being ruled by the British and French any better.  Egypt, in particular, had been under the British thumb since the 1880s.  A nationalist movement there wanted the British out of the country and out of the Suez Canal Zone.  The League of Nation’s “Mandates” granted to Britain and France became the basis for the countries of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.  The British were content to hold Iraq and Jordan under indirect rule, but the French ruled with a heavier hand.  Nobody consulted the Arabs about Zionist settlement.  Arab nationalists seethed. 

            In this context, any plan to settle European immigrants in Arab lands had to look like ONE of the things that it was: European settler colonialism.[4]  The exclusion of so many Palestinian Arabs as a result of the war of 1948, like the ongoing “settlements,” amounts to a huge land grab. 

            It was a mistake made 75 years ago.  Egypt and Jordan could have created a Palestinian state when they ruled Gaza and the West Bank.  They preferred to cling to a grievance.  Bad mistake.  Israel isn’t going away.  Nor should the Palestinians.  Time to think anew and act anew. 

[1] The Soviet Union, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, and Rumania. 

[2] Nationalism is the belief that people who share a history and culture, oftentimes expressed in speaking a single language, should be grouped together in an independent, self-governing state.  Zionism is the application of this idea to Jews.  Moreover, Zionism came to focus its aspirations on a specific physical place centered on the city of Jerusalem.  Until 1918, this territory lay under the control of the decrepit Ottoman Empire.    

[3] “You want me to leave my job as a violinist in Berlin to become a melon-farmer in the middle of nowhere?” 

[4] Another thing it was: an idealistic attempt to create a democratic safe-haven for a much oppressed people. 

Palestine Drumbeats.

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Conservatives have their knives are out for President Biden, no matter how unseemly this may be at a time of international crisis.  In Israel, the parties have closed ranks during this moment of national emergency.  Not so in the United States. 

One line of conservative criticism runs as follows.  President Biden came to office intending, in part, to replace great-power politics with a heavy emphasis on alternative priorities.  First and foremost, this meant climate change, but also included a renewed emphasis on human rights as these are understood in the Democratic party.  Before Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the President hoped to “park” Russia as an issue. 

He also harbored a grand vision for the Middle East, one which would allow the United States to reduce its involvement there in favor of the Far East.  On the one hand, he hoped to revive a working relationship with Iran, wrecked by the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the multi-national nuclear agreement.  On the other hand, he hoped to accelerate the “normalization of Saudi-Israeli relations.”  This new regional axis of….[1] would encourage other Arab states to do the same.  Implicitly, the alignment could shoulder more of the burden of against Iran. 

In the conservative view, which is also that of Israel, Iran has disdained President Biden’s offer of a renewed relationship.  It refused to rejoin the nuclear agreement.  It wrung $6 billion out of American control as the price for releasing a handful of hostages.  Now, the conservative argument goes, “there is no doubt that Iran trained, supported, advised and equipped the [Hamas] killers.”[2]  Iran’s goals, it is said, are regional rather than centered on Gaza or even Palestine.  The war between Israel and Hamas, once begun, may be stoked up into a much wider conflict.  Israel, the United States, and America’s friends in the Middle East will find themselves assailed from all sides. 

All or most of this could be true.  The vast quantity and improved quality of the missiles fired at Israel by Hamas seems to indicate a big up-grade in Iran’s support for aggressive action by Hamas.  Still, critics stop short of saying that Iran planned or incited the attacks.  Hamas seems to be dominated by brutal fanatics.  Brutal fanatics aren’t necessarily stupid.[3]  It isn’t impossible to imagine that a more competent class of fanatics has emerged in the leadership Hamas.  Maybe they figured out that it would be necessary to blind Israeli intelligence by stopping telecommunications and “playing back” Palestinian informants of Israel’s intelligence services.  Maybe they figured out on their own the many vulnerabilities in the border defenses of an evidently complacent Israel.  Israel’s leaders (and perhaps many ordinary Israeli) are not going to be comfortable admitting that “we got played by a bunch of Arabs.” 

We’ve been here before.  It was 2003 and the “undoubted” enemy was Iraq.  The “intelligence” said Iraq posed a real danger from its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, and even of nuclear weapons.  Conservatives clamored for action.  Respected foreign policy Gumbys among the Democrat leadership[4] supported action.  It didn’t end well. 

So, some kind of action against Iran may well be necessary.  But slow any rush to war. 

