After the Truce

As ever, your article is thought provoking. Write more. Your insights are welcome. Penny Sue

I can only suppose that 'all hell will break loose' means, in this case, another incursion into Gaza. Hamas will remain in power and this idiotic situation will doubtless continue regardless of this hypothetical attack.

When are they going to just pave over the Gaza Strip and rid the world of this problem?  We all *know* that Hamas won't be satisfied until they eradicate all Jews from "Palestine", so why even put up with them?  Hamas can make sure we'll have a good time being pushed into the sea by going first themselves.

'Paving over the Gaza Strip', as you put it, is unlikely to occur. Why?

1. It is very expensive, especially if you take into account the cost of administering Gaza and its population afterwards. This may make Israeli politcians less willing to go ahead with it.

2. It will be an unpopular action overseas. I don't know what that could mean for Israel--sanctions, perhaps?

Issue (1) is unavaoidable. I suppose issue (2) would require Israelis to mount an effective public diplomacy campaign. For the moment that is too much to ask of the Israeli state. 

Look, I understand that my own views regarding the Middle East are considerably to the left than those of even the most enlightened Jewcer, and I'm happy to consider the viewpoints of others, but for heaven's sake, must we suffer this tsunami of horseshit from poor Widen?

 "The informal truce between Israel and Hamas..."

Why "informal", given that the truce was announced on 7/18/08 by governments of both parties, complete with exact time and date of commencement. Perhaps Widen means "informal" in recognition of the casual regard with which Israel reliably treats its commitments to such agreements.

"...IDF soldiers darted 250 meters into the Gaza Strip and blew up a tunnel." 

Kudos to Widen for correctly describing the causal direction of the current hostilities. As usual, Israel concocts a justification for intensifying the siege it continues to carry out against an entire population (in contravention of international law, by the way, an entity Israel regards as it would a unicorn-pretty, but entirely fictional) . Extra credit for shoehorning mention of Iranian materiel in there.

"Four Hamas terrorists were killed..."

Please advise re use of "terrorist" here. Were these particular Hamas men terrorists with reference to some standard other than their membership in Hamas, or is "Hamas terrorist" a redundancy in the Widen worldview? 

"Israel has suspended the transfer of humanitarian goods to the Strip following the renewed attacks on its civilians..."

For those readers who are not residents of Wonderland (if you're unsure, check for pink, feathered croquet mallets in your immediate vicinity), this line should read:

"Israel has increased its baseline level of snarling indifference to human life by by allowing even fewer necessities into Gaza than usual, this on top of breaking a truce yet again"

"...yet the terrorists continue with their theatrical vows of revenge as if their words actually meant something."

Let's see, Hamas is just a bunch of impotent blowhards, then? So no worries about the 140 rockets? Ashkelon may carry on as normal? Can't have it both ways, pal. 

"Not only is every military response immediately branded as disproportionate, but even a non-military response such as the closing of border crossings is condemned off hand. It has come to the point where Israel can't even scratch its nose in response to these rocket attacks, much less pick it."

Wah. Poor Israel. It deprives infants of antibiotics with the predictable consequences, and the next thing you know, a bunch of anti-Semitic bleeding hearts start whining.

First, lose the nose metaphor, which is senseless. More important, be specific with your claims. Has Israel's every action really been called "disproportionate"? Do you think any have actually been so, or is Israel incapable of disproportionate action? What is your gauge of proportionality?

Next, please explain how a brutal blockade, enforced by the region's most powerful army, is construed as "non-military"?

As for the "boiled frog" metaphor, it is entirely apt, not in the way Widen meant, but with reference to ezg's and Zeevico's comments. Both casually consider the effacement of a people in terms of cost, loss of popularity, etc., as cold-bloodedly as any nazi. This is what comes with fealty to the perpetrators of a forty-year occupation -the eating away of one's ethical faculties, slowly, invisibly, rendering them as lifeless as that frog, blithely unaware of what's becoming of him.

I see young Widen hails from Sweden. I suggest looking into a career preparing lingonberry jam, which holds out greater promise for him than this article suggests the journalism route does.  

Why did you choose that photo, Ismail? Because he was a good Jew, killing himself instead of leaving it to the Nazis or the Ismails?

