(no subject)

[desh]

You know, I've always felt much less connection to Israel than your typical active American Jew. I was only in Israel once, 10 years ago, and haven't had much desire to go back since. When the Israeli government does things I don't like, my reaction isn't "let's do something about that", but rather, "I don't want to be associated with that".

So why is the news making me sick to my stomach?

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Jeff Rants!, Part 1

[jdcohen.livejournal.com]

I think you are more right than you know. This, of course, spurred me on to rant about this subject for several paragraphs. Lucky you.

Your mention of asymmetrical capability reminded me of an article in Ha'aretz I read a few days ago about the popularity of these small-impact big-terror attacks on Israel in the Palestinian territories. Basically, the Palestinians recognize that they will never meet, or even come close, to Israel's strength - so, in return, they support actions that affect Israel's spirit rather than Israel's capability (it's a similar argument to the Counter-Value vs. Counter-Force argument in nuclear deterrence theory). The idea is that the Palestinian people can hold these strikes as a bargaining chip for much more valuable concessions from the Israelis - just look at what Hamas demanded in exchange for the return of Gilad Shalit (i.e. the release of all juvenile and women Palestinian prisoners, a number somewhere in the hundreds of people for the release of one soldier). Of course, as always, the Palestinian militants completely misjudged the situation, even though it has been replayed countless times before - Israel does not take kindly to these terror assaults. If you didn't win your freedom with the first suicide bombing, you probably won't with the latest kidnapping. Idiots.

Though, this does represent a change in tactics on the part of Hamas; now that they are in power, they probably feel some responsibility to tone down their militancy and to find new weapons with which to strike terror into the heart of their enemy. Kidnappings aren't new to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but this kidnapping was most likely sanctioned and even planned by Hamas - one of their first major operations inside Israel since they came into power. It represents a shift for Hamas from operations meant solely to terrorize (i.e. suicide bombings) and operations meant to provoke negotiations. They want to TALK to Israel (even though Israel refuses to talk to them) and on their terms - and they probably feel that kidnappings will give them extra bargaining chips in these negotiations. Sadly, they aren't taking into account that a) these kidnappings actually reduce the size of the pie Israel is willing to split and b) each aggressive action committed by the Palestinians convinces Israel to act unilaterally and ignore negotiations and concessions. Hamas is running on the old Intifada 1 playbook, where violent acts were necessary to get Israel and the world's attention. They should have learned by now that those rules no longer apply.

Of course, the rational response on the Israeli side to this kidnapping would have been to declare that they will not deal with terrorists and to close down Gazas borders to starve Hamas out of public opinion. Yes, it is collective punishment - and yes, collective punishment is morally wrong and most of the time completely ineffective - but in this case, the majority of the Palestinian government (being Hamas) has committed what is tantamount to an act of war (though they are hedging their bets and claiming no direct link to the kidnappers, they hypocritically still maintain that they are in control of Shalit's health and whereabouts). The objective of this collective punishment of Gaza would be to prove that for life to continue as normal in Gaza (with gas, electricity, food shipments, and work), Gazans have to NOT fire rockets into Israel and NOT kidnap Israeli citizens. It's a very clear message - if you can't play nice with us, we will shut you out. It is also a message to Hamas - if they can't control their violent tendencies then they risk losing Gazan public support as the crisis in the Strip worsens. That would be the rational thing to do.