Krauthammer On Gaza
I suspect that many of you will take issue with Charles Krauthammer’s tone here, but I have a question after the excerpt:
Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.
– Associated Press, Dec. 27WASHINGTON — Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.
Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis — 6,464 launched from Gaza in the last three years — deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people.
This has two purposes. First, counting on the moral scrupulousness of Israel, Hamas figures civilian proximity might help protect at least part of its arsenal. Second, knowing that Israelis have new precision weapons that may allow them to attack nonetheless, Hamas hopes that inevitable collateral damage — or, if it is really fortunate, an errant Israeli bomb — will kill large numbers of its own people for which, of course, the world will blame Israel.
For Hamas the only thing more prized than dead Jews are dead Palestinians. The religion of Jew-murder and self-martyrdom is ubiquitous. And deeply perverse, such as the Hamas TV children’s program in which an adorable live-action Palestinian Mickey Mouse is beaten to death by an Israeli (then replaced by his more militant cousin, Nahoul the Bee, who vows to continue on Mickey’s path to martyrdom).
At war today in Gaza, one combatant is committed to causing the most civilian pain and suffering on both sides. The other combatant is committed to saving as many lives as possible — also on both sides. It’s a recurring theme. Israel gave similar warnings to Southern Lebanese villagers before attacking Hezbollah in the Lebanon war of 2006. The Israelis did this knowing it would lose for them the element of surprise and cost the lives of their own soldiers.
That is the asymmetry of means between Hamas and Israel. But there is equal clarity regarding the asymmetry of ends. Israel has but a single objective in Gaza — peace: the calm, open, normal relations it offered Gaza when it withdrew in 2005. Doing something never done by the Turkish, British, Egyptian and Jordanian rulers of Palestine, the Israelis gave the Palestinians their first sovereign territory ever in Gaza.
What ensued? This is not ancient history. Did the Palestinians begin building the state that is supposedly their great national aim? No. No roads, no industry, no courts, no civil society at all. The flourishing greenhouses that Israel left behind for the Palestinians were destroyed and abandoned. Instead, Gaza’s Iranian-sponsored rulers have devoted all their resources to turning it into a terror base — importing weapons, training terrorists, building tunnels with which to kidnap Israelis on the other side. And of course firing rockets unceasingly.
The grievance? It cannot be occupation, military control or settlers. They were all removed in September 2005. There’s only one grievance and Hamas is open about it. Israel’s very existence.
Before the question, here’s another excerpt proving Krauthammer’s point about Israel’s scrupulousness regarding civilian casualties:
Leaflets signed by the commander of the Israeli military were dropped over northern Gaza on Saturday morning, warning residents to “leave the area immediately” to ensure their safety.
Israeli tanks and troops have massed on the Gaza border, and an Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman said ground forces are prepared to enter Gaza when they receive orders to do so.
“Due to the terrorist actions undertaken by terrorist elements from the region of your residences against the state of Israel, the Israel Defense Forces are compelled to respond immediately in the region of your residences. For your safety, you are ordered to leave the area immediately,” the leaflets say.
Now, the question: I assume many of you will call Krauthammer a knee-jerk pro-Israel shill. Then answer this: in what particular of fact is he wrong? In other words, can you object to the content? If so, please be as specific as possible…
UPDATE 1:15 p.m.: The Gaza operation has escalated, as Israeli ground forces are now involved for the first time…
Without disputing anything Krauthammer says, I think that the best analysis of the situation (as usual) comes from The Economist. While recognizing the indefensibility of Hamas’s attacks — no moral equivalency argument here — the core of the editorial is this:
“In general, a war must pass three tests to be justified. A country must first have exhausted all other means of defending itself. The attack should be proportionate to the objective. And it must stand a reasonable chance of achieving its goal. On all three of these tests Israel is on shakier ground than it cares to admit. ”
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12853965
Well, since you passed on my challenge, I’ll take it for you. The Economist editorial notes that Israel wants more than peace out of Gaza, contra Krauthammer: they want to weaken Hamas through an economic blockade aimed at strengthening the relatively moderate Fatah. Score one for the Economist.
However, the Economist completely fails to note, in its condemnation of the high civilian casualty count on the Palestinian side, that Israel warns civilians before attacking, and that Hamas WANTS a high civilian casualty count, and works to achieve it. Score one for Krauthammer.
