The latest round of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians seems to be winding down with incoming rockets, helicopter gunships, fighter bombers and drones being replaced by the battle to control perceptions of who is right and wrong, who has gained and lost. The oft cited “fog of war” is being replaced by an equally opaque “mist of spin.”
Speculation about short and long term consequences of events can be pretty risky so I hope no one drags these notes up in six months or a year. Nonetheless, there are some things that I think can be said about what might be some implications for both the short and longer range.
Trying to describe events inevitably involves selectivity and some implicit bias. But let’s start with an outline anyway.
After Operation Cast Lead, the 2008 Israeli air and ground incursion into Gaza, Hamas [click here for a quick primer on Hamas and Gaza] declared a unilateral cease fire. A couple of weeks ago Hamas announced that it was ending it and small groups began launching rockets into southern Israel.
The initial Israeli response was the usual sort of tit for tat air strike that targeted a senior Hamas military commander.
But this series of attacks differed in two ways from the past. First, in addition to the short range rockets launched from Gaza of the past – not much more than big mortar shells with a range of just a few miles pointed in the general direction of some village in southern Israel – there were now longer range rockets, traveling up to 40 or 50 miles and launched in the general direction of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, threatening and personally involving the majority of the population of Israel. The second significant difference was the increasing deployment by Israel of batteries of anti-rocket missiles, the weapons system code named Iron Dome.
In the face of an increasing barrage of rockets and increasing public outcry, Israel expanded its response to include hundreds of air strikes aimed at people suspected of launching rockets, suspected storage depots for rockets and public buildings in Gaza, including the parliament building. And Israel made very public preparations for a ground assault on Gaza, a clear threat of major escalation if nothing changed.
Three days of negotiations led by Egyptian President Morsy culminated in the announcement of a cease fire by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Egyptian foreign minister Mohamed Kamel Amr. While it is not clear who promised what to whom, the agreement had the necessary ambiguity to permit both Israel and Hamas to declare that they had gotten exactly what they had wanted all along. Continuing negotiations, sponsored by Egypt and the U.S. will probably lead to some real easing of the Israeli blockade in exchange for pledges by Hamas (with assurances from Egypt and the U.S.) to curb rocket launchings.
On one hand there is a great temptation to announce winners and losers after a violent confrontation like this, as if it were a sporting match. (One often gets this odd image of a British announcer noting “Hamas are leading one nil after the first period.”) On the other hand there is the safe academic stance of “it’s too soon to tell.” (As in the probably apocryphal story of the British historian who had decided that the Roman era in Britain had been a generally positive time but it was still too early to tell about the Norman Conquest.) Perhaps we can do something in between.
Implications for the Future.
The Palestinians (click here for a brief overview of Hamas and the Gaza Strip)
Hamas has emerged from this round of violence in a much improved position.
They are widely perceived in the Middle East and elsewhere as winning a military victory against Israel.
They are seen as the undisputed leader of the Palestinian resistance, eclipsing the Fatah led government in Ramallah.
In exchange for promises to end rocket attacks, they seem likely to get major concessions on ending the blockade.
They have emerged as major negotiating partners of the U.S., Egypt, and Israel, even if everyone pretends they aren’t [it’s a stylized drama: offstage U.S. diplomats talk to Israelis; Egyptian officials talk to Hamas. The Americans and Egyptians talk to each other on stage then return to the wings to talk to Israelis and Hamas. After several scenes, the Egyptian and American diplomats announce an agreement and the curtain comes down, with no one having violated the tabu against talking to “those people.”]
The Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, dominated by Fatah and ostensibly the government of both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, has lost ground in its struggle with Hamas. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Abbas will try to present United Nations recognition of the Palestinians as a “non-member” state as a major victory.
Israel
If the primary goal of the attacks on Gaza was to stop the rocket attacks once and for all, I think it is fair to say that the operation was not very successful. There will be a period of calm during which the Hamas authorities will monitor the border more carefully and the smuggling of rockets and other weaponry will continue at a reduced pace. But ultimately the authorities in Gaza cannot completely control the bands of fighters who operate out of the refugee camps and slums of Gaza City and Rafah. At some point I think the rockets will resume. However, the lull in attacks will give Israel time to expand the deployment of the Iron Dome system which will further reduce the effectiveness of the rockets.
