Daniel Levy on the Israel-Gaza crisis and the war risks for the United States

Veteran Israeli diplomat Daniel Levy talked to Middle East Eye¹ back in November on the current Israel-Gaza conflict and the current troubles of Israeli democracy in this November 16 interview. Levy is the current president of the U.S./Middle East Project.

A big topic in this interview is how for years the US has backed bad Israeli occupation policies and has de facto supported the Israeli government’s refusal to pursue serious permanent peace arrangements with the Palestinians. The official US position has been a still is a “two-state solution,” which seems very difficult to envision. But in fact it has continued its largely uncritical support for Israel’s apartheid policies and it stubborn refusal to observe international law on its responsibilities for the illegally occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank.

Among other things, Levy notes that the bitter irony in the threat by Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu to use a nuclear weapon against Gaza² comes from a minister of a government that officially does not acknowledge it has nuclear weapons.

And he stresses at the start that the Israeli government has long tried to involve the US in military conflict with Iran. (Which on a low-level proxy basis has already been happening.³)

Levy in the interview observes that by boosting its overt military presence in the region in the name of deterrence, particularly against Iran and affiliated groups, Hizbollah in particular, which could engage in major attacks in northern Israel, the Biden Administration increased the risk of direct American participation. He points out that currently:

Israel has something that it has long sought, but it's in the rare moment where it possibly has that, which is the serious prospect of direct American intervention. Having placed their warships there, having gone down the narrative path that they went down, I think America - may have done it as a deterrent - but America is trapped, and will have to react is that happens. [my emphasis]

As the International Crisis Group recently noted, "Israeli politicians, as well as the residents displaced from the border areas and many others who live just to the south, now describe Hizbollah fighters’ proximity to the border as a threat more lethal than Hamas in Gaza."⁴

US interests are not identical with Israel’s and particularly not with the perceived interests of Netanyahu’s current government. Netanyahu’s main motivation seems to be using the current crisis as a way to keep himself in power and out of jail. The risk of direct conflict between Iran and the US exists, which could turn into a much larger war.

The Biden Administration has been trying to show that it has been restraining some of the Netanyahu government’s more reckless inclinations. But it’s hard to see how much success they have had on that front. On the other hand, it is eagerly supplying weapons to Israel and has even loosened some long-standing restrictions on access to US weapons in storage as backup supplies in the case of military conflict arising:

The White House has requested the removal of restrictions on all categories of weapons and ammunition Israel is allowed to access from U.S. weapons stockpiles stored in Israel itself.

The move to lift restrictions was included in the White House’s supplemental budget request, sent to the Senate on October 20. “This request would,” the proposed budget says, “allow for the transfer of all categories of defense articles.”

The request pertains to little-known weapons stockpiles in Israel that the Pentagon established for use in regional conflicts, but which Israel has been permitted to access in limited circumstances — the very limits President Joe Biden is seeking to remove.⁵

Benny Morris, the historian whose important work on the nakba of 1948 made it very hard for historians and journalists to pretend that the 1948 War of Independence did not involve deliberate mass expulsions of Arab residents by the Zionist independence forces, explicitly advocated three weeks into the current conflict that Israel should use the current crisis to go to war with Iran:

Israel should exact a price from Iran for this, a painful price, and immediately.

For example, it’s possible to destroy Iranian planes that land at the Aleppo and Damascus airports, loaded with weapons (something Israel has refrained from doing, in favor of destroying the arms shipments after they are unloaded from the planes), or to strike Iranian cargo ships carrying arms before they enter the port of Beirut, Latakia or Tartus. …

Israel must state publicly that if the Shi’ite organization shifts to an all-out war, Israel will bomb Iran itself, first and foremost Tehran and its nuclear installations. …

It is possible – there is no certainty about this – that Washington would oppose a future Israeli action against Iran on Iranian territory, fearing that such an attack will drag the United States into the military maelstrom that would result. But for Israel, destroying Iran’s nuclear program is a supreme interest; an American veto must be rejected. …

The timing will never be better than it is now; Joe Biden is the most pro-Israel U.S. president since Bill Clinton. It is possible that such an attack, especially if it succeeds, would even please Washington.⁶ [my emphasis]

Of course, attacking Iran is a feasible course of action only if Netanyahu’s government thinks it can count on full support from the US in such an expanded war.

It’s interesting to see that Morris thinks Biden is more "“pro-Israel” than Donald Trump, who seemed to take his cues on Israel policy straight from the hardcore Christian Zionists.

Levy, who has a very different perspective from warmongers like Morris and Netanyahu, argues in the interview, "I think the imperative is a ceasefire. I think the imperative is to end the devastation that has happened, October 7th and every day since." In the current diplomatic language, “ceasefire” refers to a long-term suspension of the conflict, not just a pause or temporary truce of a few days or hours like the current arrangement.

