How long will Israel's war morale hold out?
Apparently nothing Netanyahu does or says will stop Biden from supporting him. But the Israeli public knows the democracy-hating Likud leader better.
The Israeli Defense Force (IDF), known to its defenders as The Most Moral Army In the World, continues its war against Gaza civilians. And even against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).1
“According to the director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza, nine Palestinians were killed and 75 were injured when two tank rounds hit the building that was sheltering around 800 people in the southern Gaza Strip, “ reports Haaretz.2
The National Security Council (NSC) sent out a statement attributed to Adrienne Watson.3 Here’s where AI could save the NSC some money. Instead of having to pay an employee to read the standard script, they could just invent an AI spokesperson to recite the litany:
We.Are.Gravely.Concerned.
Hamas.Terrorists.
The.Loss.Of.Every.Innocent:Life.Is.A.Tragedy.
Hamas.Terrorists.
We.Mourn.Every.Single.Civilian.Life.That.Has.Been.Lost.
Hamas.Terrorists.
Israel.Has.The.Right.To.Defend.Itself.
Hamas.Terrorists.
Israel.Retains.A.Responsibility.To.Protect.Civilians.
Also: If.You.Believe.The.US.Government.Actually.Expects.Netanyahu’s.Government.To.
Do.This.Please.Click.On.This.Link.For.A.Fantastic.Cryptocurrency.Investment.
Opportunity.
How does an American with a sense of moral and political responsibility go about commenting on this situation? Here is an example4:
For Israel, the current war on Gaza is already a notably long one
Part of the problem for Israel’s credibility in this situation is that even though there have been military conflicts that for most of the lives of people alive now, most of them have been short in comparison to the current one. Israel has a reputation of being particularly “casualty sensitive” with its own soldiers.
The Six-Day War of 1967 was obviously short.
The British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt on November began with Israel invading on October 29, 1956, with British and French forces joining in the invasion in early November. This war was primarily a French effort to force a regime change in Egypt with British support. Israel played along willingly by invading first. But in this case Britain and France persuaded Israel to start the military action to provide a cover for the French-British goal of regime change. Under US and UN pressure, British and French forces withdrew in December 1956 and Israeli forces in March 1957.
Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970) had made a policy shift toward the Soviet bloc at the time and had declared his own brand of socialist government (though not one along Soviet lines). The Western powers hoped to unseat his government, and France in particular wanted to stop Egyptian arms supplies to anti-French rebels in Algeria.
Concerns about the spread of Nasser’s brand of “Arab socialism” led the US and other Western powers to the brilliant idea of promoting Islamist politics as a more Western-friendly (or at least more Western-convenient) trend. This policy culminated later in the US assistance for the “brave independent Mujahadeen freedom fighters” in Afghanistan, which spawned what we now think of as jihadist ideology, and where Osama bin Laden learned his terrorist trade. Netanyahu’s policy of promoting Hamas to undermine the support for the Palestinian Authority is a continuation of this genius strategy.
Foreign policy “blowback” is rough.
The fighting in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 with Egypt and Syria ran from October 6 to October 26, with formal peace deals later. The aftermath of that war set the stage for the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace agreement, which proved to be an enduring one.
The fighting in the First Lebanon War mostly took place in the month of June 1982.
The Second Lebanon War (2006) lasted 34 days.
The two Palestinian “intifadas” - despite Elise Stefanik’s imaginative notion that “intifada” means “kill all Jews in the world,” it is actually an Arab word for “uprising” - were more a serious of protests and violent confrontations than actual wars. The first came in 1988-1992, with the Oslo Accords of 1993-95 following.
The second intifada was another serious of confrontations in 2000-2005:
The second intifada was much more violent than the first. During the approximately five-year uprising, more than 4,300 fatalities were registered, and again the ratio of Palestinian to Israeli deaths was slightly more than 3 to 1.
