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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.