The violent confrontation with Hamas will play a role in the election next January but it is too early to say what that will be. Much may depend on whether people come to see the latest military adventure as a necessary step to defend civilians or see it as a mistake flowing from a larger reliance on military solutions to the problems posed by the situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In the longer run, it is possible that this will mark a turning point in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. Many observers believe that the status quo [add link] is unsustainable. The optimists wonder if 1973 is a precedent. In 1973 Egypt launched a surprise attack across the Suez Canal into the Sinai Peninsula, driving Israeli forces back. After several days of fierce fighting, Israel gained the upper hand and, regaining all the territory it had lost and refraining from totally destroying the Egyptian army only because of the intervention of the United States and Soviet Union through UN mediated peace talks. But Anwar Sadat and other Arab leaders were able to portray the initial success as a great victory that shattered the myth of Israeli invincibility and Israeli confidence in their invulnerability to attack was shaken. The result was Sadat’s daring proposal for peace talks, met by Menachim Begin’s equally bold acceptance, that led to the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. The fact that Hamas and other Palestinian voices are calling their recent battle a victory and the apparent psychological effect of the otherwise ineffective rocket attacks on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Israeli public opinion may make both sides amenable to serious talks about their political future. That would be extremely unlikely to involve some dramatic breakthrough, but continuing discussions mediated by Egypt and the United Sates might be a way forward.
I do not think this has been another mindless spasm of violence in an interminable clash of people who have always hated each other. Nor do I think this is the turning point so often fervently sought that will lead to peace. But it may prove to be a small but significant step in the right direction.
Egypt
Because of its 1973 peace treaty with Israel and physical proximity to the Gaza Strip, Egypt has always been a major player. There were some worries in Israel and elsewhere that the replacement of Mubarak by Mohamed Morsy would mean a radical tilt towards groups like Hamas and hostility to Israel. But Egyptian diplomats proved both adept and reliable partners with the U.S. in achieving a cease fire. Egypt has maintained, if not actually improved, its position as an indispensable participant in whatever the future holds.
The United States
The United States, like Egypt, reasserted its status as an indispensable player. In fact I think the U.S. improved its position with both Egypt and Israel. Relations with the new Egyptian regime have not always been smooth. The fear that Egypt would tilt toward radical Islamists like Hamas and some worrying signs that President Morsy is more interested in building a regime based on political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood than one that is committed to democracy and inclusion of both secular Egyptians and Coptic Christians have caused some bumps in the road in the past year. Establishing an effective working partnership to end the violence in Gaza was a significant positive step. Egypt needs a good working relationship with the United States for economic support and the United States needs a good working relationship with Egypt for diplomatic and strategic reasons.
The recent events have also affected the U.S.-Israeli relationship. After the abject failure of Obama’s effort at peace making, the primary issue between the U.S. and Israel has been Iran, with the Israeli government trying to push the U.S. into a much more aggressive stance toward Tehran and the U.S. working hard to prevent a unilateral Israeli military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. It is an open secret that Obama and Netanyahu do not like each other and Netanyahu rather openly rooted for a Romney victory. (Netanyahu’s social and economic conservative views plus his personal liking for Romney led one commentator to note that Netanyahu speaks English with a Republican accent.) Republicans tried to make Obama’s difficult relationship with Netanyahu a campaign issue. Obama’s reelection victory and the fighting in Gaza changed all that. Netanyahu’s political opponents in Israel began to openly criticize him for alienating the President and sounding far too hawkish on Iran. Instead of the U.S. trying to persuade Israel to exercise restraint, the Israelis now found themselves asking the U.S. for help.