In March 2002, following an especially horrific suicide bombing that killed 30 people, the Israeli army launched Operation Defensive Shield to reoccupy the West Bank and parts of Gaza. One year later Israel started building a separation barrier in the West Bank to match a similar barrier erected in Gaza in 1996. Also helping to suppress the uprising were more than 200 state-directed assassinations of Palestinian military operatives and political leaders.5
That serious of events was sparked by a deliberately provocative visit by Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon to the Dome of the Rock, an important and politically sensitive Muslim holy site in Jerusalem:
The symbolism of the visit to the Haram by Mr Sharon - reviled for his role in the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in a refugee camp in Lebanon - and its timing was unmistakable. "This is a dangerous process conducted by Sharon against Islamic sacred places," Yasser Arafat told Palestinian television.
Mr Sharon's second motive was less obvious: to steal the limelight from the former prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who returned from the US yesterday and could become a challenger for the Likud party leadership after Israel's attorney general decided not to prosecute him for corruption.6
The second intifada featured Israel’s formal reoccupation of Gaza in 2002. In 2005, when Sharon was Prime Minister, Israel formally withdrew from Gaza and formally evacuated Israeli settlements there. “Occupation” is used in different ways in relation to Gaza. In international law, both Gaza and the West Bank have been occupied territories since the 1967 war. Israel has responsibilities under international law for how it can and cannot act in Gaza, obligations for which Netanyahu’s government shows nothing but contempt.
It is also used to refer to the physical presence of Israeli forces in Gaza enforcing their version of order. Israeli government references often use the latter meaning. Netanyahu himself considers that Greater Israel (current Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank) should be formally part of the Jewish state of Israel. “From the river to the sea,” as Netanyahu himself recently put it in a speech.
From then until October 7, 2023, Israel carried out what Israeli officials cynically described as “mowing the grass”7 military operations against Gaza:
Operation Cast Lead (Dec. 27, 2008-January 2009)
Operation Pillar of Defense (Nov.14-21, 2012)
Operation Protective Edge (July 8-August 26, 2014)
Israel-Palestine Crisis of 2021 (May 10-May 21)
Staying the course?
Israel itself is a small country with a reputation for being highly sensitive to casualties in combat.8 In general, when a national pubic believes that a war is genuinely necessary for their national defense, they are more likely to be willing to accept large numbers of own-side deaths of soldiers. For soldiers themselves, the quality of the army organizations is more immediately decisive. But the IDF is also a conscript army, so there is not the degree of isolation from the public that serving members of the armed forces in the US experience.
And now that Israel is conducting more ground operations, their own casualties are growing. There are understandably increasingly frustrated protests over Netanyahu’s miserable failure to get the remaining Israeli hostages released.9 And: “January 22 was the bloodiest day for Israel since October 7. And since the casualties on the day of the massacre had been inside Israel, this was Israel's bloodiest day in Gaza.”10
And the war doesn’t look like it’s likely to end any time soon, if the Netanyahu government continues calling the shots. “The IDF has assessed that fighting in Gaza will likely last throughout all of 2024, as Israel works to strip Hamas of its military and governing capabilities.”11
Netanyahu is blowing off the (alleged) requests by the Boden Administration to stop targeting civilians - although there is no indication publicly that the Administration has threatened to cut off military aid if Israel doesn’t comply. And his government is a mess, with his cabinet ministers making statements that seem to contradict the Prime Minister’s own public positions, though his statements are often inconsistent if not downright garbled. Two ministers from Netanyahu’s own Likud Party, Tourism Minister Haim Katz (Tourism) and Miki Zohar (Sports and Culture), are planning to attend a conference in Jerusalem “that calls for the reestablishment of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip as a way to boost security for Israel after the war against the Hamas terror group ends.”12
What's clear, though, is that this is the price of ground operations involving large quantities of explosives. The IDF has carried out hundreds, if not thousands, of these missions in the past three months. On January 8, six soldiers were killed in another premature blast – this time of explosives that were meant to destroy a tunnel under the Bureij camp, also just a few hundred meters from the border.
