Netanyahu and the current crisis: prospects are discouraging
"Israel's most challenging war ever"?
Al Franken interviewed longtime diplomat David Aaron Miller last Thursday.1 Miller thinks that the new crisis will prevent Bibi Natanyahu’s so-called “constitutional coup” in Israel from being carried out successfully.
And Miller makes a rather downbeat case for the viability of the two-state-solution option as the least bad arrangement because of the extreme difficulty of two virulently nationalist movements (Zionism and Palestinian nationalism) coexisting peacefully under any kind of common entity, whether the current situation of Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank or a combined secular democratic state including the same areas.
He stresses how lacking Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is in any constructive vision for a peaceful future.
Rightwing governments are notorious for the inefficiency and incompetence - Bibi Netanyahu’s included
Alon Pinkas declares:
Netanyahu should have resigned due to his overall responsibility for what preceded and happened on October 7. But now there’s another compelling, overarching reason: He cannot be trusted to manage the war – a crisis that has the escalatory potential (Hezbollah and Iran) to turn into Israel’s most challenging war ever. The military doesn’t trust him, the public – as evident in polls – lost confidence in him and, critically, the United States is quietly questioning his judgment.
But he won’t resign. As far as he’s concerned, he was set up to fail by “elites,” betrayed by the military and made to look responsible for political reasons.2 [my emphasis]
Israel’s allies in the US and Europe are stuck with an ugly dilemma. They have locked themselves for decades into an alliance with a country that is militarily the most powerful in the Middle East and the only one with nuclear arms, which is also committed to maintain a colonial project with the occupied territories that causes major problems for itself and its allies. But the politics of Israel has become so toxic that they have as their leader a man who is recklessly belligerent, obviously incompetent in governance, an authoritarian who is undermining the very political situation through which he became Israel's longest-serving Prime Minister.
As Pinkas sums it up, “For 15 years he has wrought despair, division, toxicity and, ultimately, tragedy and carnage. Israel and Israelis deserve much better than his incitement-filled, incendiary brand of populist quasi-authoritarianism.”
Amos Harel, an analyst for Haaretz and a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institute harshes on Netanyahu for a variety of failures and weaknesses.3
The October 7 attack was clearly well-planned by Hamas and the Israeli border forces were clearly not well-prepared.
Israelis in the border area took way too much comfort in the presence of walls to protect them from Hamas.
Israeli leaders and the public tuned out too much of what was actually happening in the Arab world in the last decade or so:
The Arab world spiraled into total chaos as a result of the events of the Arab Spring in 2010. This period allowed Israel to occupy itself with its own affairs for some years and to persuade itself that all was well. But in this period, borders were erased, regimes were supplanted by force, millions of people became refugees and hundreds of thousands were murdered with appalling cruelty.
Iran may be behind it all:
What we are seeing is the fusion of an old, bloody conflict with the Palestinians, in which the two populations are today almost inextricably intertwined, deep and violent religious fanaticism, and incessant meddling by Iran.
Policymakers neglected the ongoing problems with the Palestinians and Israelis began to think the problems didn’t even need to be solved:
Israeli society repressed the ramifications of the Palestinian conflict, persuaded itself that it could go on rolling the problem forward without looking for a solution, and sought lucrative real estate and cheap vacations abroad.
The IDF had the wrong priorities, something that the October 7 surprise attack confirms just by having happened:
The IDF, in the meantime, again inflated its command posts, grew slack in its organizational culture and cultivated the service conditions of its personnel. At the same time, the army became enamored of technological solutions and sanctified them at the expense of polishing operational capabilities.
And then there is Bibi Netanyahu as a politician:
The icing on this lethal cake was provided by the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Years of corrupting the civil service, advancing cronies and ignoring conflicts of interest, all the while sowing hatred and a schism in the nation, reached their peak when Netanyahu became entangled in criminal matters. From that moment, every means justified the end: to extricate him. That included the encouragement of a cold civil war between the contentious camps, an attempt to enact legislation for a regime coup, and readiness to tear apart the IDF after the chief of staff refused to punish reservists who ceased to volunteer in an attempt to halt the coup. [my emphasis]
And Bibi Netanyahu as international strategist:
Over a decade, Netanyahu consistently cultivated Hamas’ rule in the Gaza Strip to slough off international pressure to renew the diplomatic process with the competing Palestinian camp, that of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. He ignored a strategic warning issued by the research division of Military Intelligence six years ago, about an explosion that would occur in the Palestinian arena. [my emphasis]
Harel adds on a complaint that Gazan workers who were allowed to work in Israel acted as Hamas intelligence operatives in providing information and photos of the areas to be attacked. But he doesn’t explain the sourcing. It sounds a lot like routine xenophobic complaints that immigrants are all a security risk. And without people in Gaza being able to work in Israel, that would pretty much make Gaza’s status as an open-air prison indefinite.
