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Cease Fire in Gaza

Jan 18, 2009

maha

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Israel voted last night to begin a unilateral cease fire in Gaza, although exactly when the cease fire will begin is unclear. My guess is that it will be some time before Tuesday.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed his nation last night and declared that “we have reached all the goals of the war, and beyond.” Hamas is not expected to stop fighting, so exactly what the goals were is not clear. Although maybe it is. The Talking Dog wrote two weeks ago,

IMHO, Israel’s government has, for its own domestic political purposes (how widely reported here is it that an Israeli general election is scheduled for February 10, 2009?) decided to “get tough on Hamas,” which, of course, has certainly been trying to provoke something like this for as long as it has controlled Gaza. And so, much will be blown up, many will be killed or wounded, and at some point (presumably before January 20th), “military objectives will have been achieved,” and, well… “calm” will be restored, which, of course, is the same utterly psychotic “status quo”

The Israeli army will remain in place, Olmert said, and will respond with force if Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel. However, Israel expects Hamas will engage in a “new flurry of rocket launches.” And, one suspects, Hamas will continue to find ways to fire rockets into Israel no matter how many troops Israel deploys. Trying to control a group like Hamas with force is like trying to smash mercury with a hammer.

The Talking Dog says today,

And so one must ask just what those goals were… now that there are over 1,200 Gazans (and 13 Israelis)dead (and thousands of Gazans wounded)… one must ask again when among the dead are three daughters and a niece of Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, whose house came under Israeli fire… Abuelaish, a peace activist, is one of the few Gazans permitted to regularly cross to the Israeli side to work as a physician on both sides of the Israel/Gaza border.

Congratulations, geniuses. One of the few Palestinians of any stature who genuinely believes in the prospects for peaceful coexistence, and you’ve gone ahead and targeted his house, and killed three of his daughters. Way to go.

What Israel has accomplished is increase sympathy for Hamas, which will accrue resources and recruits in Hamas’s favor, resulting in turn in more Isaeli deaths in the future. The death spiral continues. As the Dog says, no one is suggesting that Israel passively accept rockets being launched into its territory. But there’s reacting, and there’s responding. There’s stupid fighting, and smart fighting. Israel chose “stupid.” And the same lame-brains who love the Iraq War are cheering them on.

Via Juan Cole, John J. Mearsheimer writes in The American Conservative that with “victories” like this, Israel doesn’t need defeats. In a nutshell, Mearsheimer says what Israel really wants is a permanent ethnic Apartheid, which if achieved likely will doom Israel.

See also Bob Ostertag, “A Better Source for News on Gaza.”

Spotlight

14 Comments

Mike Furlan • Jan 18, 2009 @10:17 am

“Trying to control a group like Hamas with force is like trying to smash mercury with a hammer.”

More properly stated:

Trying to control groups like Hamas with limited force is like trying to smash mercury with a hammer.

For one example, WWII was won when the Germans and the Japanese were convinced that the United Nations would kill every last one of them, had the power to do so, and was demonstrably on the way to achieving that end. The atomic bomb, and the Red Army did not discriminate between combatants and civilians.

If it became clear that Hamas presented such a threat to Israel that it would justify such treatment, then they could be completely eliminated. But since it is obvious to all the factions involved that Hamas is merely an annoyance, (The rocket fire I’ll bet causing less deaths each year than bicycles or bee stings in Israel) such a remedy would be obscene.
maha • Jan 18, 2009 @10:36 am

Mike, you can’t compare 4th generation warfare to “conventional” 3rd generation war, a.k.a. World War II. Nation-states (e.g., Germany and Japan) have governments that actually surrender, negotiate terms and sign treaties that they often keep. But a group like Hamas is not like that. If you killed every last member of Hamas, other people would just re-constitute it, and it would rise again.
A Canadian Reader • Jan 18, 2009 @12:26 pm

Sir Gerald Kaufman’s speech (http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/kaufman170109.html) masterfully analyzes the situation.
felicity • Jan 18, 2009 @12:52 pm

Maha got it right on 4th generation (or 5th generation) war. Among other characteristics, the stronger military will win the battles but never the war. We bombed the shit out of North Vietnam and we lost the war, remember?

Most Palestinians have been living separated or quarantined as the back-drops of their daily experience for 60 years. A month of random killings by those responsible for the ‘back-drops’ is just that, a month of random killings – and no more.
Mike Furlan • Jan 18, 2009 @1:09 pm

1. “you can’t compare 4th generation warfare to “conventional” 3rd generation war, a.k.a. World War II. Nation-states (e.g., Germany and Japan) have governments that actually surrender, negotiate terms and sign treaties that they often keep.”

Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, and so I believe has a better claim to legitimacy than either the German or Japanese governments. I do not believe that they are more difficult to negotiate with than it would have been to negotiate with psychopaths that ran imperial Japan or Nazi Germany.

2. Germany did not surrender until after the Russians took Berlin. If Israel would do to Gaza what the Russians did to Berlin, there would be no more Hamas in Gaza. This would be a horrible possibility, but it is not impossible.

Japan did not surrender until we had demonstrated the ability to destroy every Japanese city with no loss to ourselves. Terror works, and in this case it was considered justified. Israel has not even dreamed of applying this level of force in Gaza, and everybody knows it. Hence Hamas will continue to exist.

3. “If you killed every last member of Hamas, other people would just re-constitute it, and it would rise again.”

