My Latest on the Gaza Crisis: What Friends Owe Friends (October 16, 2023)
Rather than waiting until Friday when Home & Away normally appears, given the fast-moving events in the Middle East I am sending along my latest analysis of the Gaza crisis and what the United States should do. In this Foreign Affairs article, which is currently outside the magazine’s paywall, I argue that the Biden administration should urge Israel to refrain from conducting a full-scale invasion and occupation of Gaza and opt instead for targeted strikes on Hamas and reconstituting its defenses opposite Gaza inside Israel. The United States should also work to ensure this war does not widen by, among other things, warning Iran that it will be held accountable for Hezbollah’s actions. Third, I argue that the United States should urge Israel to introduce a political track – drawing from the example of Northern Ireland – that offers those Palestinians willing to eschew violence a political path that promises them more than Hamas could ever deliver.
Below is a link to my piece, as well as the first few paragraphs of the article. We’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming on Friday, with some thoughts on what is sure to be a consequential week.
Israel’s desire to destroy Hamas once and for all is entirely understandable. The terrorist group’s October 7 attacks resulted in the deaths of more than 1,300 Israelis, injuries to thousands more, and the seizure of some 150 hostages; most of those killed, injured, or abducted were civilians. The attacks also raised the question of how Hamas can be deterred from carrying out similar attacks in the future.
But just because an objective is understandable does not mean that pursuing it is the optimal or even advisable path, and Israel’s apparent strategy is flawed in both ends and means. Hamas is as much a network, a movement, and an ideology as it is an organization. Its leadership can be killed, but the entity or something like it will survive.
Israel has begun airstrikes on Gaza, and there is a good deal of evidence that it is preparing for a large-scale land invasion. This puts Washington in a difficult position. The Biden administration is correct in supporting Israel’s right to retaliate, but it must still try to shape how that retaliation unfolds. The United States cannot force Israel to forgo a massive ground invasion or to curtail one soon after launching it, but U.S. policymakers can and should try. They should also take steps to reduce the chances the war will widen. And they must look beyond the crisis, pressing their Israeli counterparts to offer Palestinians a viable peaceful path to statehood.
The case for the United States working to shape Israel’s response to the crisis and its aftermath rests not just on the reality that good if tough advice is what friends owe one another. The United States has interests in the Middle East and beyond that would not be well served by an Israeli invasion and occupation of Gaza nor by longer-term Israeli policies that offer no hope to Palestinians who reject violence. Such U.S. aims are sure to make for difficult conversations and politics. But the alternative—a wider war and the indefinite continuation of an unsustainable status quo—would be far more difficult and dangerous.
Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens.