Month: November 2023
Stevenson’s army, November 30
Henry Kissinger died Wednesday, 6 months after his 100th birthday. NYT has a comprehensive obit. Fred Kaplan is more critical, drawing on declassified documents bundled by the National Security Archive.
As most of you know, Kissinger was one of my academic mentors. I TA’d in his course for two years, had weekly meetings with him. I almost went to work in his NSC — until my immediate sponsors resigned in protest because of the invasion of Cambodia.
I was disappointed that he never wrote a letter of recommendation for my academic job portfolio, but Tony Lake later told me he said he was too busy. Lake also said I was in good company. Among the other things Kissinger repeatedly didn’t have time for were relations with the UN and foreign economic policy.
– There’s a new poll showing US polarization and willingness to use political violence.
– NYT analyzes polls on US views of Israel and Palestine.
– NYT notes danger of US-Iran war.
– Paul Musgrave tells how views of war have changed.
One more point on Kissinger: while I admire many of his accomplishments and deplore others, I especially resent his way of trying to avoid responsibility by making jokes. [“The illegal we do right away; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.”]
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Friends don’t let friends commit mass murder
Let’s leave aside whether the Israeli campaign in Gaza has constituted genocide. That depends on its government’s intentions. There are genocidal implications of what some Israelis, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, have said. But we are far from the kind of evidence on intent that would be required for an indictment at the International Criminal Court. Nevermind a conviction. Let’s leave that question for after the war.
Is it worth it?
The immediate effects of the Israeli bombing are appalling. It has displaced at least half the population. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, which operates under the authority of Hamas, on the order of 15,000 people are dead. Forty per cent are said to be children. Gaza is densely populated. Half its population is under 18. So the Israelis are hitting fewer children than if they were shooting randomly, but not by all that much.
The number of Hamas fighters killed in Gaza is not known. It is likely not much more than the 1500 killed inside Israel during the counterattack October 7 and thereafter. The question is whether killing 10 or even 5 civilians for each Hamas fighter is reasonable. Proportionality between military action and result is an important criterion in the laws of war. So too is necessity. Is there no way other than what the Israelis are doing to destroy Hamas? I’ve addressed that question previously.
Next could be worse
If the fighting restarts after the current pause, we can expect worse. Much of Gaza’s civilian population has sought refuge in the south, as Israel advised. Those displaced will already be short of resources. The civilian population will be more concentrated and exposed, many living in the open rather than in buildings. Intensified bombing in the south will quickly kill more. It will also destroy much of the remaining civilian infrastructure.
Hamas will have taken refuge in its tunnels. Hitting them in the north is one of the reasons for the devastating destruction there, with perhaps half the buildings destroyed. Repeating that destruction in the south will be catastrophic.
Some Israelis hope the Gazans will flee to Egypt, which is resisting their entry. Egypt already hosts an extraordinary number of refugees. But even if Cairo opens the door, the result will be an influx into northern Sinai, which borders Israel. Extremists there are already rife. Would it really help to increase their recruiting potential and risk an assault in southern Israel?
Still worse after the fighting stops
The impact of war continues after the fighting ends. At some point, the Israelis will decide they have done enough. But that won’t end the effects of what they will have done. Disease, hunger, and radicalization will haunt the end of the Gaza war. All will be worse the longer the fighting lasts.
The international community knows how to deal with disease and hunger. It will flood Gaza with assistance of those sorts once the fighting stops, provided the Israelis permit it.
But we know little about avoiding radicalization, which even Netanyahu has acknowledged is a risk.
What is to be done?
Gaza is not going anywhere. It will remain a threat to Israel. That is a good reason not to completely alienate its population, which wasn’t fond of Hamas before October 7.
While President Biden has been jawboning the Israelis to target better and reduce civilian casualties, his diplomatic approach has not been effective. Some in Congress are suggesting imposing conditions on US aid to Israel. That proposition isn’t going to pass in either the House or the Senate. But the proposal may still boost those in Israel who think Netanyahu has gone too far. Friends don’t let friends commit mass murder.
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Stevenson’s army, November 29
– NBC sees a Biden-Obama clash on Israel policy
– WaPo reports pressure on India over attempted assassination
– FP reports the surprisingly bipartisan House committee on China, but notes it can’t report bills.
