I appreciate Ilan's perspective and mostly agree with his assessment. What Israel is gambling is on the continued good will that flowed forth after post WW II. What began as what appeared to most non Arab / Palestinians populations as a modest and resonable establishment of a Jewish homeland in 1948 has evolved in recent years to what could described by many as an unnecessarily brutal take over of terroitories to which they have no legitimate claim. The only viable resolution to this conflict is the 2 State Solution.
This once more ignores and repeats the same mistakes so regularly repeated by ostensibly pro-Israel individuals.
From the first, the release of the hostages is not happening under the current framework, and Israel is not going to leave genocidal maniacs on its border. Hamas won't give up the hostages unless it can be left on Israel's border. This fundamental impasse means that Israel's only option is to pressure Hamas into believing the only options it has are exile and surrender, or death. Allowing them to remain in power is fundamentally untenable in the long-run.
Second, you claim there needs to be a "hold force" with some legitimacy. This is not true. The COIN strategy put out by DoD and other departments in 2009 actually makes this clear. The clearing, then holding of territory does not require a "legitimate" entity, just one that can establish a monopoly of force and security for the populace while it operates there. The "build" is meant to BUILD legitimacy via the creation of institutions. That is why the Army's 2009 "Tactics in Counterinsurgency" publication, describing the "clear, hold, build" strategy, said that the "build" phase involves carrying out civil society programs designed to "remove the root causes that led to the insurgency." This is where legitimacy gets built, not during the "hold" phase, which involves simply establishing a strong enough position that, as the manual explains, the "hold" troops can "prevent [terrorists'] return, [] defeat any remnants, and [] secure the population." Notably, Israel can only put in place an already-legitimate "hold" force by leaning on alternative sources of legitimacy with little to no track record of governance (i.e. clans), or it can "hold" by itself. There is no alternative. The argument that a "hold" force must remain permanently or else the insurgents will return because the populace views them as inevitable is absolutely correct, which is why Israel CAN'T avoid this war being taken to its full conclusion with the removal of Hamas from power.
Third, you critique Israel's clear and leave strategy. While this doesn't rely on the overall COIN strategy for clear-build-hold, this strategy is also effective if you want to weaken a guerrilla opponent. As Andrew Fox (military expert with counterinsurgency experience directly) explained in Tablet Magazine, this was an ingenious strategy by Israel. While it needs to launch a clear-build-hold if it wants to completely dismantle Hamas permanently, via that strategy, the Western analysts like yourself are making a clear mistake in your assumptions. After all, "the IDF has absolutely no intention of using the clear-hold-build COIN tactics the West tried in Afghanistan and Iraq," which Fox notes were "an unmitigated disaster in both campaigns", leading to defeat in Afghanistan in particular, and return to Iraq to fight ISIS. The ingenious strategy alternative that Israel adopted was to not try to "clear Gaza" and hold it right away, but to "replace Hamas 3.0—the version that fought three wars against Israel and then launched the brutal Oct. 7 surprise attacks—with Hamas 1.0, which took over the Gaza Strip from Fatah in June 2007," by repeatedly clearing and militarily degrading it with targeted raids and operations.
This robs an insurgent group of its advantage, which lies in hit-and-run tactics, by making the IDF the ones who are hitting Hamas defenses and then withdrawing, gradually taking territory but focusing on degrading Hamas capabilities, command, and infrastructure. This makes any "hold" operation in the future, or attempt to "build" new institutions, much easier, because it weakens Hamas at minimal cost to Israeli life. A "hold" operation creates many targets that are limited to their bases for Hamas to hit. A clear, and clear, and clear again operation allows Israel to be the mobile force striking Hamas where they are, dismantling infrastructure, and withdrawing, costing Hamas precious command capabilities and slowly wearing them down, something that is far easier for Israel's more well-resourced and trained army to do.
Only after that can a "hold" strategy even have an option of viability, including finding legitimate alternatives. This is increasingly becoming a possibility. We're now seeing protests in Gaza against Hamas rule. A Gazan clan executed a Hamas member in retribution, a move that would be unthinkable a year and a half ago. Polls show this as well. Looking at a September 2024 poll:
* Support for October 7 as a good act has dropped in Gaza from 71% in March 2024 to 39% in September 2024.
* Expectations of Hamas victory in this war went from 56% in March 2024 to 28% in September 2024.
* Preference for who will control Gaza after the war went from 46% saying Hamas in June 2024 to 36% in September 2024 (notably, the PA saw a commensurate rise in support in Gaza, and opposition to an Arab joint force weakened too by the same amount).
This is far better than your suggestion of handing over control of Gaza to the Palestinian Security Forces. That's doubly true for multiple reasons, among them that the PSF lost Gaza in the first place to Hamas in 2007 and have almost no power (they can barely assert control in Jenin, let alone Gaza), and the other reasons include that the PSF has NO LEGITIMACY of their own. While that is rising, thanks to Israeli success, it is illogical to think that handing over Gaza to the decrepit and dying Palestinian Authority that lost it in the first place to Hamas is somehow possible. That would actually do more harm to the PA than help for Israel.
Fourth, your estimates of the time and cost of any attempt to reoccupy Gaza are hardly trustworthy. I am old enough to remember when the administration you were a part of (Biden), as well as the Vice President you worked for (Harris), claimed that it would take many, many months to evacuate Gazans from Rafah, and that they had nowhere to go. Then Israel evacuated over 1 million people in a few weeks.
Sixth and last, it is incredibly frustrating and yet unsurprising that, while even acknowledging that you are using Hamas casualty statistics, you are still using the outdated and falsified ones without noting their many faults. Hamas has now dropped thousands of names from its purported death toll list, who it previously claimed had been killed: https://www.yahoo.com/news/hamas-quietly-drops-thousands-deaths-122557133.html
Thanks Ilan for this reporting. I have not heard about these war plans, but I do hope that it is a negotiating strategy even though it seems misguided to me. The country does not want to hold and re-occupy Gaza. Could this also be an attempt to get Arab countries, i.e. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan to be more involved in demanding that Hamas disarm. I am forever hopeful, but this idea is very depressing.
Thank you, Ilan, for your explanation--the wrongness of a re-occupation aside--of the dangers to Israel itself of the plan to re-occupy Gaza: https://substack.com/@ilangoldenberg.
For some reason, too many supporters of Israel's right to exist fail to realize that their war mongering and cheering for a Greater Israel would in the end endanger Israel, not make it safer.
This shows disregard for the suffering of Palestinians.
While it is dangerous that such a plan would bog down much of Israel's defensive capacity in Gaza, it would also infuriate Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran, and others in the region. This might prompt attacks that could lead to a wider war. Could this be the goal Israeli hawks and their US militarist and Christian Zionist supporters?
For some reason, many of Israel's critics see Israel as impregnable and super powerful. This is the global equivalent of the claim Jews have vast powers to control all sorts of things; it involves antisemitic disregard for Jewish lives.
These friends and critics alike both both fail to see the real possibility of mass death and destruction within Israel, endangering its very diverse population.
To repeat, a Gaza occupation could lead to a wider war. We are already hearing that the US and Israel have "degraded" the Houthi's missile attack capacity. Similar claims in the past proved untrue.
Similar claims have been made about Hezbollah and even Iran! We also hear bragging about the success last year of air defense against the salvos emanating from Lebanon and Iran. But it is my understanding from reading dozens of the sources and commentaries in the database supporting the regular updates to my Middle East Peace with Justice posts (https://michaelalandover.substack.com/p/peace-with-justice-in-the-middle) that none of those parties made any serious effort to overwhelm Israel's combined missile defense capacity.
