Fair is fair. I have never hesitated to offer sage and sound criticism of positions taken by the New York Times columnist David Brooks. At times it has felt like shooting fish in a barrel. I have never been very impressed by Brooks.
Yet, when Brooks offers us a sane and sensible column about an important topic, we should acknowledge the fact. In a recent column about the situation in Israel and Gaza Brooks made an intelligent suggestion. His idea, namely, was that those who are whining about the Israeli military approach are obliged to propose a better way. As of now, they have not.
At the risk of being repetitious, the simple fact that those who oppose the Israeli military action do not really have a better way identifies them as chronic whiners. One understands that the Biden administration is being run by a chorus of chronic whiners, but you knew that. Heck, even James Carville knows that. He recently said that the Democratic Party is suffering from a surplus of “preachy females.”
Fighting Hamas in Gaza is a problem because Hamas is fighting underground:
The current Israeli estimates range from 350 to about 500 miles of tunnels. The tunnel network, according to Israel, is where Hamas lives, holds hostages, stores weapons, builds missiles and moves from place to place. By some Israeli estimates, building these tunnels cost the Gazan people about a billion dollars, which could have gone to building schools and starting companies.
Hamas built many of its most important military and strategic facilities under hospitals, schools and so on. Its server farm, for example, was built under the offices of the U.N. relief agency in Gaza City, according to the Israeli military.
What is the Hamas strategy? Quite simple, Brooks explains:
Hamas’s goal is to maximize the number of Palestinians who die and in that way build international pressure until Israel is forced to end the war before Hamas is wiped out. Hamas’s survival depends on support in the court of international opinion and on making this war as bloody as possible for civilians, until Israel relents.
As it happens, using civilians as human shields is a war crime, but no one, from the Biden administration on down, seems to care.
Now, for its part Israel has avoided civilian casualties:
John Spencer, … the chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point … told me that Israel has done far more to protect civilians than the United States did in Afghanistan and Iraq. Spencer reports that Israel has warned civilians when and where it is about to begin operations and published an online map showing which areas to leave. It has sent out millions of pamphlets, texts and recorded calls warning civilians of coming operations. It has conducted four-hour daily pauses to allow civilians to leave combat areas. It has dropped speakers that blast out instructions about when to leave and where to go. These measures, Spencer told me, have telegraphed where the I.D.F. is going to move next and “have prolonged the war, to be honest.”
Rather than offer up the body counts provided by Hamas, Brooks begins with the question of how well the Israeli strategy is working.
What do we make of the current Israeli strategy? Judged purely on a tactical level, there’s a strong argument that the I.D.F. has been remarkably effective against Hamas forces. I’ve learned to be suspicious of precise numbers tossed about in this war, but the I.D.F. claims to have killed over 13,000 of the roughly 30,000 Hamas troops. It has disrupted three-quarters of Hamas’s battalions so that they are no longer effective fighting units. It has also killed two of five brigade commanders and 19 of 24 battalion commanders. As of January, U.S. officials estimated that Israel had damaged or made inoperable 20 to 40 percent of the tunnels. Many Israelis believe the aggressive onslaught has begun to restore Israel’s deterrent power.
And yet, the fly in the ointment is what Brooks calls world public opinion. He does not quite say it but the Biden administration has given the green light to those who want to criticize Israel. It has made criticizing Israel acceptable.
Global public opinion is moving decisively against Israel. The key shift is in Washington. Historically pro-Israeli Democrats like Biden and Senator Chuck Schumer are now pounding the current Israeli government with criticism. Biden wants Israel to call off its invasion of the final Hamas strongholds in the south. Israel is now risking a rupture with its closest ally and its only reliable friend on the U.N. Security Council. If Israel is going to defend itself from Iran, it needs strong alliances, and Israel is steadily losing those friends.
Then, Brooks offers the opinion trafficked by the Biden administration through its satrap, New York Times columnist Tommy Friedman. Namely, that Israel must have a plan for Gaza after the war.
The key weakness of the Israeli strategy has always been that it is aimed at defeating Hamas militarily without addressing Palestinian grievances and without paying enough attention to the wider consequences. As the leaders of Hamas watch Washington grow more critical of Jerusalem, they must know their strategy is working.
As noted here in previous posts, it would certainly be a positive step if the Palestinian Authority would step up and offer a plan of its own. If self-determination is the goal of the Palestinian people, they should tell the world how they are going to govern themselves after the war.
If they fail to do so, this tells us that they have no interest in self-determination or even in the well being of their people. Their goal is to establish one state, from the river to the sea, a state and is free of Jews.
After outlining the different proposals, Brooks arrives at the Biden administration position. Which is, for the Israelis to stop now, to quit, leaving the remnants of Hamas in place.
A fourth alternative is that Israel should just stop. It should settle for what it has achieved and not finish the job by invading Rafah and the southern areas of Gaza, or it should send in just small strike teams.
David Brooks rejects the proposal. He explains that Hamas must be defeated. To coin an old phrase: Hamas delenda est.
This is now the official Biden position. The national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has argued that Israel can destroy Hamas in Gaza without a large invasion but “by other means” (which he did not elaborate on). The United States has asked Israel to send a delegation to Washington to discuss alternative Rafah strategies, which is good.
The problem is that, first, there seems to be a budding disagreement over how much of Hamas needs to be destroyed to declare victory and, second, the I.D.F. estimates that there are 5,000 to 8,000 Hamas fighters in Rafah. Defeating an army that size would take thousands of airstrikes and raids. If you try to shrink the incursion, the math just doesn’t add up. As an Israeli war cabinet member, Benny Gantz, reportedly told U.S. officials, “Finishing the war without demilitarizing Rafah is like sending in firefighters to put out 80 percent of a fire.”
This is the coward’s way out, and it is about what we would expect from the Biden crowd.
If Hamas survives this war intact, it would be harder for the global community to invest in rebuilding Gaza. It would be impossible to begin a peace process. As the veteran Middle East observers Robert Satloff and Dennis Ross wrote in American Purpose, “Any talk of a postwar political process is meaningless without Israel battlefield success: There can be no serious discussion of a two-state solution or any other political objective with Hamas either still governing Gaza or commanding a coherent military force.”
Basically, Brooks is correct… until he gets to saying that Israel is responsible for the Palestinian future. Yet, why does he not consider that the Gazans could surrender and give up their hostages-- tomorrow. They would forestall the attack on Rafah and set about rebuilding.
On this last point I respectfully demur:
Israel also has to offer the world a vision for Gaza’s recovery, and it has to do it right now. Ross argues that after the war is over, the core logic of the peace has to be demilitarization in exchange for reconstruction. In an essay in Foreign Affairs, he sketches out a comprehensive rebuilding effort, bringing in nations and agencies from all over the world, so Gaza doesn’t become a failed state or remain under Hamas control.
The Palestinian Authority should make a diplomatic overture and present a plan for the Hamas-free Gaza. It does not do so because the Palestinian people do not want a two-state solution. They want to kill more Jews.
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