Levy’s discussion in the interview follows up on his November 8 New York Times piece, “The Road Back From Hell”⁷:

The road back from the hell of a zero-sum “us or them” begins with the humanizing of the other. Maybe it’s a road that eventually leads us back to a two-state dispensation. Or maybe the partition paradigm is part of the problem, encouraging separation and the idea that walls must exist between Palestinians and Israelis. There are no quick or easy solutions. But if our nightmares emerged in failing to anticipate and prevent the horrors of Oct. 7 and every day since, then we should unleash our political imagination in laying the groundwork for a future of life and hope. [my emphasis]

Levy also warns against self-destructive policies on the part of Israeli governments like the current far-right Netanyahu wartime one:

In the long term, the Israeli government’s commitment to destroying Hamas risks becoming another unobtainable holy grail. One thing Oct. 7 made strikingly clear was that Israel cannot provide security for its citizens by controlling millions of Palestinians, who are denied their rights and freedoms and live under a system of permanent structural violence and inequality. The “no cease-fire” crowd must desist from encouraging Israel to hang on to the historically discredited fiction that armed resistance rooted in an oppressed people can be eliminated by the deployment of even more ferocious military methods.

Israel’s failure to offer detailed plans for postwar Gaza indicates the degree of dysfunction in Israeli thinking. The oft-stated Israeli leadership commitment to destroying Hamas ignores the reality of what that movement is. Hamas is both an armed group that uses terrorism and is a political movement that has won elections and has been governing Gaza for more than 15 years. It also embodies an idea — namely that resistance is part of the struggle for Palestinian liberation. Hamas is not an external, ISIS-style nihilistic cadre; it is deeply embedded in the fabric of Palestinian society. Its popularity surely increases not with a thirst for blood [on the part of Israelis] but rather as other avenues for achieving liberation are closed to Palestinians. [my emphasis]

More recently, Gideon Levy (not Daniel) warned:

The facts are glaring. Hamas is growing stronger. The more it is hit in Gaza, the more its political strength grows among Palestinians, at least outside the Gaza Strip. The longer the war goes on, the worse Israel's international standing becomes. It's already reached an unprecedented nadir, not yet among governments, but certainly in world public opinion.

Israel has become a pariah state more than ever before. Reports from Gaza present a barbaric reality. The world sees it and feels loathing. How could it not? Polls of young people in the United States, including young Jews, should horrify Israel. Hamas is more popular among them than Israel is. We can thank the war for that. ...

Not only on battlefields has Israel adopted a policy of indiscriminate killing to an extent not previously seen; it has also become sadistic in an unprecedented manner in its detention facilities.

Anything goes after October 7. It's not only the extreme right who have tainted the public discourse. The center also wants more blood, destruction, epidemics and hunger, and is unashamed to say so openly.⁸

1. Israel's fears, its delusions and its future: Daniel Levy. Middle East Eye YouTube channel 11/16/2023. (Accessed: 2023-25-11).

2. Marsden, Ariella (2023): Netanyahu backed down from firing minister who called to nuke Gaza. Jerusalem Post 11/05/2023. <https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-771766> (Accessed: 2023-01-11).

3. Britzky, Hale & Bertrand, Natasha (2023): US fires on and kills hostile forces, launches precision airstrikes after attack in Iraq. CNN Politics 11/22/2023. <https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/21/politics/us-attack-iraq/index.html> (Accessed: 2023-25-11).

4. Wimmen, Heiko & Wood, David (2023): Diplomacy Must Prevail in Israel-Hizbollah Conflict. International Crisis Group 12/29/023. <https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/east-mediterranean-mena/lebanon-israelpalestine/diplomacy-must-prevail> (Accessed: 2023-31-12).

5. Klippenstein, Ken (2023): Joe Biden Moves to Lift Nearly Every Restriction on Israel's Access to U.X. Weapons Stockpile. The Intercept 11/25/2023. <https://theintercept.com/2023/11/25/biden-israel-weapons-stockpile-arms-gaza/> (Accessed: 2023-01-11).

6. Morris, Benny (2023): There Will Never Be a Better Time for Israel to Strike in Iran. Haaretz 11/01/2023. <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-11-01/ty-article-opinion/.premium/there-will-never-be-a-better-time-for-israel-to-strike-in-iran/0000018b-8758-df47-a3df-ff592b2b0000> (Accessed: 2023-01-11).

7. Levy, Daniel (2023): The Road Back From Hell. New York Times 11/08/2023. <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/opinion/israel-hamas-cease-fire.html > (Accessed: 2023-25-11).

8. Levy, Gideon (2023): The Legitimization of Evil Will Remain With Israelis Long After the War in Gaza Ends. Haaretz 12/31/2023. <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-12-31/ty-article/.premium/the-legitimization-of-evil-will-remain-with-israelis-long-after-the-war-in-gaza-ends/0000018c-bc16-d45c-a98e-bf5e854b0000> (Accessed: 2023-31-12).