Yet, according to numerous reports, they had every capacity to do so. For instance, they purposely chose to destroy much of the housing stock in the North only after they knew the populace had been relocated. And there is every reason to believe that they still have the capacity to attack more widely within Israel. This is not some kind of effort to give credence to their own boasting, but to sound the alarm about the danger of provocations such as a re-occupation of Gaza.
Also, this kind of thinking--that Israel's enemies have been weakened and it is time for a military solution-- could lead the chicken hawks in the US and the hawks in Israel to think they could somehow pre-emptively attack Iran to remove "the head of the snake." Even if such an attack "succeeded" it would only be a matter of time until their capacities were restored or there was a new wave of perhaps more deadly forms of terrorism in the region.
One of Noam Chomsky's worries has long been of the acquisition of tactical nuclear weapons stolen from Pakistan or otherwise obtained, or the use of other forms of chemical or biological terror.
Liberal, progressive and democratic left supporters of peace with justice in the Middle East and of Progressive Israel Network groups like J Street must redouble our efforts to demand a diplomatic solution to this crisis, along the lines of UN SC #2735, #1701 and others; resume the Iran nuclear deal, and advance normalization of relations including recognition by more and more countries of both Israel and Palestine. The only alternative path will be ongoing war and occupation. To win wider support among US supporters of Israel, stressing the dangers to Israel is essential. Of course, it goes without saying, we must also decry the seemingly endless death and suffering of all victims of the wars in the Middle East.
I appreciate Ilan's perspective and mostly agree with his assessment. What Israel is gambling is on the continued good will that flowed forth after post WW II. What began as what appeared to most non Arab / Palestinians populations as a modest and resonable establishment of a Jewish homeland in 1948 has evolved in recent years to what could described by many as an unnecessarily brutal take over of terroitories to which they have no legitimate claim. The only viable resolution to this conflict is the 2 State Solution.
This once more ignores and repeats the same mistakes so regularly repeated by ostensibly pro-Israel individuals.
From the first, the release of the hostages is not happening under the current framework, and Israel is not going to leave genocidal maniacs on its border. Hamas won't give up the hostages unless it can be left on Israel's border. This fundamental impasse means that Israel's only option is to pressure Hamas into believing the only options it has are exile and surrender, or death. Allowing them to remain in power is fundamentally untenable in the long-run.
Second, you claim there needs to be a "hold force" with some legitimacy. This is not true. The COIN strategy put out by DoD and other departments in 2009 actually makes this clear. The clearing, then holding of territory does not require a "legitimate" entity, just one that can establish a monopoly of force and security for the populace while it operates there. The "build" is meant to BUILD legitimacy via the creation of institutions. That is why the Army's 2009 "Tactics in Counterinsurgency" publication, describing the "clear, hold, build" strategy, said that the "build" phase involves carrying out civil society programs designed to "remove the root causes that led to the insurgency." This is where legitimacy gets built, not during the "hold" phase, which involves simply establishing a strong enough position that, as the manual explains, the "hold" troops can "prevent [terrorists'] return, [] defeat any remnants, and [] secure the population." Notably, Israel can only put in place an already-legitimate "hold" force by leaning on alternative sources of legitimacy with little to no track record of governance (i.e. clans), or it can "hold" by itself. There is no alternative. The argument that a "hold" force must remain permanently or else the insurgents will return because the populace views them as inevitable is absolutely correct, which is why Israel CAN'T avoid this war being taken to its full conclusion with the removal of Hamas from power.
