I know you will be shocked by this headline in the Wall Street Journal today:
This is pretty plainly code for "never," since Hamas will never be entirely defeated and Netanyahu has no intention of ending the Gaza war or agreeing to any kind of political plan for Gaza in the future. Instead, it will most likely remain under Israeli occupation with no end in sight, just like the West Bank. This is the lesson Netanyahu has learned from his long-ago decisions to exit Gaza; agree to elections in Gaza; and (sotto voce) conspire with Hamas in Gaza for the past couple of decades. As far as he's concerned, the only path to relative peace is to keep Palestinians firmly under an Israeli boot, full stop. Gaza's future is to be West Bank 2.0.
It’s finally dawning on Kevin that thee is no possible way for Israel to live in peace with its neighbors that is within the Overton window, either that of American liberals or more importantly Israeli voters.
And so, they will settle for committing massive violations of fundamental human rights in perpetuity. Yay!
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I can't imagine why any Israeli government would be interested in an arrangement with Gaza residents. If the IDF leaves eventually, the Israelis would want to fully isolate Gaza. Even a left leaning government will want to make that border impenetrable. Like the DMZ between North and South Korea. Times 10.
IDK if that's really what he wants.
Having assumed an unspoken agreement with Hamas only to have it shattered, in his mind, the only way to save face and hold onto his political career is to aspire to eliminate Hamas. A majority of Israeli Jews do not care about Bibi's self-interested goals. Scarred by 10/7, they see him as part of the problem, but on the elimination of Hamas, they agree with him.
Well, we know even before the assassinations the two never trusted each other. But this highlights that a never-ending war in Gaza is distinctly separate from permanent occupation. Bibi's always held that the 2-state solution is unworkable.
Remove Bibi and a huge barrier to peace is gone. Drive a wedge between Bibi and Israelis.
Bibi is also trying to stay out of jail for being a corrupt a-hole.
Remove Bibi and the only remaining obstacles to peace will be (i) the majority of the Israeli population and (ii) the majority of the Palestinian population. Remove those two groups and you're there!
My guess is that if you gave Palestinians a green card, a one way ticket to the US and $5 to $10K, you could get a lot of them to move...
It would probably be cheaper than giving Israelis billions every year so that they can lord over their neighbors...
They may be normalizing diplomatic relations and/or opening trade with Israel, but signing on to be Israel's muscle to repress Palestinians --- Arab nations aren't going to do that.
As far as he's concerned, the only path to relative peace is to keep Palestinians firmly under an Israeli boot...
It's working out great!
Also: Netanyahu probably believes a ceasefire would help Biden.
Hamas can't be eliminated, because it's an idea: independence, freedom, national sovereignty, an end to military occupation and Israel's brutality.
+1000
Just like Nazism couldn’t be eliminated, because it was an idea.
But it could be beaten down until it had no further power to inflict terror.
Never mind Gaza: what's Netanyahu's -- or any Israeli's -- plan for the future of Israel?
From where I sit, it seems that every last such plan involves having the US -- or some other world superpower, but I don't think China or the EU would be interested -- continue to support them economically and militarily FOREVER.
Because this is the only way a country the size of a large city has any hope -- or has HAD any hope -- of surviving while antagonizing neighboring countries with total population of 400 million and, increasingly, antagonizing the Muslim World that constitutes a quarter of the world's population.
I think Netanyahu would be fine if the US just supported Israel until he dies. That’s “forever” enough for his personal desires to stay out of jail and continue doing whatever he wants with no consequences.
Long term though, yeah the FOREVER part will only last until all the American Boomers and Gen Xers die off. American millennials and younger really don’t care for Israel at all, and might be willing to turn off the money spigot, especially as domestic govt investment keeps getting deferred so we can aid Israelis. Problem is: Boomers and Gen Xers will still be around for another 40 years or more… which is probably good enough for Likud and other right wing parties to keep doing everything they’ve been doing even pre war: continuing West Bank settlements, looking the other way when a settler murders someone in the West Bank, generally making life miserable for even the most docile West Bank residents, etc.
