What Eliot Cohen doesn’t understand is that Israel’s war with Gaza is not our war. Assad’s war with Sunni Islamist insurgents is not our war. We could make these our wars, but after watching how things unfolded in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, we have no good reason to want to expand our responsibilities.
When it comes to Israel, though, we do actually have to care what Israel does. That’s because they are using our weapons and in many cases our intelligence. And we protect them in the United Nations. We give them massive amounts of foreign aid. As a result, when Israel does things that enrage public opinion, it turns public opinion against us. It puts our people at risk. It puts our soldiers and diplomats at risk.
For these reasons, America should have the right to question both what Israel is doing and whether it makes any long-term strategic sense. By calling for a cease-fire prior to Israel being able to achieve even their most minimal goals, the administration is giving them a vote of no confidence on their strategic thinking. It’s clear that in the judgment of the Obama administration, Israel cannot reach its strategic goals in a way that is consistent with maintaining American support for their tactics.
This is why the Obama administration insisted that Israel engage in the peace process. It’s true that trying to force Israel into a premature cease fire is a hostile act. Walking away from John Kerry’s peace process was a hostile act by Israel.
Cohen wants the administration to react to this disrespect by giving Israel carte blanche to replicate General Sherman’s march to the sea in Gaza. That ain’t gonna happen.
It seems that the German razing of the (urban) Warsaw Ghetto in ’43 and the city of Warsaw in ’44 is somewhat more analogous than Sherman’s march to the sea, although more inflammatory. But going neighborhood by neighborhood through Gaza is what Israeli hawks are now proposing as the “solution”.
And if only it were possible that some Israeli military actions would not be “consistent with maintaining American support for their tactics”. But there is no elected official in DC who says this.
Of course, the administration can’t say that without arousing massive divisions in the Democrats’ ranks and alienating some of their most important and generous donors. That’s why you have to look at what the administration is doing rather than what it is saying.
Israel can do whatever it wants. Even if a nuclear device went off above Gaza American supporters would find a way to justify it: Israel has the right to defend itself. And by the way, the Palestinians don’t have the right because they don’t have the means supplied by the US. And moreover, they’re Arabs. Not the chosen people of god (though maybe not the way they see it). There is something perverse in the US unconditional support of Israel which more and more people around the world are being to see it for what is: hatefulness.
IDF soldier taken captive in Gaza
It’s better than saying the soldier was “kidnapped” as has been done previously.
Hamas spokesperson vehemently denying that soldier was taken by Hamas. We’ll see.
There are a number of factions, including Harakat al-Jihād al-Islāmi fi Filastīn (Palestine Islamic Jihad) whose agenda is provoking Israel no matter what the cost. I would find it difficult to believe that the Hamas leadership would negotiate a cease fire while simultaneously ordering an action that would immediately void it.
I saw one suggestion that the freedom fighters were down in the tunnels and didn’t get the latest news about the latest ceasefire agreement. The operation had already been planned and was just unfolding as planned. Oops. But with the continuing and excessive lying by the IDF, the truth will need a little digging to find out the real story.
○ Israel Murders IDF Soldier to Prevent His Capture
○ How Politics and Lies Triggered an Unintended War in Gaza by J.J. Goldberg
○ 12 Years Ago Today, Hamas Tried to Kill My Wife. I’m Marking that Day by Opposing the Gaza War
Good thing that a march to the sea cannot possibly create more Palestinians who feel that they have nothing left to lose. Ask anyone who fought in a counter-insurgency war; fighting a dedicated enemy is one thing. Fighting an enemy who is more interested in killing you than he is in preserving his own life will give you the shakes.
Each American has paid roughly $10 each year for at least the years that Obama has been President for high honor and distinct privilege of having Benyamin Netanyahu and company disrespect sincere efforts for a two-state peace that advantages Israel.
How many dead Palestinians does it take before Americans conclude that they’ve gotten their moneys worth in Muslim-killing?
A ceasefire to allow Palestinians to bury their dead long after 24 hours while Israel continues the campaign by destroying tunnels is not actually a ceasefire even if it was the minimal item for mutual agreement to make the UN and John Kerry satisfied.
It is going to take the withdrawal of that $3 billion to stop Israel’s campaign–or the utter capitulation and diaspora of the Palestinians–if there is to be peace this time. Israel senses that it’s counterpart in settler colonialism to the masscre at Wounded Knee is very close. The time at which it can operate anywhere in the occupied territories with impunity. For a state that was created as among the first acts of an international body aimed at ending war and in response to the Holocaust, this brutality is a horrible reversal.
Cynicism prevails again.
Its way past time to hack down the money tree.
You gotta love it when a Keyboard Kommando sez that a war needs to take place. Umm, is he willing to go over there and help out?
It is also a barbaric conflict, as leaders of Hamas hide their fighters behind children while baiting their enemy to kill innocents.
So obviously the best course of action is to take the bait early and often.
This is exactly the level of strategic brilliance I’d expect from one of the architects of the Iraq War.
It’s just unbelievable. After the lies of Netanyahu and his cabinet to fight a war of choice, Israel gets all the support fron ‘peace broker’ the United States. All three US representatives were silent when Netanyahu rounded up 800 members of Hamas in West Bank razzias in June. Today, all three blame Hamas for breaking the cease-fire and demand the release immediate of a single IDF soldier.
Bertus Hendriks, an oustanding Middle East analyst, said the cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel was ambiguous. The IDF expeditionary forces inside Gaza were allowed to stay in place and by some weird interpretation were even allowed to continue their search for and destruction of the tunnels. The cease-fire agreement didn’t address the Hamas demand for an unconditional release of the illegal capture of its members on the West Bank in June. Egypt can’t be an honest broker for Hamas, as General Sisi is at war with the Muslim Brotherhood, an alliance with the Hamas militants in Gaza and Islamists roaming the Sinai desert.
○ Cease-fire breaks down: Israeli shelling kills 50 after reported capture of soldier
○ Reprint of Yochanan Gordon’s “When Genocide is Permissible” (Updated)
○ U.S. Participates In Israeli Criminal Acts Gaza, Replenishes Ordnance
…the administration is giving them a vote of no confidence on their strategic thinking. It’s clear that in the judgment of the Obama administration, Israel cannot reach its strategic goals in a way that is consistent with maintaining American support for their tactics.
This is the most incisive analysis of Obama’s motives and MO I have ever read anywhere. Excellent, Booman
Good to see the discussion is finally getting down to unadulterated ethnic cleansing.
An honest exchange on the real events and true motivations is long overdue.
The Israelis are European colonialists subjugating a less advanced people by any means necessary. The Palestinians are a wrong and wronged people who are reacting irrationally and counterproductively to an extended brutal occupation.
Either the Israelis are the white Americans or the Boers. The demographics seem to suggest they could very well be the latter.
PS Eliot Cohen is a warmongering idiot.
And people who pay attention to him are losers, as history has shown.
Drop Israel.