I think it is very clear that the real winners here are the ordinary people of the Gaza Strip because the blockade will be eased and their lives will be improved. We can only hope that there will be other positive results.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Sketch of Hamas and the Gaza Strip
Quick reminder of who Hamas is ... There are two physically separated areas where the Palestinians live: the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The West Bank (of the Jordan river) lies between Israel and the Kingdom of Jordan in the Jordan River valley. It has some fertile agricultural land, a relatively well educated population, some developed cities such as Ramallah, and a small manufacturing base. The Gaza Strip is a narrow sliver of land on the Sinai peninsula between Israel and Egypt. Gaza City is the largest city but other significant areas include Rafah and several refugee camps. Rafah has been a center of trade and commerce for centuries. The Gaza Strip was created by the 1948 armistice between Israel and Egypt and occupied by Israel in the Six Day war of 1967 Egypt regained control in 1973. When the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt set formal boundaries, the border split the city of Rafah in half.
When the PLO, led by Yasir Arafat, established the Palestinian Authority, a government with headquarters in Ramallah (West Bank), there was another Palestinian movement already rooted in the Gaza Strip. Hamas had developed out of the Muslim Brotherhood and become the leading source of charity, health care and even education for the residents of Gaza City, especially the poor.
Attempts by the dominant political faction in the West Bank and Palestinian Authority, Fatah, to establish the government’s control over Gaza ran into local resistance. When Palestinians voted in legislative elections in 2006, Fatah easily won in the West Bank but Hamas surprised most observers by winning a large majority of parliamentary seats in Gaza.
Hamas is a self-defined hard line Islamist party whose leaders have been noted for piety, Koranic knowledge, and a public refusal to acknowledge Israel but not political or administrative skills. The majority of Gazans are not Islamists, nor in favor of a socially conservative, restrictive government and more interested in economic development than an aggressive stance toward Israel, so one might ask, “What were they thinking?”
I think you can understand Hamas victory in 2006 as a neat case of strategic voting gone badly awry. The Fatah dominated Palestinian Authority officials and bureaucrats in Gaza were notorious for being high handedly dictatorial and seriously corrupt. It is plausible to think that many people in Gaza felt that they did not want a Hamas led government but they wanted to send a message to the folks in Ramallah to stop the stealing and pay attention to the needs of the people. Since they assumed that Fatah would win the election, they felt free to vote for Hamas as a protest against the bad behavior of Fatah ... and enough people made that calculation so that they ended up electing Hamas. A year later tension between Fatah in Ramallah and Hamas in Gaza erupted into civil war and the Palestinian Authority was kicked out of Gaza. Technically the government in Ramallah is the government of Gaza, too, but the reality is different.
In the past 6 years Hamas has been unable to improve the economic condition of the people of Gaza, has tried to impose unpopular social restrictions and allowed private militias and various radical groups to proliferate. Hamas’ unwillingness (or perhaps inability) to control small bands bent on violence lead to a series of short range rocket attacks on Israeli towns within a few miles of the border. The result was the 2008-9 military operation code named “Cast Lead” that saw massive Israeli air power and a punishing ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. After inflicting serious casualties on both armed groups and ordinary civilians and substantial damage to both government and private buildings, the Israelis withdraw under international pressure and instituted a stringent blockade on the Gaza Strip. Hamas rule has become increasingly authoritarian and restrictive. A key factor in the economic stagnation in Gaza and the increasing frustration of the people has been the Israeli blockade of the territory, which has made importing and exporting almost everything -- including medicine and fuel oil to power electrical generators-- nearly impossible. In light of growing international pressure to deal with the hardships caused by the blockade, the government of Israel has begun to allow some material into Gaza.
Far more important than the trickle of goods allowed in by Israel has been the elaborate and sophisticated smuggling networks that have grown up in Gaza, featuring tunnels deep beneath the desert running from the city of Rafah in Gaza into the Sinai desert. After the 2006 Hamas electoral victory Israel imposed a blockade of the few border crossings into Gaza and restrictions on the use of the waters off the coast of Gaza. These restrictions were tightened even further after the 2008-9 violence. For reasons of its own, Egypt has cooperated with the Israeli blockade and closed the crossing at Rafah. In response, enterprising Gazans have dug a series of tunnels from their side of Rafah under the border into Egypt. Despite periodic raids by the Israeli air force to bomb tunnels and the dangers of cave ins from haphazard construction , the tunnels have made life in Gaza bearable. In addition to food, fuel and building materials, smugglers have done a brisk trade in weapons, especially the short range devices that can be launched by a couple of people and aimed in the general direction of Israeli settlements. In the past few weeks the arsenals have included rockets made in Iran that have a 40 mile range and are able to reach Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Israel has had a difficult enough time negotiating with Arafat and then his successor in the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas has repeatedly denied Israel’s right to exist and supported violence such as rocket attacks on civilians. The U.S. and most of Western Europe have followed Israel’s lead and declared Hamas a “terrorist” organization. While “terrorist” is as much as political term for people you really dislike as it is a term with an explicit empirical basis, the word has political and legal consequences. A major one is that governments resolutely claim they don’t negotiate with terrorists and U.S. law prohibits American citizens and diplomats from dealing with terrorist organizations.
When the PLO, led by Yasir Arafat, established the Palestinian Authority, a government with headquarters in Ramallah (West Bank), there was another Palestinian movement already rooted in the Gaza Strip. Hamas had developed out of the Muslim Brotherhood and become the leading source of charity, health care and even education for the residents of Gaza City, especially the poor.
Attempts by the dominant political faction in the West Bank and Palestinian Authority, Fatah, to establish the government’s control over Gaza ran into local resistance. When Palestinians voted in legislative elections in 2006, Fatah easily won in the West Bank but Hamas surprised most observers by winning a large majority of parliamentary seats in Gaza.
Hamas is a self-defined hard line Islamist party whose leaders have been noted for piety, Koranic knowledge, and a public refusal to acknowledge Israel but not political or administrative skills. The majority of Gazans are not Islamists, nor in favor of a socially conservative, restrictive government and more interested in economic development than an aggressive stance toward Israel, so one might ask, “What were they thinking?”
I think you can understand Hamas victory in 2006 as a neat case of strategic voting gone badly awry. The Fatah dominated Palestinian Authority officials and bureaucrats in Gaza were notorious for being high handedly dictatorial and seriously corrupt. It is plausible to think that many people in Gaza felt that they did not want a Hamas led government but they wanted to send a message to the folks in Ramallah to stop the stealing and pay attention to the needs of the people. Since they assumed that Fatah would win the election, they felt free to vote for Hamas as a protest against the bad behavior of Fatah ... and enough people made that calculation so that they ended up electing Hamas. A year later tension between Fatah in Ramallah and Hamas in Gaza erupted into civil war and the Palestinian Authority was kicked out of Gaza. Technically the government in Ramallah is the government of Gaza, too, but the reality is different.
In the past 6 years Hamas has been unable to improve the economic condition of the people of Gaza, has tried to impose unpopular social restrictions and allowed private militias and various radical groups to proliferate. Hamas’ unwillingness (or perhaps inability) to control small bands bent on violence lead to a series of short range rocket attacks on Israeli towns within a few miles of the border. The result was the 2008-9 military operation code named “Cast Lead” that saw massive Israeli air power and a punishing ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. After inflicting serious casualties on both armed groups and ordinary civilians and substantial damage to both government and private buildings, the Israelis withdraw under international pressure and instituted a stringent blockade on the Gaza Strip. Hamas rule has become increasingly authoritarian and restrictive. A key factor in the economic stagnation in Gaza and the increasing frustration of the people has been the Israeli blockade of the territory, which has made importing and exporting almost everything -- including medicine and fuel oil to power electrical generators-- nearly impossible. In light of growing international pressure to deal with the hardships caused by the blockade, the government of Israel has begun to allow some material into Gaza.
