We don’t support Israel’s goal—making Israel into a Jewish state or, worse, Greater Israel (present Israel plus “Samaria”, i.e. the West Bank and Gaza and parts of Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon). We don’t support Hamas’s objectives: extermination of the Jews in Israel.
Full-throated support for Israel means implicitly accepting Israel’s goals.
Call it lazy or cowardly but the United States should tread a narrow line, opposing Hamas’s terrorism without supporting Israel’s broader goals. It’s not the path we’re on now.
Sorry Dave, we actually do support most of that stuff. We actively supported formalizing all of Jerusalem belonging to Israel. We have allied with the right wing party in Israel that has accelerated settlements. We ignore ie tacitly support, the settlements. We send financial aid to Israel, one of the richer countries in the world. Both Israel and the Palestinians kill civilians, but Israel does it nicer. Bombs, restricting imports of medical supplies. I believe it was Andy who claimed that Hamas should have spent money to improve infant mortality rates. According to multiple sources, including Doctors without Borders Israel has not allowed Gaza to import many of the medical supplies they want especially electronics. So they dont have the X-ray machines, CT scanners and monitors they need.
It’s been clear for a while that Israel has decided how to handle the Palestinian problem. Just keep settling the West Bank under the cover of the IDF. The Palestinians there have not been resorting to terrorism like Gaza/Hamas but it doesnt matter, they still lose. If they do fight then the IDF crushes them and they lose even sooner. No one really likes the Palestinians very much but we are actively helping Israel establish strong ties to countries that might support the Palestinians, ignoring/excluding the Palestinians. Pretty clear the goal here is for Israel to be at peace with everyone else except Iran while eliminating the Palestinians, mostly by pushing them but with some killings if needed.
Steve
We have provided aid to Israel and Egypt since 1978–IIRC that was part of the Camp David Accords. Prior to the Six Day War we provided little aid to Israel (France was Israel’s primary supporter).
I have always felt that our too-cozy relationship with Israel was an error, attributing it to domestic political concerns. I think it has always been an error. As I’ve pointed out before the domestic political concerns are reduced in significance due to the greatly increased US Arab population.
I look at as Israel is the least worst option in the area. It’s fine that we choose to support and ally with them. It’s just weird that we have major US politicians saying there should be no room between US and Israeli policy. Anyway, ultimately I think this the way it had to go. Was looking at the old meetings hosted by the US. The Pro-Israel camp notes that at all of those meetings the Palestinians were offered 90%-97% of the West Bank and all of Gaza. In their POV it’s the fault of Palestinians for not accepting those deals.
However, what they ignore is that in all of those deals Israel was unwilling to give up the settlements. So why dont people say Israel could have had peace if they were willing to give up settlements? (Because they are tribal.) Anyway, the settlements were an intractable problem. If Israel wont give them up and Palestinians wont accept them what do you do?
Clearly Israel, which has the upper hand, has decided to accelerate settling the West Bank and take it over, pushing out the Palestinians. Argue about it if you want but judged by actions and numbers that is what they are doing. It’s so important to them that they left Israeli citizens living next to a bunch of murderers unguarded. The same murderers who were trying to kill those same citizens a few months earlier.
So what Israel is doing makes sense from their POV. What about the Palestinians? Attacking Israel when Israel put up big signs saying “the guys with guns are leaving” must have been tempting. I think it was a big mistake being so barbaric and while it matters a lot to those who got killed and to their families, it doesnt make much difference in the longer run. Israel will seek to eliminate them next. As long as Israel is smart enough to only kill babies with bombs and not get caught on film cutting throats the world will just watch and a lot will cheer them on.
Steve
I agree.
And I recommend two related articles, which I think are a dose of sanity:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/a-left-that-refuses-to-condemn-mass-murder-is-doomed.html
This one is on Matt Yglesias’ substack and paywalled, but you can read it with a free 7-day trial:
https://www.slowboring.com/p/radicalization-doesnt-help-anyone
The gist is that equivocating on murder, and attempting to justify or “explain” Hamas’ use of modern-day Einsatzgruppen is not only morally wrong, but politically stupid if one’s goal is actually to help Palestinians.
What’s the definition of insantity again? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Arabs and Palestinians went to war to try to destroy Israel in 1948, 1967, and 1973 and lost every time. And each time they lost, Israel got more territory because losing wars has consequences. And there have been a lot of smaller conflicts which, for the the most part, Israel also won. And meanwhile, there is no “apartheid” in Arab states because all of the Jews have been forced to leave. I was surprised to learn that roughly half of the Jewish population of Israel is composed of these Mizrahim.
And now Hamas has proven that a non-trivial number of Palestinians haven’t changed by celebrating what the Nazi’s did. The Nazi’s were at least smart enough to try to hide it from the world. Not so with Hamas!
How much more failure will it take before they realize how stupid and counterproductive this is?
Yeah, that’s what I’ve been pointing out.
BTW the expulsion of Jews from Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Morocco, etc. wasn’t because of Israel unless they had a time machine since it took place BEFORE the formation of the state of Israel. Any more than the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem’s cozying up to the Nazis during WWII was due to Israel. BTW I suspect the Mizrahim are culturally pretty close to the Palestinians if that gives you any idea.
It is sobering to think of the scale of the situation.
There were 1500 Hamas militants that died fighting in Israel. Considering that 100+ hostages were taken into Gaza, it is likely something on the order of 2000-3000 militants took part in the attack.
Hamas was estimated to have around 10000 fighters under arms. Either Hamas committed 20-30% of its force and lost 15% in the attack (seriously damaging it capability); or its numbers have been badly underestimated.