Actually all of the evidence suggests that Israel, a country the size of a small state, people used to say New Jersey, could do just fine if it gave up its weird desire to control territory with a Palestinian majority. Your version suggests that the Muslim world would never accept Israel. But already Israel has established fairly normal relationships with Egypt and Jordan. It has economic deals with Morocco and the UAE. And has only not reached a deal with the Saudis because it can't stop being awful to the Palestinians whenever a deal seems imminent. It has a history of ccoperation with Turkey that is currently being frayed.
The point is that there is absolutely no reason to think that Israel couldn't live in peace if it came to an accomodation with the Palestinians along the lines that Abbas was offering in 2008. And its economy is fine. It really needs no support from the US. What we give them are arms because they maintain their status of hostility.
Israel's dependency, as you describe it, is all a self-own from their preferring apartheid to peace.
That's probstat's point.
"But already Israel has established fairly normal relationships with Egypt and Jordan."
... both of which have authoritarian governments that suppress the strongly anti-Israel sentiment of their public, and which receive $2 billion (Egypt) and $1 billion (Jordan) annually from Uncle Sugar, pretty plainly conditioned on their continued "normal" relationships with Israel.
Which, by the way, makes our annual contribution to the security of Israel on the order of $7-9 billion, plus of course occasional gifts of several billion dollars.
I think Israel MIGHT at one time have achieved peace along the lines you described, but that probably died with Yitzhak Rabin's murder. Netanyahu's government is firmly committed to annexing the West Bank in its entirety, and it looks like ALL future governments of Israel will be at least as conservative with regard to that matter.
The likable socialists who ran Israel for most of its first 40 years are now a minor fringe party there.
True that the populations of many Arab countries are more opposed to Israel than their governments, but that is a consequence of the ongoing suppression of the Palestinians. If there were a viable, sovereign Palestine, there would likely be irredentists, but how much support would they have elsewhere, or even within their own state?
How many times have they waged war against Israel?
Palestinians? From a position of being an independent, viable, sovereign nation, never.
“This is the lesson Netanyahu has learned from his long-ago decisions to exit Gaza; agree to elections in Gaza; “
Bibi didn’t agree to those things. Those were Ariel Sharon’s decisions. But do continue lecturing the yoofs about their ignorance of the history of occupied Palestine.
I was reading the comments to see if anybody made that obvious point. So far nothing. I am glad I found it eventually.
Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s Minister of National Security, said during an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 on Wednesday that he believes Israel needs to “occupy Gaza and stay there” and that they would develop a “plan of encouragement” to make Palestinians leave.
That looks like ethnic cleansing to me. Rabid settlers, who know they are doing God's work, will be a major factor in Israeli politics for decades.
Netanyahu appears to me to be waging a war of extinction against the people in Gaza.
Similar to what the Indian government did to the Tamil Tigers, and who remembers that?
For the record, there are almost no Jews in Germany now.
And people say that violence doesn't solve anything.
Not to disagree with your general point, but I was in Jaffna when it was under Tamil Tiger control. I also grew up there, in happier days. The IPKF (Indian Peace Keeping Force) was initially greeted as saviors by the Tamil population. Then the Tigers shot dead Indian paratroopers as they helplessly floated down from airplanes. The Indian army went wild only then. But didn't kill off the Tigers and ultimately retreated. After which the Tigers assassinated Rajiv Gandhi anyway. They were a bloody sect which killed rival Tamil separatists and its leader Prabhakaran a horrible megalomaniac. How many twelve-year-olds did I see with guns they could hardly carry. How many kids who had lost limbs after being sent to the front in human waves like cannon fodder. The Tigers also deliberately sabotaged the conciliation attempted by then-PM Chandrika Kamaratunga. A Tamil friend said it was because she insisted on elections in Tamil areas, and then "the LTTE would lose their deposit".
For the record, Berlin has a rapidly growing Jewish community due to Russian, Eastern European, Israeli and German immigrants.
Netanyahu has been clear all along by his actions that he wants all of Eretz Israel under Israeli control. He also wants to stay in power. Those two things are paramount. He wants to be the guy who restores the Holy Land to a government run by Jewish people, aka The Jewish People.