In both cases, the IDF had already been in control of the area for some time. But operational control doesn't mean there aren't small pockets of Hamas fighters in the area capable of launching ambushes, or that the demolition work can proceed as if it was just any normal civil engineering project. Whether the cause is Hamas fire or simply the kind of accident that will happen when high explosives and immense firepower are being used in such close proximity, this is the kind of incident that will continue to occur and eventually cause more casualties than actual combat.13
National security analyst Chuck Freilich was warning that Netanyahu’s chaotic government was not taking Israeli security vulnerabilities seriously enough:
The utter collapse of Netanyahu’s “strategy” for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program is glaring. Ties with the U.S. , Israel’s irreplaceable ally, without whom it is questionable whether it could even survive today, are strained as never before.
And now, we face a possible perfect storm, one which Israel’s intelligence agencies have been warning about for months, of a multi-front war. One need not be unusually creative to imagine the glee with which Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas must be viewing the disarray and self-inflicted processes of destruction underway in Israel.14
The earlier Israeli claims of the number of “Hamas terrorists” killed now appears to be have been seriously exaggerated. And Netanyahu isn’t exactly consistently focused on keeping himself credible with the Israeli public or the Americans on his statements about the war.15
And the war is widening and continuing, not coming to a close.16 Netanyahu has a strong incentive to keep the war going17 so he can stay in the Prime Minister office and out of prison on corruption charges. (As serving Prime Minister, he enjoys legal immunity from prosecution.) Israel is making strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.18 The US is mounting missile attacks against Yemen on its own territory. And it has been a longtime goal of Netanyahu’s to get the US involved in a full-on war with Iran. Or, as Ken Klippenstein notes, “But the U.S.’s military operations in the Middle East stretch far beyond just the Houthis: the U.S. is bombing three countries and conducting military operations from 14 total countries in the region.”19
Compared to the previous Gaza wars listed above, the current one has gone on long enough that the standard Israeli talking points are starting to look less credible than in shorter conflicts. It’s one thing to go for two weeks or a month with Israeli advocates saying that every hospital struck by an Israeli missile was on top of a key Hamas command center in a tunnel, or maybe it was actually a Hamas rocket that hit it. And that every civilian killed by an Israeli bomb or bullet was being used by “terrorists” as a “human shield.” And to deflect tough questions with standard talking points like, “Hamas! October 7! Holocaust!”
When it drags on for months like this one has with no end in sight, and when the level of physical devastation and human carnage that Israel is inflicting on Gaza civilians with American weapons is so massive, the stock slogans wear thin. And while killing a remarkably large number of journalists20 may stop individual stories of Israeli misconduct from being reported, it doesn’t look so dandy to their fellow reporters. It certainly doesn’t enhance the credibility of IDF and Israeli government public statements. The AP was already reporting on December 4:
With a journalist or media worker killed every day on average in the Israel-Hamas war, the head of the global organization representing the profession said Monday that it has become a conflict beyond compare.
About 60 have been killed since the Oct. 7 start of the war, already close to the same number of journalists killed during the entire Vietnam War half a century ago. Other brutal wars in the Middle East have not come close to the intensity of the current one.
“In a war, you know, a classical war, I can say that in Syria, in Iraq, in ex-Yugoslavia, we didn’t see this kind of massacre,” Anthony Bellanger, the general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, told The Associated Press.21 [my emphasis]
Al-Mughrabi (2024): Israel denies attack on UN refuge in Gaza that drew rebuke from Washington. Reuters 01/25/2024. <https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/plan-one-month-gaza-truce-makes-progress-israel-hits-khan-younis-2024-01-24/> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
Samuels, Ben (2024): U.S. 'gravely concerned' over reported strikes at UNRWA facility in southern Gaza. Haaretz 01/25/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-25/ty-article-live/qatar-harshly-rebukes-netanyahu-for-allegedly-labeling-it-as-problematic/0000018d-3e9c-d02c-a79f-7f9f6f250000?liveBlogItemId=1020552062#1020552062>(Accessed: 2024-25-01).