However, the smart money, as typified by the Economist, has said all along that Israel was just shooting for a ceasefire with more teeth and wouldn’t invade on the ground. The smart money, as so often of late, was wrong…
The reason I didn’t want to challenge Krauthammer is that I have no idea if his facts are right or wrong. Israel would not be the first country to use propaganda and disinformation in war to achieve its strategic aims. It clearly has an interest in avoiding condemnation for civilian deaths (whether justified or not). While I have no reason to say that Israel does not warn civilians of impending airstrikes, it’s the sort of thing that should be independently verified before being accepted as gospel truth.
The Times report below about a Palestinian doctor who was killed in an ambulance on the way to the hospital puts Krauthammer’s reporting into question. We should be as skeptical of the Times report as we should be of Krauthammer’s reporting — sitting thousands of miles away, none of us yet knows where the truth lies.
To be clear: I’m not accusing the Israelis of deliberately targeting humanitarian workers, but by the same token I am skeptical enough to question whether their own accounts should be taken at face value. I’m not saying that Krauthammer is necessarily wrong — only that his reporting ought to be corroborated before being accepted as the absolute truth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/01/world/middleeast/01gaza.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast
Peter, sometimes you are just ridiculous. The leaflets are not figments of Krauthammer’s imagination…reporters on the ground for major news outlets are reporting them. Example from CNN:
Example from the NY Times:
I could go on, but what’s the point? Does anyone here believe CNN and the Times have become propaganda outlets for Israel?
Please, Peter, let’s keep this in the realm of the realistic. Krauthammer’s assertions of Israeli warnings in both Gaza and Lebanon are easily verified from major media outlets with a minimum of searching.
Pardon my exasperated tone, but let’s not waste time debating what is a given fact…
Let’s look at the demands of The Economist arguments:
A. Has Israel first exhausted all other means of defending itself?
B. Is Israel’s attack proportionate to the objective?
C. Does Israel’s attack have a reasonable chance of achieving its goal?
The people of Palestine in Gaza, by way of their elected leadership (Hamas), are publicly committed to the extermination of Israel, if not the Jewish people. What other means are available to Israel to defend itself? None. So, argument ‘A’ is answered in the affirmative.
What is Israel’s objective? The cessation of the hostilities against its people. Is the current campaign proportionate to this objective? Only time will tell but it appears so. Argument ‘B’ answered in the moderate affirmative.
Will this current campaign and approach work? I fear that it will only work if Hamas is eliminated, either literally or by their wholesale rejection by the people of Palestine. On this I think The Economist correct in saying Israel finds itself on shaky ground.
I don’t see what else Israel can do given the reality of Hamas and the rest. If they could expect overwhelming support from the international community then turning the other cheek in the face of the indiscriminate bombing would be worth a try, but, to coin a phrase, been there, done that with nothing to show for it.
As Fargus or Jacques or someone else has said, there may be a political angle to this, but that doesn’t change the fact that Israel is really out of options.
The Economist also leaves out a few facts, when it — incredibly — criticizes Israelis for killing too many Palestinian civilians (though it twists itself into a pretzel by pointing out that NATO and the US killed more civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq as a percentage of population), while neglecting to mention that Hamas intentionally uses civilians as human shields (not to mention while it targets other civilians).
While I won’t directly dispute the ambulance story from the NYT (for all I know it may be true), it sounds suspiciously familiar to an event that occured — well actually to an event that didn’t occur in 2006:
http://www.zombietime.com/fraud/ambulance/
That strikes me as ridiculously melodramatic.
1) Hamas’s rockets did not, and do not, pose an existential threat to Israel. (That’s not to diminish the fact that those rockets must stop.)
2) There were no rocket attacks for 6 months*, until the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire broke down on Dec. 19.
3) Opinions may differ, but Hamas says that the instigating event for the breakdown of the cease-fire was the Israeli bombing of the supply tunnels under the Gaza/Sinai border.
Whether you take 3) at face value (and I can certainly understand if you don’t), the fact remains that the 1.5 million people of Gaza has been under an Israeli economic blockade since June 2007. In that time, no goods (except for a few shipments of humanitarian relief supplies, when the Israelis deigned to let them through) have entered Gaza, except via those tunnels.
Hamas complains that one of the provisions of the cease-fire agreement was the lifting of the economic blockade, which the Israelis manifestly failed to deliver.
I have a hard time believing that all options were exhausted (or even tried) in the week between the end of the cease-fire and the start of full-scale military operations.
