Dem
51
GOP
49
Finally, a piece about Israel where we don't have to apologize for our lack of expertise, because this one's in our wheelhouse. In short, it is clear that Israel is losing the PR battle. And in a conflict like this, that is tantamount to losing the war.
Clausewitz wrote that "war is politics by other means." Well, OK, he wasn't quite that spare in his language; he actually wrote that "war is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means." And it's hard to think of anyone who knows that better than terrorists, whether it's Al-Qaeda, the Basque Liberation Front, ISIS, the United Liberation Front of Assam, or Hamas. After all, the whole point of terrorism is to pursue political goals that are outsized relative to a group's actual numbers.
Hamas knows that it cannot win a conventional war; it has neither the manpower nor the resources. And yet, the trick they've pulled off in the last six months or so is absolutely mind-boggling. They launched a vicious attack on Israel and killed hundreds of people, and the result is... that the world is now paying close attention to the fate of the Palestinians, and a sizable minority is taking the Palestinians' side (especially on the campuses). Yes, we know Hamas and the Palestinians are not the same thing, but their goals are broadly aligned.
Meanwhile, you know who else can't win a conventional war here? Israel. We don't know the Middle East all that well, but we do know something about war. And we see a lot of parallels between Hamas and the Viet Cong (or pick any other insurgent/guerrilla/terrorist movement of your choice). They can't be stamped out; for every combatant you kill (probably also taking along a couple of civilians at the same time), you radicalize two others to step up and take their place. Put another way, there was no clear win condition (or, at least, no achievable win condition) in Vietnam, and that seems also to be true in Gaza right now.
Yesterday, Hamas made a pretty big move, and it was that move that prompted this item. What did they do? They announced that they accept a ceasefire proposal put forward by Egypt and Qatar. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu quickly put the kibosh on the proposal, and said that "more negotiation is needed."
We cannot speak to the nuances and subtleties of this proposal, or any other. We cannot tell you if it is fair to both sides or not. We don't have a strong opinion on this proposal, because we don't have a dog in this fight. We are not Jewish or Muslim, pro-Israel or pro-Palestine, pro-two-state-solution or pro-any-other-solution. To the extent that we are pro-anything, it is pro-peace. That's it.
In short, we are neutral, and while we are familiar with the situation in Israel, we are not expert. And guess what? There are considerably more American voters like us than there are staunch pro-Palestine/pro-Israel partisans. We can't speak to the Jewish or Israeli point of view, and we can't speak to the Muslim or Palestinian point of view. But we think we can speak to the point of view of the folks who are sitting on the sidelines, who are a majority. And, as we wrote yesterday, it looks to us like the primary obstacle to peace is the Israeli War Cabinet and, more specifically, PM Benjamin Netanyahu. It would be one thing if it was a direct proposal from Hamas being rejected, but when it's a third party that has stepped in, and that third party is Egypt—which has embraced the causes of diplomacy and peace since the 1970s—the presumption that most will make is that the proposal is basically reasonable.
Again, it is absolutely wild that this is where things are, given how this all started. But it looked to us, very nearly from the outset, that the Israeli government's position was weak, and that it had been dealt a losing hand. And we're not the only ones who thought that; former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert sounded the alarm back in fall of last year that if Israel did not bring this to an end within a few weeks, that nation's position would become untenable.
Bringing this back to American politics, Olmert's prediction is coming to pass; the latest poll from Pew says that 7 in 10 Americans say they don't trust Netanyahu to do the right thing. They are not anti-Israel, mind you, they are anti-Netanyahu.
Thus far, Joe Biden has been unwilling to turn against Netanyahu; at least not in public. As Ronald Brownstein points out, in an analysis worth reading, Biden is a huge believer in the notion that good interpersonal relationships are essential to good diplomacy. In other words, the President badly wants to give only carrots to his Israeli counterpart, and never to bring out the stick.
That said, Biden has shown a willingness to change course when he feels he has no choice. He's sometimes slow to do it, but he certainly has the capacity. And the day may soon come that playing patty-cake with Netanyahu is a luxury that Biden can no longer afford. That doesn't necessarily mean a total severing of the relationship, but it could mean using a few sticks here and there. Indeed, as we noted yesterday, the White House halted a shipment of armaments to Israel last week; it's still not known why. On top of that, Biden will be making a speech today in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day (albeit a day late), and he'll be reporting to Congress on Wednesday as to whether or not Israel is using U.S. weapons in accordance with international law, and whether or not humanitarian aid is being delivered properly. Needless to say, the world will be watching both days for insight as to Biden's current thinking.
And now, as much as we regret the necessity of this, a couple of program notes that are very much related to each other and to this item. First, we have run numerous letters in the last two months in the name of giving readers exposure to various points of view on the situation in the Middle East. This despite the fact that the politics angle of these letters was implicit at best, meaning they were somewhat off-topic relative to the focus of this site.
This was, we now think, an error. In particular, we allowed a few letters through that went beyond "sharing a point of view" and crossed into propaganda and outright lies. We just didn't know enough to know that these letters were peddling falsehoods (though we had plenty of readers who alerted us the next day, in each case). Anyhow, if readers care to send in letters that address the U.S. politics angle of what's going on in the Middle East or on the campuses, those remain welcome. Those, we are expert enough to evaluate. But beyond that, we will decline further messages on this subject, because it's just not our bailiwick. We have had a few readers suggest sites useful for learning about the perspective of the various parties involved in the Israel/Hamas struggle, and we'll share a rundown later this week. If anyone has recommendations for that list, please do send them to us at comments@electoral-vote.com.
The second programming note is this: The vitriol directed at us in some of the letters we have gotten in the last week has been off the charts. Perhaps, because we ran one or two such letters this weekend, we gave the impression that this was acceptable. It is not. We welcome constructive feedback and differing opinions, and believe we have made that clear, over and over, with our words and actions. But we are not here to be abused or to allow angry people to vent their frustrations.
What this means is that nasty, poisonous messages will be deleted instantly from here on out. The general rule of thumb here is that if we would not tolerate a message if it came from one of our students, we will not tolerate it if it comes from one of our readers. This particularly applies to any person who says or implies that we are racists, bigots, antisemites, Islamophobes, or who ascribes any other such hatreds to us. Such attacks are patently unacceptable.
To be clear, it's only a small minority of readers who are responsible here. But that doesn't mean it wasn't extremely unpleasant to be showered with venom. And, to be entirely blunt, (Z) is captaining the ship solo right now because (V) is traveling (so, now you know who is responsible for everything you are reading here). On Tuesday, he has many essays that need to be graded, such that writing a posting for Wednesday will require some rather significant sacrifices. Think 6 hours of lectures Wednesday delivered on 90 minutes' sleep. At the moment, he's not much feeling like making that sacrifice, and he may well take the day off to clear his head. We'll see what the next 24 hours bring.
Regular readers know we've never written anything like this. That should tell you how bad it's been. (Z)