Statement from NSC Spokesperson Adrienne Watson on Reported Strikes at UNRWA Facility in Southern Gaza. White House 01/24/2024. <https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/01/24/statement-from-nsc-spokesperson-adrienne-watson-on-reported-strikes-at-unrwa-facility-in-southern-gaza/> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
We cannot turn a blind eye to the horrific humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Senator Bernie Sanders YouTube channel 01/24/2024. (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
Robert J. Brym, Robert J. & Araj, Bader (2024): Britannica Online 01/05/2024. <https://www.britannica.com/topic/intifada> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
Goldenber, Suzanne (2000): Rioting as Sharon visits Islam holy site. The Guardian 09/28//2000. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/sep/29/israel> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
Cohen, Raphael (2023): The problem with Israel’s futile Gaza strategy, explained. Los Angeles Times 10/19/2023. <https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-10-19/israel-gaza-hamas-palestinian-attack-ground-war-netanyahu> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
Cohen, Raphael et. al. 2017): From Cast Lead to Protective Edge: Lessons from Israel’s Wars in Gaza. RAND Corporation 2017. <https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1800/RR1888/RAND_RR1888.pdf> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
Leva, Yagil (2012): Israel’s Death Hierarchy: Casualty Aversion in a Militarized Democracy. New York & London: New York University Press.
Protesters block Tel Aviv highway as women’s groups demand immediate hostage deal. Times of Israel 01/24/2024. <https://www.timesofisrael.com/protesters-block-tel-aviv-highway-as-womens-groups-demand-immediate-hostage-deal/> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
Pfeffer, Anshel (2024): Netanyahu Is Running Out of Lies. Haaretz 01/22/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-22/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-is-running-out-of-lies/0000018d-31d5-d81e-abdf-39dda0270000> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
IDF commanders said to believe quashing Hamas, returning hostages alive incompatible. Times of Israel 01/20/2024. <https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-commanders-said-to-believe-quashing-hamas-returning-hostages-alive-incompatible/> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
IDF strikes Iranian-operated airbase in Lebanon. Jerusalem Post 01/25/2024. <https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-783706> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
Ibid.
Freilich, Chuck (2023): Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas: Israel Now Faces the Perfect Storm of a Multi-front War. Haaretz 01/22/2023. <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-04-09/ty-article-opinion/.highlight/iran-hezbollah-hamas-israel-now-faces-the-perfect-storm-of-a-multi-front-war/00000187-652d-dde0-afb7-7f3f22a10000> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
Pfeffer, Anshel (2024): Netanyahu Is Running Out of Lies. Haaretz 01/22/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-22/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-is-running-out-of-lies/0000018d-31d5-d81e-abdf-39dda0270000> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
'We in Israel Are Far More Dependent on the U.S. Than We Ever Knew'. Haaretz Podcast 01/23/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/podcasts/2024-01-23/ty-article-podcast/we-in-israel-are-far-more-dependent-on-the-u-s-than-we-ever-knew/0000018d-36f2-dbf8-abdf-bef6eeb50000> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
Pinkas, Alon (2024): First Biden, Now Qatar: Netanyahu Is Creating Nemeses to Get His Mideast Forever War. Haaretz 01/25/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-25/ty-article/.premium/first-biden-now-qatar-netanyahu-is-creating-nemeses-to-get-his-mideast-forever-war/0000018d-4061-d02c-a79f-43fb9cc20000> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
IDF strikes Iranian-operated airbase in Lebanon. Jerusalem Post 01/25/2024. <https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-783706> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
Klippenstein, Ken (2024): Pentagon Insists We're Not at War. Ken Klippenstein Substack 01/24/2024. (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war. Committee to Protect Journalists 01/24/2024. <https://cpj.org/2024/01/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).
Cassert, Raf (2023): Global journalist group says Israel-Hamas war is beyond compare for media deaths. AP/PBS Newshour 12/04/2023. <https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/global-journalist-group-says-israel-hamas-war-is-beyond-compare-for-media-deaths> (Accessed: 2024-25-01).