Digest 28: Sense of the past 8 days. What happens next.
1) What’s going to happen in the next few days:
Spelled out crystal-clear in the past few hours, from former Prime Minister of Israel, Naftali Bennett (3 minutes):
2) A doctrine of ‘disproportionate response’
It’s important in the West to realise this isn’t merely hot-headed retaliation.
Whether one agrees with it or not, there are philosophical underpinnings to this retaliation in formal Israeli military doctrine. A summary of the ‘Dahiya Doctrine’:
a concept which requires the application of ‘widespread destruction as a means of deterrence’ and which involves ‘the application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations’.
Here’s Walter Russell Mead (August 2022) speaking about it, and its ‘Jacksonian roots’ (2 minutes):
What happened last Saturday is of course significantly worse than the example Walter gives.
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What’s it like as an Israeli PM approving military operations? Here’s Naftali (PM of Israel until 30 June 2022) talking about it in February. An insight into decision-making PM Netanyahu has had the past several days (subtitles on; 2 minutes)…
Lastly, this is widely disputed, but we should note that there is an alleged ‘Hannibal Directive’ that the IDF has in respect of its own military hostages (allegedly: an IDF soldier is ‘better dead than abducted’). I cannot comment on the reality or not of this, but there is enough historical record of it that it’s worth contemplating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive
I include this simply for us to be able to appreciate: those in power and in military command in Israel do not think exactly the same way as liberal Westerners.
3) What was Hamas’s aim?
Mike Bloomberg:
Hamas launched this savage and cowardly attack fully knowing — indeed, hoping — that the Israeli response would result in the death of Gazan civilians.
Seymour Hersh:
‘This was a carefully planned operation and Hamas knew exactly what the Israeli reaction would be.’
And this is a very interesting, informal video from former U.S. Green Beret, Clay Martin, on the intended emotional valence of last Saturday’s attacks.
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On intelligence oversights:
Paul Wood in The Spectator:
I spoke about all this with Danny Yatom, a former head of Israel’s spy agency, Mossad… This is a man whose profession had been to anticipate the worst.
There were clear signs that Hamas was planning something. In full view of Israeli drones, they carried out an exercise to attack a mock Israeli settlement they’d built in Gaza. The Israeli army even reported that Hamas forces were gathering near the border fence. But the analysis was that Hamas wanted quiet, not least so that it would get cash from Qatar. So the intelligence chiefs – and the politicians – ignored the evidence.
Elon thoughtfully commented on how such a surprise is possible (and not due to gross incompetence or negligence):
4) Could this now escalate?
Something I’ve not seen reported, but three days before the attack, a U.S. CENTCOM press release stated that the U.S. had seized over a million rounds of Iranian munitions:
These have been sent to Ukraine.
Although there is no evidence of Iran directly helping orchestrate Hamas’s attack (and only invalidated reporting suggesting it), this shows how interconnected these conflicts are.
I don’t pretend to understand all of the intricacies of relations in the Middle East, but seizing enemy weapons and sending them to Ukraine could perhaps get Iranian backs up.
5) Why is the U.S. having to do this?
In early July, the U.S. administration resorted to sending cluster munitions to Ukraine. Biden himself at the time pronouncing ‘we have run out of ammunition’. Cluster munitions have not changed the fortunes of Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
Now, this week, here’s White House spokesperson John Kirby:
Video: https://twitter.com/Ramy_Sawma/status/1712190588269847007
Saying (transcript):
On Ukraine funding, we are coming near to the end of the rope.
6) What should we do from here?
We should recognise that Hamas is an abhorrent regime. As is Iran’s support of it.
‘We congratulate the Palestinian fighters,’ said Iran.
Munira Mirza, writing in The New Statesman:
The concept that there are some among us who want to commit genocide against Jews is so beyond our ken that it is easier to believe the excuses about oppression and imperialism. The immense complexity of the situation in the Middle East is reduced to a cartoon formulation of triumphalist Jews and oppressed Arabs who have no choice but to react with terrorism.
This said, here’s Mike Bloomberg’s sober counsel to Israel:
Maintaining discipline, minimizing casualties and upholding the laws of war will buy the Israeli military more time to act and preserve the possibility of better relations with Israel’s neighbors in the future.
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On Ukraine:
What we need is ‘a very dissatisfying, but real peace’.
These are the words that George Packer used to describe the diplomacy of Richard Holbrooke brokering the Dayton Accords (1995), to end the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Excellent clip, worth watching (2 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/live/IGn5m2_FXuw?si=HBtIApMmKSDUGICW&t=1054
Packer (this 2019) later in the discussion goes on to say ‘name me an American diplomatic achievement since, say, Camp David, that exceeds it’.
Bill Burns, now Director of the CIA – and someone who has the daily ear of President Biden – would do well to rewatch this clip that he hosted.
7) This could aid harmony in the wider emerging Cold War II
Here’s Ray Dalio, writing with wisdom on Thursday:
My more attainable stretch goal would be for the US and China to jointly broker peace in Ukraine. While that is a stretch goal, it might be attainable as conditions are ripening for this to happen.
Imagine if the two leading and opposing world powers that are currently lining the sides up for a hot war join forces to deliver peace. That would be shockingly terrific because besides delivering peace, it would reduce the risks of the Russia-Ukraine war leading to worse wars and would also show that they could work together for peace.
If they did that, maybe they could develop a dynamic that would bring about peace rather than conflict in other cases.
This might seem idealistic, but it’s something Secretary Blinken said in May he would welcome. Dalio is connected with both U.S. and Chinese administrations, and I consider he could help make this happen.
8) The U.S. needs to do this, before its debt really does spiral out of control
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