What a stunning riposte. And further evidence of young Widen's abject cluelessness.

First, unless you're the most primitive sort of essentialist, it appears that Wittgenstein was no Jew at all, good or bad. His mom's father (but not mother) was Jewish, so he's already in halachically goyische territory; nor was Judaism the house religion. While his dad's family was Jewish, they converted to Protestantism. Ludwig himself was raised Catholic. 

Secondly, he didn't kill himself, unless you believe that people give themselves cancer.

Thirdly, if he had, it would not have been to outfox the nazis, who had themselves passed away several years before Ludwig's demise in 1951.

Finally, are you really so bereft of factual ammunition that you must resort to stupid insults like implying that I would have anything whatsoever to do with killing anyone? (Before any Widen supporters leap to their keyboards with an outraged "Ismail's not one to talk! He insults people all the time!", please note the modifier "stupid"; mine tend to be related to my target's inaccuracies and are reliably witty.)

Of course, having had a look at your droppings at this site, I shouldn't be surprised to find you historically ignorant and morally empty.

The point of your reply, of course, is to equate my horror at the monstrousness of Israel's policies towards the Palestinians with a fondness for "killing Jews". This underhanded bullshit may fly at your Likudnik get-togethers, but the minimally discerning reader will have none of it. 

You'll find those lingonberries go quite well with pancakes. Go enjoy a stack, and stop pretending you know anything.

You really scary me, Ismail. I had pancakes tonight, though without the lingonberries. How did you know?

So I was right about it being Wittgenstein? That's a curious choice.

"You really scary (sic) me, Ismail."

Didn't realize you were so easily frightened. Calm down. You may be a shameless apologist for evil, but I mean you no harm.

"I had pancakes tonight, though without the lingonberries. How did you know?"

C'mon. Doesn't most of your writing assume an omnipresent Islamofascist threat? You must know we're watching you. By the way, next time, don't beat the batter quite so long-develops gluten, makes for tougher pancakes. 

And yes, you correctly identified the picture. Must feel odd to have gotten something right. But why do you find it a curious choice? 

I actually just watched them being made, and you are right, the batter was being overstirred. You knew that too. Makes me wonder. Don't overinterpret the "scary" part, it was just a striking coincidence.

I wondered about your choice of profile photo, that's all. (Halachically Jewish or not - he identified himself as Jewish, despite the conversion.) Despite getting some facts wrong about Ludwig (I'll have to blame it on my pancake coma, but I honestly, for a brief moment, confused him with Weinenger, hence the suicide ref.), I just cannot dislike a person that likes him, and assuming that you do, it would be interesting to know why.

Ismail: 

I really didn't mean to turn this into another one of those long-winded comment wars. It's actually a bit unfair as there's only one of you, and this topic, ever popular, may just flush out everyone with an opinion. Already it's 2v1, and you're risking a 3v1 if that other guy actually pipes up. Also, I get the sense that every word anyone writes in disagreement with you in this conflict makes you noticeably angry, and it really doesn't seem to me to be that great a conversation when the other guy is getting so angry.

But I've taken the bait. So I'll respond.

First of all, I want to make it clear that I'm not here to score points, or point out who's better than who, or what have you.

Second of all. You took issue with my phrasing and what I listed as factors that made an incursion unlikely. I will be more clear as to what I see as relevant considerations.

Let me be clear:

I do not by any means desire, or want Palestinian civilians to die. However, as with any military action in civilian areas--especially one as densely populated as Gaza--civilians will die. There is no doubt that this will be a tragedy for Palestinians and that there is a risk that it will become a mass-scale humanitarian tragedy as well. As a person sympathetic towards Palestinians (as opposed to Israelis), I understand that there is probably no possible or plausible situation in which you would support such an incursion and occupation.

I do think that an invasion and occupation of Gaza is necessary for the foreseeable future. The fact remains that the Palestinian people are today at war with the Israeli people. Today the Palestinians are split, as a result of an ongoing civil war, between Hamas and Fatah. Each administers its own section of the Palestinian territories. For brevity, let us leave the case of Fatah and the West Bank outside of the scope of this discussion and only consider whether Gaza ought to be occupied and Hamas ousted from power.

