Tuesday
Dec302008
Gaza: This is an (Israeli) War of Choice
Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 13:18
Unlike the confused and improvised Israeli response as the war against Hizbullah in Lebanon unfolded in 2006, Operation Cast Lead appears to have been carefully prepared over a long period.
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A depressing morning of news from Israel and Gaza, with the death toll approaching 400, no end in sight to the bombardment, and a possible Israeli invasion on the ground.
And a depressing morning for so-called analysis. The evasions of moral responsibility by those sanctioning the launching of rockets into Israel and those ordering the bombing of built-up areas in Gaza are matched by columnists like David Aaronovitch ("Let's have a pointless discussion about Gaza and begin it by talking about whether Israel's bombing is 'disproportionate'") and Mary Dejevsky ("The Palestinians of Gaza have worn their victimhood as a badge of honour.")
So as others, such as Benny Morris in The New York Times, rationalise this conflict as a defensive outburst, "Israel’s sense of the walls closing in on it has this past week led to [a] violent reaction," let's be clear:
This is a war of Tel Aviv's choosing.
Picking up on reports in the Israeli press, Ian Black in The Guardian summarises:
[There were] six months of intelligence-gathering to pinpoint Hamas targets including bases, weapon silos, training camps and the homes of senior officials. The cabinet spent five hours discussing the plan in detail on December 19 and left the timing up to Ehud Olmert, the caretaker prime minister, and his defence minister Ehud Barak. Preparations involved disinformation and deception which kept Israel's media in the dark. According to Ha'aretz, that also lulled Hamas into a sense of false security and allowed the initial aerial onslaught to achieve tactical surprise - and kill many of the 290 victims counted so far.
Friday's decision to allow food, fuel and humanitarian supplies into besieged Gaza - ostensibly a gesture in the face of international pressure to relieve the ongoing blockade - was part of this. So was Thursday's visit to Cairo by Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister, to brief Egyptian officials.
As soon as June's truce was agreed, the Israeli Government was not only anticipating its breakdown but laying out its course of action. And that course of action, authorised before a single Israeli died from a rocket or mortar attack, was to strike Hamas (and, incidentally, the Palestinian population) and strike it hard.
I leave it to others to explain why there is no need for moral calculation when considering this chain of events and planning. But, to modify Robert Fisk's comment, "How easy it is to snap off the history of the Palestinians", it seems just as essential (you can supply the reason) to snap off the history of the last six months to make this a simple narrative of rocket-and-reply.
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A depressing morning of news from Israel and Gaza, with the death toll approaching 400, no end in sight to the bombardment, and a possible Israeli invasion on the ground.
And a depressing morning for so-called analysis. The evasions of moral responsibility by those sanctioning the launching of rockets into Israel and those ordering the bombing of built-up areas in Gaza are matched by columnists like David Aaronovitch ("Let's have a pointless discussion about Gaza and begin it by talking about whether Israel's bombing is 'disproportionate'") and Mary Dejevsky ("The Palestinians of Gaza have worn their victimhood as a badge of honour.")
So as others, such as Benny Morris in The New York Times, rationalise this conflict as a defensive outburst, "Israel’s sense of the walls closing in on it has this past week led to [a] violent reaction," let's be clear:
This is a war of Tel Aviv's choosing.
Picking up on reports in the Israeli press, Ian Black in The Guardian summarises:
[There were] six months of intelligence-gathering to pinpoint Hamas targets including bases, weapon silos, training camps and the homes of senior officials. The cabinet spent five hours discussing the plan in detail on December 19 and left the timing up to Ehud Olmert, the caretaker prime minister, and his defence minister Ehud Barak. Preparations involved disinformation and deception which kept Israel's media in the dark. According to Ha'aretz, that also lulled Hamas into a sense of false security and allowed the initial aerial onslaught to achieve tactical surprise - and kill many of the 290 victims counted so far.
Friday's decision to allow food, fuel and humanitarian supplies into besieged Gaza - ostensibly a gesture in the face of international pressure to relieve the ongoing blockade - was part of this. So was Thursday's visit to Cairo by Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister, to brief Egyptian officials.
As soon as June's truce was agreed, the Israeli Government was not only anticipating its breakdown but laying out its course of action. And that course of action, authorised before a single Israeli died from a rocket or mortar attack, was to strike Hamas (and, incidentally, the Palestinian population) and strike it hard.
I leave it to others to explain why there is no need for moral calculation when considering this chain of events and planning. But, to modify Robert Fisk's comment, "How easy it is to snap off the history of the Palestinians", it seems just as essential (you can supply the reason) to snap off the history of the last six months to make this a simple narrative of rocket-and-reply.
Reader Comments (1)
Why Israel won't neutralize Hamas.
The Pattern:
1) Israel starts out with an aggressive military response to the terrorists - the goals are somewhat fuzzy, but it does feel cathartic
2) The terrorists go to ground quickly after taking a minor hit to key forces and weaponry
3) The Arabs riot in the streets of Europe and across the middle east
4) Western govts get nervous and turn the screws on Israel to pull back and negotiate and make peace
5) The media reports it as a humanitarian tragedy story, complete with the pathetic pictures of Palestinian kids, leading to massive pressure on Israel to call it quits
6) Israel gets nervous and starts doing non-strategic things like flattening empty buildings, to avoid civilian casualties, while trying to figure out what to do next in the face of strong and (to them) unexpected international condemnation
7) The enemy, seeing that Israel has no real war plan, starts claiming victory, i.e. "survival" in the face of the onslaught of the world's 4th largest army blah blah blah, and uses some of its mostly-untouched forces and armaments, which were, of course, hidden beyond the IDF's reach
8) Israel calls it off and tells its citizens it won. Everyone knows otherwise.