This is a strange post in how it fits with Drum's others on the subject. This is not surprising from Netanyahu, as Drum seems to acknowledge. So how is it decent to keep arming a government with this view? Also, as one person has noted, Drum attributes to Netanyahu actions taken by Ariel Sharon.
Some less obvious points that are likely to be more contentious. Israel never stopped occupying Gaza, it just changed how it occupied Gaza. The positive part was pulling the settlements out of Gaza. Gaza had a small number of Israeli settlers who used an obnoxiously large percentage of the water available to the territory and disrupted the territory, making the possibility of peace more difficult. Removing those settlements was a plus (although it should be understood as Israel ending something awful it was doing, which is better than not ending something awful, but only gets them to the level of minimally decent). But occupying through control of borders (and although people seem not to understand this, Israel even controlled the border with Egypt through a deal with Egypt) actually allowed for a level of cruelty towards Gaza that could not have been maintained with a more direct occupation.
So despite the fact that the world would be upset, Israel administering Gaza would not be an awful thing. It would be more costly for Israel, which is why they stopped doing it. But it would also likely mean the end to the blockade, and more normalcy in Gaza. I'm not saying this would be good, but the idea that it is bad is based on not understanding how utterly cruel Israel's treatment of Gaza was before 10/7. But I doubt Israeli society would put up with the additional cost.
That is why we are likely to get back to something like the pre-10/7 situation. If Netanyahu has any say in it, then it will be done in a way that does not threaten to bring about peace, which means it is more likely that a Hamas like group will be in charge than the PA, since the fact that the PA doesn't run Gaza has been the excuse for not getting to peace with them.
Gaza will become more like the West Bank only because the West Bank is becoming more like Gaza. Netanyahu may be particularly odious but what he is after is what Israel was always after: facts on the ground. More and more facts on the ground. More and more settlements, more and more Palestinians leaving or driven out, more and more deals with Arab dictatorships.
If it is true that Bibi intends to fight for an indefinite amount of time, and so far there is no deadline, and if the IDF kills 50,000 people per year (current pace), so in 10-20 years the most of the population would be wiped out. Mmm, there must be a word for such action.
You're talking like Netanyahu has a long-term plan here. I don't think that he does. Netanyahu is just trying to hold his coalition together from day to day, because he knows that as soon as elections are held, he's toast; and he's scared that once he's no longer prime minister, he will go to prison for corruption. He's probably right about that.
He also seems to think that prolonging the Gaza conflict and catering to the demands of the far right will enable him to delay the day of judgement, because his mainstream coalition partners are reluctant to bring down the government in the middle of a hot war, while the far-right loonies feel no such restraint. He's probably right about that, too. And here we are.
All of which sounds depressingly familiar, doesn't it? America's political problems are not unique to America.
You misspelled "stay out of jail".
Otherwise, you've figured it out!
And is that so bad?
West Bank has been a lot nicer a place to live than Gaza for 30+ years. GDP has quadrupled in the past 20 years. Not much military violence. Can integrate into Israel proper if they want to.
You must have missed the last year...
Uhm, no.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/twilight-zone/2023-07-08/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/settlers-invade-private-land-the-palestinian-owners-are-arrested-another-outpost-is-born/00000189-340d-d145-a1e9-377fde310000
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/twilight-zone/2023-03-04/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/shock-rage-and-despair-in-hawara-in-wake-of-settler-pogrom/00000186-a298-d6e6-a3af-fbdc8e1b0000
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-05-02/ty-article-magazine/.premium/this-wasnt-an-uncontrolled-mob-of-settlers-it-was-a-well-orchestrated-assault/0000018f-2e31-d8fb-a1df-af77d3770000
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2024-05-05/ty-article-magazine/.premium/since-the-war-began-entire-areas-of-the-west-bank-have-been-emptied-of-their-communities/0000018f-39a9-d9c3-abcf-7bfd66980000
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2024-05-01/ty-article-magazine/.premium/israeli-settlers-arent-content-with-expelling-palestinians-they-also-steal-their-sheep/0000018f-2e83-d8c4-afef-2fff95bc0000
https://www.haaretz.com/2015-07-31/ty-article/palestinian-infant-burned-to-death-in-arson-attack/0000017f-f7e4-ddde-abff-ffe5a0f60000
https://www.972mag.com/palestinians-west-bank-settler-pogroms/
Not much military violence?
What?
Seriously?
Not much military violence. Can integrate into Israel proper if they want to.
No they cannot. There is zero prospect the non-Jewish population of the West Bank acquires full citizenship rights.
We allowed the Confederates to resume power after Reconstruction and it resulted in a century of Jim Crow and ultimately the ransacking of our Capitol on January 6 and the prospect of restoring a fraudulent, rapist traitor to the White House.
So there’s that.
The Palestinian Authority, which governs most Palestinians in the West Bank, is the preferred replacement to Hamas in Gaza for Israel’s regional allies and the U.S. But Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners say bringing in the Palestinian Authority would topple the Israeli government.
If this is true then the people really running Israel are the West Bank settlers themselves and the political parties that represent them. By bringing them into governing coalition. Netanhayu has given them veto power, not just on policy or the war itself but his whole life. Out of power, he risks defeat and then jail. Israeli elections are not until 2026. Can country wait that long? Because certainly Netanyahu does.
All this is raises a pretty serious possibility in Israel's government, politics and really its existence as a democratic nation: a military coup by the IDF. The IDF high command knows Netanyahu wants the war to go on and on. He facilitated the rise of Hamas and facilitating its rebirth as well. He and those who support him don't want a two-state solution. Hamas prevents this from happening. He wants to keep Hamas alive for his own purposes and that of his extremist supporters who also truly want "from the river to the sea" only point of view of setting up a theocratic Jewish state. These mad fanatics have made the West Bank lawless for the past decade and even longer. Nothing happens to them, because their allies are in government thanks to Netanyahu.
So you're in the IDF high command what do you do? The Prime Minister simply wants you to drop bombs, drive tanks over rubble and continue to do so indefinitely in order to him stay in power and stay out of jail. You know this accomplishes nothing and just gets your men killed for nothing. What do you do, honestly? Yes you can wait until the next election which is two years away but the situation has deteriorated rapidly since Oct. 7 and not just in Gaza. The West Bank is descending into anarchy and now even Israeli soldiers are being attacked by the modern-day Zealots, who fanatacism and factionalism destroyed Jewish resistance to the Romans. If nothing is done, the chances are the settlers may very well try to take over the whole West Bank and drive the Palestinians out through sheer terrorism and then what? If IDF stepped in to stop it would their be civil war? What if they get no orders to do so because the Israeli government quite frankly likes this scenario? Does IDF fear U.S retaliation in the form of completely cut off weapons sales if such a massacre takes place? And again, then what, how does this effect its defenses against Iran, how does it affect the war in Gaza.
The IDF and the Israeli government did not crack down on the extremists the way they should have after Rabin's assassination. In retrospect, Netanyahu should have been arrested and expelled from the country to the U.S for sedition. Because his view of Israel and that of the settlers dovetails to the point where the personal does become the political. They protect him legally and he protects them legally and protects them from the two-state solution. But this is intenable to the IDF. Thus, the only way to break this impass is for the government to start firing current and putting in pliant commanders or take control of the government, ban the settler parties and arrest their leaders and dare their members to attack the IDF and face the consequences.
Ultimately it's up to the IDF to decide what kind of Israel will go forward in the future, a multi-ethnic democracy or the religious nut state many of the West Bank settlers want. Netanyahu is going to find out the hard truth there's no in-between and he'll have to decide who to thrown in his lot to and unfortunately I think he would make deals with the settlers just to keep himself out of jail. That Israel would become un-governable if he chooses this path does not matter to him, only avoiding trial and prison. Such a prime minister is completely compromised in regards to Israel's security and strategic interests. It's a fearful thing to even talk like this and fateful step to even contemplate, but events may well push things to this point. Because the settler state, is also just as undemocratic as a coup.
You know what this reminds me a little of? Algeria with French colonialists working with elements in the Army to overthrow the government to stay in the empire. Luckily for France there was a DeGaulle in office who could take the actions he needed to, "undemocratic" to be sure, to prevent a military dictatorship run from Algiers. In this case, a coup may well dave democracy.
"Save" democracy.