Hamas is currently concerned with retaining its popularity within Gaza, building up its popularity in the West Bank in the hope of an eventual takeover, maintaining power, breaking the 'siege' of Gaza and waging a propaganda war against Israel. While its aim may be to impose its rule over the entirety of Israel and present Palestinian territories, it lacks the resources to do so militarily. In the past, it conducted terrorist campaigns aimed at retaining its popularity domestically in what amounts to a contest of 'who killed more Israelis and sent more bombers against the Zionists' with Islamic Jihad and Fatah respectively. Currently, it is engaged in a truce. The purpose of that truce is not to gain the confidence of Israel's political leaders or its people. It is to retain power so as to have the will to strike again. By doing so, it fulfils part of its purpose (resisting against the Israelis) and maintains its legitimacy among Palestinians.

With that in mind, it should be clear that there is no reason for Israel to wait about until Hamas' next move. The Israeli state is concerned with the protection of its residents and citizens first and foremost. That leaves Israel with the distasteful task of seeing how to prevent a Hamas attack. In my view, a 'military response' of any kind is always of last resort. For this reason, an examination of the alternatives is necessary.

One apparent alternative is to have Hamas relinquish power to another group, such as Fatah. That would doubtless be a bloody affair, but I do not see it as being all too likely in the near future. Regardless, I hardly see how Fatah's fighters, who fight under the banner of power and money, can really countenance fighting better motivated troops, such as Hamas', which has the 'Islamist' banner to fight underneath and which has not thrown its ideology entirely out of the window in its quest for power. To the contrary its social services have for many years and even prior to the intifada assisted Palestinians with their daily living needs. Moreover, I strongly doubt that Hamas will be willing to hand over power peacefully to Fatah, a group which is hardly peaceful itself. For the moment there is no other group capable of gaining power in Gaza, peacefully or not, and Hamas, I am sure, will do its best to make sure that it stays that way.

The next apparent alternative is to negotiate a cease fire or some manner of treaty with Hamas, providing for a cessation of hostilities [a peace treaty being impossible because Hamas desires the Israeli state's outright destruction and, in turn, the imposition of a Hamas state]. Presently Israel and Hamas are engaged in one such cease-fire. It is a cease-fire that either side will break at its convenience and there have indeed been such violations. That they have not led to substantial casualties for Israelis has been a matter of fate. So this is an unacceptable alternative for Israel--namely, because it will lead to Israeli civilian deaths if it keeps going. 

Next comes the matter of smaller-scale Israeli military incursions into Gaza. These may run Hamas into a temporary disarray and result in the deaths of Palestinian civilians. Hamas will be forced to appoint replacements for its killed or arrested members, where necessary, and there will likely be no shortage of volunteers. There will be fewer Palestinian people alive, and this is hardly a boon to anyone. But the overall political, large-scale impact of these strikes on the Israeli-Palestinian war as a whole will be insubstantial. Hamas' capabilities may be hampered on a temporary basis, but it will continue to attack Israeli civilians regardless, whether via rockets or via some other means.

And that leaves a military invasion and occupation. That invasion will involve the arrest of Hamas fighters willing to surrender and the killing of those who fight, where necessary. If Hamas members suddenly take it upon themselves to where military uniforms of some kind outside of their pompous military parades, I suppose POW rights may be in order. For those actually engaged in planning or assisting in conducting terrorist attacks, the Israeli state will be left with the situation of either arresting them in accordance with Israeli anti-terrorist laws or according them POW rights or both. I am not by any means an expert in international law and am unsure as to whether doing both is possible.

Otherwise, the cost of the operation will be on a scale of a war. After the operation, Israel will once again be tasked with building up the Palestinian Gazan economy and providing for its people.

This, of course, is disregarding the global political consequences. Again, to some extent this may be remedied via a public diplomacy or propaganda campaign which Israel has thus far not done well in. But the possibility of any international support for this invasion anywhere strikes me as so unreal for the moment that it remains an impossibility. What negative consequences that may arise I do not know.

Which leads me to think that this war between Israelis and Palestinians will continue for the foreseeable future.

My apologies. There's also the West Bank model: kill and arrest everyone who's preparing attacks (viz. Hamas), and have Fatah train whoever's left in Jordan. Great bed-time reading for your kids. We'll see how it pans out.