Harel’s framing of the external influences from Iran and “total chaos“ in the Arab world after 2010 are dubious arguments when put as simply as he does. One could just as easily argue that with Arab regimes distracted, an Israeli policy that took Palestinian sovereignty concerns seriously could have made good use of those years of supposed “total chaos.”
Hamas does promote what can legitimately be called “religious fanaticism.” But the Palestinian Authority frames the conflict in secular nationalist terms. Israel’s misguided ploy of covertly but substantially promoting the Islamist Hamas to divide the Palestinians was always a highly questionable undertaking.
He also uses the Islamist framework to make the polemic argument that “a jihadist fighter is a rather new combination: a professional soldier who is eager to die.” Presumably many of them would much prefer to win, survive, and achieve their military and political goals.
But he stresses the need to address the real possibility of intensification of civil conflict inside Israel and the West Bank.
And he takes note of the pressure for at least some kind of restraint that the US is putting on Netanyahu’s government although he thinks the US has probably approved a ground invasion of Gaza :
Biden’s visit really tightened the security and diplomatic coordination with Israel, but also imposed limitations on Israel. The president promised a continuing presence of the aircraft carriers, security supplies to renew stocks and diplomatic support for Israel’s stance. It’s likely that an American green light, which for the first time is required in the circumstances, was given for a ground operation in Gaza as well. But the United States does not want Israel to occupy the Strip, is warning that a humanitarian disaster could ensue, and is trying with all its might to prevent a war between Israel and Iran and Hezbollah. …
The final decision will be made by the war cabinet, but the true influencers in this regard will be Netanyahu, and in large measure, also Biden. [my emphasis]
In another column, Harel makes this ominous observation, “The IDF's [Israeli Defense Force’s] top brass sense they have a one-time pass to kill and be killed, to restore any previous normalcy.”4
Netanyahu and Israel are also facing a real possibility of serious escalation with Lebanon5 and Iran.6
Aaron David Miller on the Israel-Hamas War. Al Franken YouTube channel 10/22/2023 (interview with Miller on 10/18/2023). (Accessed: 2023-22-10).
Pinkas, Alon (2023): Netanyahu Wrought Carnage on Israel. He Should Have Resigned Already. Haaretz 10/22/2023. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-22/ty-article/.premium/netanyahus-strategy-to-cling-to-power-wont-save-him-from-an-enduring-legacy-of-failure/0000018b-5640-d5d2-afef-d6fd6ccf0000> (Accessed: 22-10-2023).
Harel, Amos (2023): Failures Leading Up to the Hamas Attack That Changed Israel Forever. Haaretz 10/20/2023. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-20/ty-article/.premium/underprepared-and-overconfident-israel-failed-to-spot-the-signs-of-impending-disaster/0000018b-4976-d03a-afcb-697edb020000> (Accessed: 2023-22-10).
Harel, Amos (2023): IDF Gears for a Gradual, Aggressive Gaza Invasion – and a Split Israeli Leadership. Haaretz 10/22/2023. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-22/ty-article/.premium/idf-gears-for-a-gradual-aggressive-gaza-invasion-and-a-split-israeli-leadership/0000018b-53d3-dc3c-a5df-dffbd1000000> (Accessed: 2023-22-10).
Fabian, Emanuel (2023): Israel to evacuate 14 more communities on Lebanon border amid Hezbollah attacks. Times of Israel 10/22/2023. <https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-to-evacuate-14-more-communities-on-lebanon-border-amid-hezbollah-attacks/> (Accessed: 2023-22-10).
Golshiri, Ghazal & Zerrouky, Madjid (2023): Israel-Hamas war: Iran's perilous strategy. Le Monde (English) 10/22/2023. <https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/10/21/israel-hamas-war-iran-s-perilous-strategy_6192849_4.html#> (Accessed: 2023-22-10).