[1] Axis of what?  The Serpent Prince and Benjamin Netanyahu?  Hard to label that when children might be reading. 

[2] Walter Russell Mead, “Hamas’s Global Test for Biden,” WSJ, 10 October 2023. 

[3] See: The Second World War. 

[4] Notably Joe Biden, John Kerry, Hilary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, and Diane Feinstein. 

Gaza Plan of Attack.

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            Problem: invade the Gaza Strip and destroy the Hamas army while doing as little physical harm[1] to the civilian population as possible. 

            Solution. 

  1. Try to separate the Hamas troops from the bulk of the civilian population.  Continue to urge the civilian population to abandon the Gaza City area in northern Gaza.  Do nothing more to impede the movement of civilians southward.  Step up the use of “roof knocks” on buildings to encourage people to move.  Once as many people as possible have moved, the attack phase can begin. 
  2. Begin sustained air attacks on targets between the northern boundary of Gaza and the northern districts of Gaza City.  Mass a large force opposite these targets.  The initial goal is to fix the attention of Hamas commanders on the northern and northeastern flanks of Gaza. 
  3. Launch a powerful combined-arms (air, armored, infantry) attack northeastward from a staging area west of the Israeli community of Be’eri.  The axis of advance will run from the Wadi Gaza on the left to the Karni Netzarim road on the right.  Speed is essential.  The goal is to capture control of a broad corridor from the land border of Gaza to the Mediterranean Sea.  Both faces of the corridor will need to be rapidly fortified with open ground created in front of both lines. 
  4. This stroke is intended to isolate the main body of Hamas fighters in northern Gaza and the largest number of civilians in the southern sector.  The two areas can then be treated in different fashions. 
  5. In the south, the United Nations can be invited to launch a rapid and large-scale relief effort within the context of Israel’s security needs.  The basic conditions of Israel’s proclaimed siege can be ameliorated.  At the same time, remaining Hamas fighters in the southern sector can be neutralized. 
  6. In the north, Israel will have two choices.  The first is to maintain the siege until the Hamas troops are compelled to lay down their arms by hunger and thirst.  Much fighting around the outside of this “cauldron” will take place.  The second is to strike rapidly with overwhelming force.  Air strikes and artillery will do most of the work by leveling buildings believed to contain Hamas troops.  Careful follow-up movements by ground forces will secure control of the ground. 

[1] The psychological harm and the destruction of physical and economic infrastructure will be immense. 

Laws of War.

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            “The laws of war offer a guide to what matters most, and to what should happen next.”[1]  First, the “why” and the “how” of war are different, separate things.  Opponents may have a just or unjust cause, but nothing allows either side to wage war in an unjust way.  Second, “civilians are entitled to protection.”  However, “protection” does not mean that civilians must escape unscathed from a conflict.  It means that military forces can neither specifically target civilians nor inflict disproportionate harm on them when harm cannot be avoided. 

            “There is no question” that Hamas has committed “war crimes and crimes against humanity,…  Those are not close calls.”[2]  In addition to targeting mostly civilians for death, Hamas soldiers seized at least 150 hostages whom it has threatened to execute.  According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, this is not allowed under international law. 

            On the other hand, according to the U.N. High Commissioner, the “imposition of sieges that endanger the lives of civilians by depriving them of goods essential for their survival is prohibited under international humanitarian law.”  In the view of one expert, Israel’s siege of Gaza is both “a crime against humanity and a war crime.”  On top of the siege, Israel has been raining down bombs on buildings in Gaza.  Israel asserts that they are striking military targets hidden among the civilian population.  Citing another expert on international law, the NYT reports that “even attacks on legitimate military targets are illegal if they disproportionately harm civilians.”  Claiming that some act of violence will reduce future violence is not an acceptable rationale.  Admittedly, deciding what is proportional is not an exact science. 

            All this seems admirable in theory[3] and with deep historical roots.[4] 

It is also wildly out of touch with reality.   

First, Hamas is a government in control of a micro-state, not a finite outlaw gang.  This guarantees Hamas an existential continuity which insures that its policies will continue.  Hamas is committed to destroying the state of Israel, rather than to co-existing with it.  Hamas has repeatedly attacked Israel.  The people of Gaza are either captives of that government or supporters of it.  International law–and lawyers–offer no solution to this problem. 

