As Israeli ground forces continue to fight their way through Gaza, there's been no shortage of commentary on the causes and possible consequences of the current conflict.
For the most part, the consensus runs as follows: Hamas began the violence when it resumed launching rockets indiscriminately into southern Israel; Israel escalated the situation with a disproportionate response; and now, with Israeli soldiers in Gaza, whether the conflict destabilizes the region as a whole depends on the extent of Iranian interference.
In basic terms this consensus is accurate, but two further points ought to be noted.
The first is the deliberation with which Iran, Hamas, and Israel all began planning for this when the six month cease-fire was signed last summer.
The tell here isn't just the timing of rocket fire by Hamas or the precise maneuvers of the Israeli incursion, but the highly coordinated messaging by senior Israeli and Palestinian officials. Given such tight coordination, we probably won't see anything significantly off-script on either side for at least another week or ten days; only then will we get a sense of which side has gained greater leverage.
Meanwhile, the second point is much broader.
In short, the fighting in Gaza is not merely a struggle for Palestinian autonomy or regional power. Even more, the violence there is the latest episode in a longstanding drama over the legitimacy of the Israeli state -- and by extension, over the legitimacy of the international order that recognizes Israeli sovereignty.
That's a heady claim, so bear with me as I explain.
For starters, consider the view that Israel is legitimate only to the extent that it secures the territorial sovereignty, now and for succeeding generations, of a specifically Jewish population. In the aftermath of the second World War, when the Holocaust lingered in recent memory and nation-states could still appeal directly to ethnic pretensions, that view carried a good deal of weight. Not surprisingly, it was perhaps most succinctly articulated by Golda Meir, the former Israeli Prime Minister, who once claimed that, "For me the supreme morality is that the Jewish people have a right to exist. Without that there is no morality in the world."
Alongside this view lies the argument that the Israeli state is legitimate because it is democratic. According to this claim, the fight for Israel's security is not a fight for Jewish persons so much as a fight for human rights. Presumably this view is what Israel's current Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, had in mind when she recently hoped aloud "that at the end of this military operation, the outcome will be victory for those who believe in our values."
The trouble for Israel is that while these two understandings of Israeli sovereignty were once complimentary, over the last two decades they have increasingly diverged. With the end of the Cold War and the proliferation of democracy, nation-states can no longer defend their sovereignty in purely ethnic terms without compromising their support in the international community. As a result, Israel, which is uniquely dependent on international consensus, has had to go out of its way to defend its actions in terms of democratic values and human rights.
[More at link or read the continuation in the following post under the article]
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- UrbanGypsy
- added this
- added January 06, 2009
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[The continuation from above]
Yet from the First Intifada on, the asymmetric threats Israel has faced have made such a defense unsustainable. So long as the Israeli public calls upon its military to respond to indiscriminate attacks, the IDF will inflict collateral damage; so long as there is collateral damage, images of wounded Palestinian civilians will reverberate throughout the world; and so long as such images continue to spread, Israeli appeals to human rights will sound hollow at best and duplicitous at worst. Invariably, the end result will be the continued erosion of popular support for both Israeli sovereignty and the international order that guarantees it.
Unfortunately, Israel's incursion into Gaza has only accelerated this cycle. Despite the best efforts of Israel's next generation press team -- replete with YouTube Channel, Twitter account, and even embedded scholar-soldiers -- the live news feed from Ramattan is currently winning out.
As a result, what we're watching is not so much low-intensity warfare as the continued fracture of the post-Soviet international order. The democratic world may have won the Cold War, but its triumph ushered in a form of conflict that by definition the modern nation-state cannot legitimately engage.
By entering Gaza, Israel has opted to risk its sovereignty rather than admit that development. Yet its sovereignty is not all that is at stake.
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- UrbanGypsy
- 6 months ago
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if mexico or canada lobbed a steady flow of missiles at our kindergardens would we not do the same thing? in fact we are doing the same thing in iraq a nation that actually did nothing to us. the bigger problem above all else is nobody has yet devised a way to root out terrorist without killing civilians(wich terrorists are using to hide behind)the sovereignty of isreal exists only because of military actions like this.
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good post
the analysis is thoughtful and offers some depth.
so much of the discussion here on current is terribly superficial: e.g. "Boo Israel" "Yea Palestinians" or "Boo Hamas" "yea Israel".
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Their incursion into Gaza isn't as bad as their ridiculous attack on Lebanon, but the amount of press and attention this is getting makes this a fairly ridiculous conflict for Israel to continue.
They're putting all their shit in one basket, and if it doesn't work out, it could be the beginning of the end for them.
Even though they're excellent at propaganda, they can't expect to keep engaging in killings like this and expect support forever. The people that run that country are complete morons.
This was an excellent article, good analysis of the facts.
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Very enjoyable post, UrbanGypsy. The analysis is deep and it sounds like you have studied the situation extensively, no? Much more so than most. I have summed up what I think of the situation; it is essentially the same as what you have said. There are two important aspects that people are failing to recognize. The difference between justification for action by Israel (The right of a state to defend itself from attack) and the course of action taken to do such. Israel, as you have said, has mishandled their response and set themselves up by giving the international community, and generally ignorant people, reason to sympathize with the Palestinians, specifically Hamas.
I don't think that the future of Israel's sovereignty is at stake, but I do think that their reputation as a beacon of light for Jews everywhere and also as a democratic state focused on merely existing is being badly tarnished; it is very similar in fact to the rapid increase of anti-Americanism between 2003-2008.
The conflict is solvable, but with the use of superior force by Israel and the Palestinian/Arab community using mass media to portray a connection between U.S./Israeli relations to "the destruction of the Palestinian people," Israel has created a situation where the ball is 100% in their court.
Take the high road I say Israel; stop all Israeli military operations, provide social services, and officially declare the desire for Palestinian well-being.Just my thoughts, good read though!
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the israeli government's just trying to be like all the rest of the governments of the world. they want to fit in.
I think that the history of the Jewish people shows their ever resilient resistance to fitting in to this rotten civilization, and they shouldn't give it up by playing the same 'kill all the Indians and anyone else who's in the way' game that the US has been playing... .
I also think that more blood has been spilled in the name of religion than anything and that it's stupid. And that they should've picked yiddish instead of hebrew for their official language.
Furthermore I think that southwest asia/holy war land is not a place I'd like to be right now. -
a question;it said that six million jews killed in world war_2. but at the same time nearly 25 million killed in russia in world war2_.in holocast jews died without resistance.but people of russia fight with nazi bravely.of coarse holocast is a historical fact.but it is not symboll of pride and the reason for witch kills other peopl.