Third, you critique Israel's clear and leave strategy. While this doesn't rely on the overall COIN strategy for clear-build-hold, this strategy is also effective if you want to weaken a guerrilla opponent. As Andrew Fox (military expert with counterinsurgency experience directly) explained in Tablet Magazine, this was an ingenious strategy by Israel. While it needs to launch a clear-build-hold if it wants to completely dismantle Hamas permanently, via that strategy, the Western analysts like yourself are making a clear mistake in your assumptions. After all, "the IDF has absolutely no intention of using the clear-hold-build COIN tactics the West tried in Afghanistan and Iraq," which Fox notes were "an unmitigated disaster in both campaigns", leading to defeat in Afghanistan in particular, and return to Iraq to fight ISIS. The ingenious strategy alternative that Israel adopted was to not try to "clear Gaza" and hold it right away, but to "replace Hamas 3.0—the version that fought three wars against Israel and then launched the brutal Oct. 7 surprise attacks—with Hamas 1.0, which took over the Gaza Strip from Fatah in June 2007," by repeatedly clearing and militarily degrading it with targeted raids and operations.
This robs an insurgent group of its advantage, which lies in hit-and-run tactics, by making the IDF the ones who are hitting Hamas defenses and then withdrawing, gradually taking territory but focusing on degrading Hamas capabilities, command, and infrastructure. This makes any "hold" operation in the future, or attempt to "build" new institutions, much easier, because it weakens Hamas at minimal cost to Israeli life. A "hold" operation creates many targets that are limited to their bases for Hamas to hit. A clear, and clear, and clear again operation allows Israel to be the mobile force striking Hamas where they are, dismantling infrastructure, and withdrawing, costing Hamas precious command capabilities and slowly wearing them down, something that is far easier for Israel's more well-resourced and trained army to do.
Only after that can a "hold" strategy even have an option of viability, including finding legitimate alternatives. This is increasingly becoming a possibility. We're now seeing protests in Gaza against Hamas rule. A Gazan clan executed a Hamas member in retribution, a move that would be unthinkable a year and a half ago. Polls show this as well. Looking at a September 2024 poll:
* Support for October 7 as a good act has dropped in Gaza from 71% in March 2024 to 39% in September 2024.
* Expectations of Hamas victory in this war went from 56% in March 2024 to 28% in September 2024.
* Preference for who will control Gaza after the war went from 46% saying Hamas in June 2024 to 36% in September 2024 (notably, the PA saw a commensurate rise in support in Gaza, and opposition to an Arab joint force weakened too by the same amount).
This is far better than your suggestion of handing over control of Gaza to the Palestinian Security Forces. That's doubly true for multiple reasons, among them that the PSF lost Gaza in the first place to Hamas in 2007 and have almost no power (they can barely assert control in Jenin, let alone Gaza), and the other reasons include that the PSF has NO LEGITIMACY of their own. While that is rising, thanks to Israeli success, it is illogical to think that handing over Gaza to the decrepit and dying Palestinian Authority that lost it in the first place to Hamas is somehow possible. That would actually do more harm to the PA than help for Israel.
Fourth, your estimates of the time and cost of any attempt to reoccupy Gaza are hardly trustworthy. I am old enough to remember when the administration you were a part of (Biden), as well as the Vice President you worked for (Harris), claimed that it would take many, many months to evacuate Gazans from Rafah, and that they had nowhere to go. Then Israel evacuated over 1 million people in a few weeks.