Far more important than the trickle of goods allowed in by Israel has been the elaborate and sophisticated smuggling networks that have grown up in Gaza, featuring tunnels deep beneath the desert running from the city of Rafah in Gaza into the Sinai desert. After the 2006 Hamas electoral victory Israel imposed a blockade of the few border crossings into Gaza and restrictions on the use of the waters off the coast of Gaza. These restrictions were tightened even further after the 2008-9 violence. For reasons of its own, Egypt has cooperated with the Israeli blockade and closed the crossing at Rafah. In response, enterprising Gazans have dug a series of tunnels from their side of Rafah under the border into Egypt. Despite periodic raids by the Israeli air force to bomb tunnels and the dangers of cave ins from haphazard construction , the tunnels have made life in Gaza bearable. In addition to food, fuel and building materials, smugglers have done a brisk trade in weapons, especially the short range devices that can be launched by a couple of people and aimed in the general direction of Israeli settlements. In the past few weeks the arsenals have included rockets made in Iran that have a 40 mile range and are able to reach Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Israel has had a difficult enough time negotiating with Arafat and then his successor in the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas has repeatedly denied Israel’s right to exist and supported violence such as rocket attacks on civilians. The U.S. and most of Western Europe have followed Israel’s lead and declared Hamas a “terrorist” organization. While “terrorist” is as much as political term for people you really dislike as it is a term with an explicit empirical basis, the word has political and legal consequences. A major one is that governments resolutely claim they don’t negotiate with terrorists and U.S. law prohibits American citizens and diplomats from dealing with terrorist organizations.
Iron Dome
The Iron Dome system was developed by an Israeli defense contractor building, in part, on engineering and software advances from the U.S. Star Wars system.
[While the technology for linking radar to detect and track intercontinental missiles and the interceptor rockets that are meant to blast off and destroy the incoming warhead in outer space has yet to work as hoped (every test so far has loosely defined “success” using the horseshoe and dancing principle: close counts) knocking down slow moving short range rockets is easier. ]
The Iron Dome equipment is a major advance over the Patriot missile system that the U.S. developed in the late 1980s and first deployed against Iraqi Scud missiles in the 1990 Gulf War. By some accounts Iron Dome can destroy between 80 and 90% of its targets.
This has created an interesting “good news/bad news” situation. The good news is that most of the rockets aimed southern Israeli towns and the handful of longer range rockets fired at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv can be shot down. The bad news is 1) that is scant comfort to the citizens of those towns when the 10-20% that make it through blow up down the street; and 2) it weakens the perception of balance and proportionality between the harm done by Gaza launched rockets and the scope and severity of the Israeli response.
[While the technology for linking radar to detect and track intercontinental missiles and the interceptor rockets that are meant to blast off and destroy the incoming warhead in outer space has yet to work as hoped (every test so far has loosely defined “success” using the horseshoe and dancing principle: close counts) knocking down slow moving short range rockets is easier. ]
The Iron Dome equipment is a major advance over the Patriot missile system that the U.S. developed in the late 1980s and first deployed against Iraqi Scud missiles in the 1990 Gulf War. By some accounts Iron Dome can destroy between 80 and 90% of its targets.
This has created an interesting “good news/bad news” situation. The good news is that most of the rockets aimed southern Israeli towns and the handful of longer range rockets fired at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv can be shot down. The bad news is 1) that is scant comfort to the citizens of those towns when the 10-20% that make it through blow up down the street; and 2) it weakens the perception of balance and proportionality between the harm done by Gaza launched rockets and the scope and severity of the Israeli response.
Notes On the West Bank and Gaza
(Angels fear to tread in this area, but we’ll rush in anyway. The language used to discuss the situation is highly politicized. There are some Israelis who continue to refer to this area as Judea and Samaria and others who prefer “administered territories.” This is not idle word play. How you describe the situation forces you to take sides on some central issues.)
The status quo in the West Bank includes Palestinian governance of some areas and occupation and control of other areas by the Israel Defense Forces. The occupation is expensive and breeds resentment among West Bank Palestinians. There is a small but growing movement in Israel to call attention to the psychological toll of occupation duty on soldiers.