These are not “men from Mars” they will not march to their deaths with no expectation of victory. A Kamikaze pilot could justify spending his live to same the homeland. But even the suicide pilots stood down when it was clear that their sacrifices would be meaningless.

4. Again, if Hamas was a threat to Israeli nation existence, then a threat, backed up by credible force to kill, if necessary, everybody in Gaza would “solve” the Hamas problem, the same way we won WWII.

But since nobody believe that this is the case, you are right, and there will always be more people to reconstitute Hamas. We come to the same conclusion, from different starting points.
Mike Furlan • Jan 18, 2009 @1:59 pm

“We bombed the shit out of North Vietnam and we lost the war, remember?”

No. This is “bombed the shit out”:

http://39th.org/39th/images/damagephotos/Damage11-hiroshima-a.jpg

We didn’t do that to North Vietnam.

Here are Russian tanks in Berlin:

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/6889/berlin1945il5.jpg

We didn’t do to Vietnam what the Russians did to Germany.
maha • Jan 18, 2009 @2:16 pm

Mike — it’s not how much the enemy is bombed. It is the nature of the enemy. War with a nation-state can have a decisive end because it is a nation-state you are fighting. However that state is persuaded to surrender, once it surrenders and accepts defeat, then your nation-state moves into a new phase of relationship with the other nation-state.

Fighting an organization motivated by a cause requires entirely different tactics and strategy than fighting a nation-state, because the organization is fighting for a cause. That cause may involve territory, or it may not, but I understand Hamas is headquartered in Syria. Unless Israel is prepared to obliterate Syria, and probably Lebanon and some other places as well, there can be no defeat of Hamas by military means.

And, as I said, even if every single member of Hamas dropped dead tomorrow, if the conditions that fed Hamas have not changed, then another Hamas, or something just like it with a different name, will rise up and take its place.

For this reason, comparisons between World War II and Israel-Hamas are just plain imbecilic. Stop it now or I will get very annoyed with you.
joanr16 • Jan 18, 2009 @4:05 pm

“We have reached all the goals of the war, and beyond.”

It makes me shudder to say it, but the “goals” of the U.S. invasion of Iraq seemed more clear (if intentions based on fantasy and lies can be clear) than Israel’s “goals” in this latest invasion of unfriendly territory.

Did the rocket attacks stop?

Did the Palestinian people turn against Hamas?

Did the U.N. come to support Israel’s actions?

Did the Israeli government explain its actions to the satisfaction of most of the world?

Um. Let’s see. No, no, no and no. Of course, if the Israeli electorate is embracing mindless cowboy politics presented in the manner of G.W. Bush, the current government should do well in the coming election.
Comrade Rutherford • Jan 18, 2009 @7:50 pm

I am not anti-Israel. I am against any nation that goes out of their way to increase civilian casualties, like my own nation, America has done in Iraq and Afghanistan. The actions taken by Israel’s leaders just happens to fit that category.

I thought the whole point of Israel’s mass murder of women and children was specifically to create enemies against Israel for generations to come. That’s why Bush attacked Iraq and Afghanistan, wasn’t it? To murder women and children with impunity, hand trillions of dollars to war profiteers and create enemies against America for hundreds of years into the future.
Mike Furlan • Jan 18, 2009 @8:17 pm

I’m sorry for not taking your “fourth generation” warfare theory seriously. It is to military analysis what the Double Stuff Racing League http://www.nabiscoworld.com/oreo/dsrl/home.aspx is to professional sports, just an amusing marketing campaign.

“. . .proponents of 4GW undermine their own credibility by subscribing to this bankrupt theory.”
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub632.pdf
Mike Furlan • Jan 18, 2009 @8:22 pm

“I am against any nation that goes out of their way to increase civilian casualties.”

There is only one party to the conflict who is doing this, and it is Hamas.

Their rocketing of Israel targets civilians only.

And their tactic of hiding behind civilians in Gaza is also calculated to increase civilian casualties.

Israel was wrong to attack Gaza the way it did. But they are not doing so in a way to increase civilian casualties.
maha • Jan 18, 2009 @10:32 pm

Mike — It’s not “my” theory. Some respectable military minds came up with it, and it happens to make strategic sense.

And I’m very tired of arguing with you. Good bye.
Comrade Rutherford • Jan 18, 2009 @11:48 pm

Mike said, “Israel was wrong to attack Gaza the way it did. But they are not doing so in a way to increase civilian casualties.”

How pathetically incredibly wrong could someone be…? Shelling civilians with White Phosphorus was NOT intended to increase civilian casualties?

Blowing up UN schools filled with women and children had but ONE purpose – to MAXIMIZE civilian casualties! What other reason could the IDF possibly have?

Attacking the UN compound with White Phosphorus had ONLY ONE purpose – to destroy the relief supplies stored there, the food and medicine.

Hamas is insane, they fire indiscriminate weapons at kibbutz’. IDF’s response to that is to massacre women and children by the hundreds? Oh, please.
Steve from Canuckistan • Jan 20, 2009 @1:32 pm

Thanks Maha for this post and Canadian Reader for the link to Sir Gerald Kaufmans’ speech. That speech needs to be widely distributed. My guarded hope is that Obama will address this mess and soon. It’s pretty obvious where the strategy of NOT talking to one’s enemies originated. One wonders if the previous (as of today) occupant of the WH does not regret that it did not spin out of control even further as a sop to the christian zionists in his “base”. Nothing ignites them more than the the prospect of rapture ya know.