Fifth, you are correct and yet still mistaken on the Israeli public's views. It is absolutely true that many Israelis prefer to get hostages out now. What you miss is that a key assumption in many of these voters' minds is that an end to the war and Israeli withdrawal would not leave Hamas in power. Israelis are fundamentally not okay with that. Polls show that Jewish Israelis in particular, i.e. those who make up the obvious bulk of military service members or their families, are opposed to a partial deal, or leaving Hamas in power: https://jppi.org.il/en/%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%91-%D7%94%D7%A6%D7%99%D7%91%D7%95%D7%A8-%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%9A-%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%A1%D7%A7%D7%94-%D7%90%D7%9A-%D7%9E%D7%AA%D7%A0%D7%92%D7%93-%D7%9C%D7%94%D7%A9%D7%90%D7%A8%D7%AA-%D7%A9/
Sixth and last, it is incredibly frustrating and yet unsurprising that, while even acknowledging that you are using Hamas casualty statistics, you are still using the outdated and falsified ones without noting their many faults. Hamas has now dropped thousands of names from its purported death toll list, who it previously claimed had been killed: https://www.yahoo.com/news/hamas-quietly-drops-thousands-deaths-122557133.html
Even more notably, Hamas appears to be including natural deaths in its death toll, inflating them by thousands more "civilians": https://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/HJS-Questionable-Counting-%E2%80%93-Hamas-Report-web.pdf
Thanks Ilan for this reporting. I have not heard about these war plans, but I do hope that it is a negotiating strategy even though it seems misguided to me. The country does not want to hold and re-occupy Gaza. Could this also be an attempt to get Arab countries, i.e. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan to be more involved in demanding that Hamas disarm. I am forever hopeful, but this idea is very depressing.
Thank you, Ilan, for your explanation--the wrongness of a re-occupation aside--of the dangers to Israel itself of the plan to re-occupy Gaza: https://substack.com/@ilangoldenberg.
For some reason, too many supporters of Israel's right to exist fail to realize that their war mongering and cheering for a Greater Israel would in the end endanger Israel, not make it safer.
This shows disregard for the suffering of Palestinians.
While it is dangerous that such a plan would bog down much of Israel's defensive capacity in Gaza, it would also infuriate Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran, and others in the region. This might prompt attacks that could lead to a wider war. Could this be the goal Israeli hawks and their US militarist and Christian Zionist supporters?
For some reason, many of Israel's critics see Israel as impregnable and super powerful. This is the global equivalent of the claim Jews have vast powers to control all sorts of things; it involves antisemitic disregard for Jewish lives.
These friends and critics alike both both fail to see the real possibility of mass death and destruction within Israel, endangering its very diverse population.
To repeat, a Gaza occupation could lead to a wider war. We are already hearing that the US and Israel have "degraded" the Houthi's missile attack capacity. Similar claims in the past proved untrue.
Similar claims have been made about Hezbollah and even Iran! We also hear bragging about the success last year of air defense against the salvos emanating from Lebanon and Iran. But it is my understanding from reading dozens of the sources and commentaries in the database supporting the regular updates to my Middle East Peace with Justice posts (https://michaelalandover.substack.com/p/peace-with-justice-in-the-middle) that none of those parties made any serious effort to overwhelm Israel's combined missile defense capacity.
Yet, according to numerous reports, they had every capacity to do so. For instance, they purposely chose to destroy much of the housing stock in the North only after they knew the populace had been relocated. And there is every reason to believe that they still have the capacity to attack more widely within Israel. This is not some kind of effort to give credence to their own boasting, but to sound the alarm about the danger of provocations such as a re-occupation of Gaza.
Also, this kind of thinking--that Israel's enemies have been weakened and it is time for a military solution-- could lead the chicken hawks in the US and the hawks in Israel to think they could somehow pre-emptively attack Iran to remove "the head of the snake." Even if such an attack "succeeded" it would only be a matter of time until their capacities were restored or there was a new wave of perhaps more deadly forms of terrorism in the region.
One of Noam Chomsky's worries has long been of the acquisition of tactical nuclear weapons stolen from Pakistan or otherwise obtained, or the use of other forms of chemical or biological terror.
Liberal, progressive and democratic left supporters of peace with justice in the Middle East and of Progressive Israel Network groups like J Street must redouble our efforts to demand a diplomatic solution to this crisis, along the lines of UN SC #2735, #1701 and others; resume the Iran nuclear deal, and advance normalization of relations including recognition by more and more countries of both Israel and Palestine. The only alternative path will be ongoing war and occupation. To win wider support among US supporters of Israel, stressing the dangers to Israel is essential. Of course, it goes without saying, we must also decry the seemingly endless death and suffering of all victims of the wars in the Middle East.