The West Bank is also home to over 300,000 Israeli citizens. Some of the settlements are suburbs of Tel Aviv or Jerusalem drawing inhabitants with subsidized housing and typical suburban amenities. Others are fortified camps surrounded by Palestinian farms and villages, created by young men and women, often recent immigrants to Israel from Russia or the United States, who are ideologically and religiously motivated to expand the Jewish presence. Some of the settlements are legal under Israeli law; some are not. Most experts consider them illegal under international law. The push for settlements in the West Bank began shortly after Israel occupied the area during the Six Day War of 1967. A network of Jewish settlements in the territories was promoted as a way of creating “facts on the ground” that would make it impossible to ever withdraw completely to the old borders of Israel.
The more ideologically and religiously motivated settlers are an important force supporting conservative parties that have (until very recently) been critical components of the Netanyahu government’s right of center majority coalition. Some of them have been at the center of controversial “price tag” assaults on Palestinian mosques, olive groves and villages. On a few occasions the government of Israel has moved to forcibly liquidate an illegal settlement. The images of Israeli soldiers and police officers dragging Jews from their homes broadcast on the TV news have disturbed many Israelis.
The growing settler based economy in the West Bank has become the target of an international campaign, especially in Western Europe. Israeli owned companies located in the West Bank settlements and Israeli companies that get components or materials from firms in the settlements stamp their goods “Made in Israel.” Some of the protestors want products relabelled to reflect their settlement origins; others want them banned from altogether.
Despite the problems posed by the occupation and the vagaries of politics, West Bank Palestinians have seen significant economic improvement in the past decade. The opposite is true in Gaza.
Particularly after the economic pressures exerted by Israel and foreign governments after the Hamas electoral victory in 2006 and de facto civil war with Fath in 2007, the Gaza economy has regressed and become almost totally dependent on UN humanitarian support for the refugee camps and smuggling.
Hamas leaders have not proven particularly adept at governance and some are now being accused of the same kind of corruption and high handedness that led to the rejection of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.
The status quo in the West Bank includes Palestinian governance of some areas and occupation and control of other areas by the Israel Defense Forces. The occupation is expensive and breeds resentment among West Bank Palestinians. There is a small but growing movement in Israel to call attention to the psychological toll of occupation duty on soldiers.
The West Bank is also home to over 300,000 Israeli citizens. Some of the settlements are suburbs of Tel Aviv or Jerusalem drawing inhabitants with subsidized housing and typical suburban amenities. Others are fortified camps surrounded by Palestinian farms and villages, created by young men and women, often recent immigrants to Israel from Russia or the United States, who are ideologically and religiously motivated to expand the Jewish presence. Some of the settlements are legal under Israeli law; some are not. Most experts consider them illegal under international law. The push for settlements in the West Bank began shortly after Israel occupied the area during the Six Day War of 1967. A network of Jewish settlements in the territories was promoted as a way of creating “facts on the ground” that would make it impossible to ever withdraw completely to the old borders of Israel.
The more ideologically and religiously motivated settlers are an important force supporting conservative parties that have (until very recently) been critical components of the Netanyahu government’s right of center majority coalition. Some of them have been at the center of controversial “price tag” assaults on Palestinian mosques, olive groves and villages. On a few occasions the government of Israel has moved to forcibly liquidate an illegal settlement. The images of Israeli soldiers and police officers dragging Jews from their homes broadcast on the TV news have disturbed many Israelis.
The growing settler based economy in the West Bank has become the target of an international campaign, especially in Western Europe. Israeli owned companies located in the West Bank settlements and Israeli companies that get components or materials from firms in the settlements stamp their goods “Made in Israel.” Some of the protestors want products relabelled to reflect their settlement origins; others want them banned from altogether.
Despite the problems posed by the occupation and the vagaries of politics, West Bank Palestinians have seen significant economic improvement in the past decade. The opposite is true in Gaza.
Particularly after the economic pressures exerted by Israel and foreign governments after the Hamas electoral victory in 2006 and de facto civil war with Fath in 2007, the Gaza economy has regressed and become almost totally dependent on UN humanitarian support for the refugee camps and smuggling.
Hamas leaders have not proven particularly adept at governance and some are now being accused of the same kind of corruption and high handedness that led to the rejection of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.
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