– AP says Trump would likely use US troops domestically
– The issue of US hypocrisy came up in class. Dan Drezner explains its role.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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When too much is not enough
Now that the initial exchange of prisoners appears to have succeeded, it is time to re-evaluate the situation in Gaza.
The Israelis have gotten themselves in a fix. Pursuing their war objective of wiping out Hamas is ending too many lives and wrecking too much property. If they continue, the odds of achieving stability after the war are small. They may not, as they claim, be targetting civilians, but they are hitting a lot of them. Their military efforts do not look either necessary or proportional to the objective. Those are important conditions for lawful behavior.
Stop and try something else
Even the Israelis have no idea how Gaza will be governed after the fighting stops. Prime Minister Netanyahu says Israel will take miitary responsibility for Gaza security. He says nothing coherent beyond “deradicalization” about civilian governance. We know what that means: a new version of the open-air prison with high walls. No one should believe that will work well. President Biden has explicitly rejected that option. He wants some sort of international administration as a transition to a Palestinian Authority takeover of responsibility. That is only slightly more promising.
The time has more than come for the Israelis to stop what they are doing and try something else. This could mean an extension of the current pause, but it may not mean a formal bilateral ceasefire agreed with Hamas. It could also mean a unilateral Israeli move intended to provide an opportunity to flood Gaza with humanitarian assistance. Israeli raids against identified concentrations of Hamas fighters might continue, but without the destruction of civilians and civilian infrastructure that remains.
The alternative
There is an alternative. The Israelis waited a long time to get Adolf Eichmann. They then wisely tried him publicly and convicted him in a court of law. They need to show similar strategic patience in dealing with Hamas. It will take years to identify and track down the Hamas commanders responsible for October 7. If they are terrorists, as Netanyahu claims, the right place for them is in court. A trial would have a more salutary effect on deradicalization than the extra-judicial killing the Israelis exercised against the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorists.
Continuing the hunt for Hamas fighters in current conditions in Gaza is madness. But it helps to keep Prime Minister Netanyahu in power. Once there is a prolonged pause in the fighting, the Israeli public will have an opportunity to demand his resignation. Israelis need to hold him accountable for the intelligence and military failures of October 7, as well as the conduct of the subsequent prisoner exchange negotiations and of the war. Not until Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition allies are defrocked will it be possible for the Israeli government to begin to restore its credibility both at home and abroad.
Tone it down at home too
Meanwhile, here in the United States we also need to lower the temperature. I have participated in two events at Johns Hopkins SAIS that were peaceful and thoughtful, if occasionally spirited, discussions of Gaza. But they were open only to our international affairs students, who quite rightly adopt analytical frames even when anger and other passions motivate them. And those discussions were a couple of weeks ago, before the Israeli move on Al Shifa Hospital that appears to have produced little evidence of Israeli allegations.
In the meanwhile, things have heated up on other US campuses, including even Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore. The administration there has suspended a prominent physician for inappropriate remarks on social media. That is distressing. It used to be that most of us could encourage violence only in a limited circle of acquaintances. Now it can be done to thousands with a click on Twitter (the social media platform whose owner wants it called X and retweets anti-Semitic material).
We can hope things will cool off in the US Monday, after the Thanksiving holiday when most Americans try to be with close family and friends. It would be entirely out of keeping with the occasion to encourage hard feelings. We have a lot to be grateful for and good reason to recall those in both Israel and Palestine who have less.
Those who are saying they will never vote again for Joe Biden because of his support for Israel’s military action I hope will reconsider. Trump would take a much harder line. And for him “humanitarian” is a dirty word.
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Stevenson’s army, November 24
-FT says senior officials dismissed detailed warning about Hamas attacks
– Taiwan opposition crumbles, WSJ says Beijing loses.
– WaPo says Russia & China plan tunnel to Crimea
–NYT doubts PA could govern Gaza
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, November 23
– Fred Kaplan sees a big shift in US-Israel relations
-NYT sees Biden role in hostage deal
– NYT notes divisions in Israeli cabinet
– WSJ says no smoking gun in tunnel videos
– CNN reports attempted Houthi attacks on US ships
– Right wing win in Dutch elections
– The story behind “Day After” film
– FP has great graphic on US-Chinese competition for world trade
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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