Finally, and this is the real crux of the matter, the 18-month long economic blockade has ensured the absence of economic development in Gaza. Perhaps Krauthammer’s right that the Palestinians are shiftless and lazy, and would not have developed their economy, even absent the blockade.
But the whole point of withdrawing from Gaza was that the Palestinian there would establish a stable civil society. The blockade seems to have been designed to ensure that doesn’t happen.
Which, in no small measure is why we are where we are today …
* Well, OK, not strictly true. There were various cease-fire violations, from both sides during its six month duration. But, each time, the cease-fire was quickly re-established, which just goes to show that such was possible this time, too.
Jacques, I understand the point you (and the Economist editorial board) are making about Israel’s economic blockade of Gaza, and I have admitted that Krauthammer left that out of his analysis. However, I don’t think his point was that the Palestinians were shiftless and lazy – rather, I think his point was that under Hamas, with their close ties to Iran, the emphasis has been on popular support through militancy towards Israel and rockets, rockets, rockets…
Nor do I think that Israel is against the Gaza area being economically developed – they just don’t want to strengthen Hamas – which is admittedly a little tricky for Israel, given that Hamas is manifestly more popular with the Palestinian people than Fatah.
In any event, Israel will be forced into a ceasefire soon enough…and yes, Hamas will come out still kicking and strengthened. It’s a crappy situation…and electoral politics in Israel are surely playing their part, as well.
I just have a hard time condemning a nation that is defending itself from rocket attacks on its cities…
That’s something I don’t understand.
Hezbollah has close ties to Iran (and to Syria). But Hamas?
Hamas was founded in the ’80s, as a branch of the Moslem Brotherhood. And my understanding was that there was no love lost between them and the Shia of Iran.
(As an aside, the Moslem Brotherhood connection is the source of the oft-repeated claim by Israeli spokesmen, during this crisis, that Arab goverments, like the Egyptians and the Saudis, are “secretly cheering on” the Israeli offensive. Those governments — particularly the Egyptians — have their own long-standing troubles with the Moslem Brotherhood.)
I’m afraid that you are right. That the end result will be a return to the status quo ante, but with
1) both Kadima and Hamas more popular, with their respective populations, than they were going in
2) a lot of needless death and destruction along the way
I sure hope there’s somebody who thinks 1) was worth 2).
I agree, which is why I say all of the above with a heavy heart.
True, Hamas was not born an Iranian creation – but Iran is apparently now their primary military sponsor:
We could argue whether Israel’s blockade was intended to prevent economic growth in Gaza or to prevent growth in Hamas’ armory. I take the latter position with economic growth being, at best, collateral damage.
The Palestinian people in Gaza have the power to end this, their government, such as it is with Hamas in the leadership position, could easily facilitate that end. I have little hope they will do so.
For many years, people around the world have been saying the same about the Bush Administration. We’ll see if the Palestinian people can rid themselves of Hamas before 2015.
Ummm…okay, what exactly did Bush do to compare with intentionally firing rockets into civilian areas? I realize that there has been a lot of bloodshed during the Bush years, particularly in Iraq, but it is not the policy of this administration to intentionally target civilians. I know you hate Bush, but you’re way too smart to believe that.
Does this mean no civilians have died as a result of Bush policies? Good God, no…WAY too many have died…but untold thousands have died in Iraq at the hands of militants and suicide bombers. You can argue that under Saddam, the bloodshed would not have been as severe (terrorized populations tend to be docile), but you can’t argue that we target civilians as a matter of policy…nor do we espouse a hateful anti-Semitic, genocidal ideology.
I just don’t see the relevance of your slam of Bush…
Much as I might dislike the result, I respect the outcome of democratic elections. And I would argue that others should do the same.
Without question, the biggest obstacle facing anti-Hamas amateur pundits like myself is the fact of their democratic election. However, we took Steve’s comment in two different ways: you believe he was saying it’s in the Palestinians’ power to change governments, while I thought he was saying that Hamas could stop the rockets at any time of its choosing.
Which was it, Steve?…
Reading my post again the only thing that is clear is that it is quite poorly written.
I intended to say that Hamas has the power to stop the violence. First step, stop firing rockets into Israel. Second, cease amassing arms. Third, stop calling for the abolition of Israel. Expecting all three is probably too much to ask, but taking the first step would cause Israel to cease hostilities.