Second, Hamas forces hide their soldiers and offensive weaponry among civilians.  They do so for two purposes.  One is to camouflage them from Israel’s observation.  “The better to eat you with, my dear.”[5]  The other is to use the civilians as human shields to limit pre-emptive or counter-attacks by Israel.  Israel has now warned the civilians to evacuate north Gaza; Hamas has ordered them to remain.  Israel is seeking to spare the lives of civilians it hates; Hamas to sacrifice lives of civilians it claims to represent and to love. 

[1] Amanda Taub, “Binding Laws of War Already Being Broken,” NYT, 13 October 2023. 

[2] Professor Tom Dannenbaum, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, “an expert on humanitarian law” quoted by Taub. 

[3] Most Americans should repent the decision by the George W. Bush administration to treat captured al Qaeda fighters as “unlawful combatants” not subject to the Geneva Conventions.  Better they had been considered P.O.W.s protected by those international agreements and held until the conclusion of a peace treaty with al Qaeda. 

[4] In the Early Middle Ages, the Latin Church sought to limit the overwhelming violence by declaring “The Peace of God” (banning attacks on clergy, Church property, and holy days) and “The Truce of God” (banning war on some days of the week and during an expansive number of parts of the year).  The truces were backed by the threat of excommunication.  This was rather more effective power than is now possessed by the U.N. or international law. 

[5] The Brothers Grimm, “Little Red Riding Hood.” 

Eliminating Hamas,

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            As a practical matter, how would Israel eliminate Hamas? 

            First, what does “eliminate” mean?  Does it mean forcing all Hamas fighters to leave Gaza for somewhere else more distant from Israel?  Israel has tried this before.  In 1972, the government of Jordan got fed up with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which used Jordan as a base for attacks on Israel and which threatened to take over Jordan.  Under military pressure, the PLO evacuated to Lebanon.  South Lebanon and Beirut became the PLO’s bases going forward.  In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and drove on Beirut.  The goal was to force the PLO to leave Lebanon.  This part of the operation proved successful.[1]  Popular support for the PLO declined substantially during this exile.  The 1993 Oslo Accords allowed the PLO to return to Gaza and the West Bank. 

Where would the Hamas fighters go?  It is hard to imagine.  Most Arab states have made some sort of peace—formal or informal–with Israel, so the old sympathy for the Palestinian cause may have shrunk.  Many of these countries have their own plates full of problems.  Whose situation would be improved by taking in thousands of Iran-related militants?  Also, it would have to be a country without a shared border with Israel.  Otherwise, it would just recreate the current Gaza situation or maybe something even worse for Israel’s security.  It would need to be at a remove from most of the Palestinian population.  Iran might be the ideal choice. 

Or does it mean killing or capturing most or all Hamas fighters?  This would be hard to choke down, even for a justifiably enraged Israel.[2]  Foreign countries, even the United States but especially the other Arab countries, would gag on what would soon be called Israel’s “final solution to the Hamas problem.”  There is much to be lost, as well as gained from this approach. 

            Second, regardless of what “eliminate” means, how would Israel bring about this goal?  One answer would be to besiege Gaza until it surrenders on Israel’s terms.  This seems to be where Israel is headed at the moment.  Cut off food, water, electricity, and fuel.  Bomb the place until the rubble bounces.  One problem is that this is already creating a highly public humanitarian catastrophe.  Furthermore, it is indiscriminate in punishing all Gazans.  It will generate enormous pressure on Israel from abroad to compromise.  Compromise would leave Hamas able to claim a form of victory.  No doubt worthless international “guarantees” of Israel’s security would be offered. 

            Another answer would be to invade Gaza.  There is the potential for an Arab Stalingrad, but with huge numbers of civilians present.  As is the case with the United States, Israel doesn’t like to take high casualties.  Rather than engaging in door-to-door fighting, Israel might prefer air strikes and artillery fire.  One goal might be to herd everyone toward the beaches.  Israeli soldiers advancing across the rubble could identify, disarm, and capture surviving Hamas fighters.  It might bring Israel a form of victory faster. 

            “Sympathy has a short half-life,” so Israel needs to move quickly. 

[1] On “Operation Peace for Galilee, see 1982 Lebanon War – Wikipedia  On one awful related incident, see Sabra and Shatila massacre – Wikipedia 

[2] The population of the United States is about 330 million people; the population of Israel is about 10 million people.  The current estimated Israel death toll is about 1,200 people.  The equivalent death toll in the United States would be something like 35,000 people.  There were 2,977 victims on 9/11.