First the half question, which I won't even put in the form of a question.
There's no reason to talk about the peace proposal Biden put forward. It's entirely political theater to appease a left which refuses be appeased. Biden issued it knowing there is no way the Netanyahu government would adapt it, and knowing that were Netanyahu somehow to change his mind, Hamas would back out at the last minute. There is no peace possible until both Netanyahu and Sinwar are out of government, and the power of both depends on the presence of perpetual war.
So where are we right now? I think the only way to talk about this is to have a bunch of isolated FAQ, or at least, what I would imagine the FAQ is if anybody asked me.
- WAS BIDEN RIGHT TO WITHHOLD WEAPONS SALES TO ISRAEL?
Yes, he was right. It's purely symbolic. The one thing Israel has enough of is weapons, but it's a signal to Netanyahu's government that should Israel pursue its policies aggressively, they can't necessarily count on the US for a blank check to write up everything they need. What any army can never have enough of is manufacturing parts. In war, you never know what parts of your equipment will go wrong and you sometimes need defense manufacturers to ship you parts overnight. Netanyahu's government now has to factor in whether or not they can count on the US completely for every exigent circumstance.
- IS THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT RIGHT TO PROSECUTE NETANYAHU?
I know long time readers probably expect me to go with 'no, f-ck you' and leave it there. I'm going to say 'No, f-ck you' when it comes to the warrant against Netanyahu's defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who proved one of the loudest opposition figures in Netanyahu's government, dissenting from Netanyahu in full view of the public. Regarding Netanyahu, I'm still going to answer a resounding 'no,' but not a 'morally absolute no.'
This question is not quite as simple as it seems, because for Israel, the ICC is purely symbolic. It has no enforceability, and the fact remains, it is far more likely that an exiled Hamas leader like Ismail Haniya can end up in front of the ICC than Netanyahu ever will. If Netanyahu feels trapped by the worry that he might get arrested abroad, then it's a small price to pay for making Israelis feel trapped by him.
The ICC can only prosecute within states that recognize it, and Israel does not - Israel and the US jointly announced they no longer recognize the ICC as of 2002. They are not alone among world powers who don't recognize it: neither China nor India ever recognized the ICC, and Russia withdrew their recognition in 2016.
This means that the ICC warrant is just another piece of diplomatic leverage, and it's hard for me to believe that the ICC would have issued it without Washington's secret consent. This is just the 'carrot and sticking' of normal diplomacy: do what we want, you're rewarded, go against our wishes, you will be punished. More or less, the only part of the war effort that will be hurt by the ICC ruling is people's feelings.
And 'feelings' is ultimately what the ICC question comes down to. The warrant could not have been more poorly timed. The last thing Israel needs is another way to make themselves feel hated in the international arena, and by making Netanyahu seem like a victim, all the ICC has done is to give millions of Israelis who hate Netanyahu a reason to identify with him.
I've said and written this many times, but just as the world's neglect of their concerns radicalized Arabs, so does the world's neglect of Israel's concerns radicalize Jews.
So yes, no, f-ck you.
And this leads us to our next question:
- WHY IS ISRAEL MAD AT NETANYAHU (part 234124534563457)?
There are literally hundreds of reasons stretching over thirty years, but for right now, the reason is that Israelis realize Netanyahu has no plan for the future aside from his own future. It's true, most Israelis couldn't care less what happens in Rafah - you wouldn't either if these people had wanted to kill you since 1948, but even after all this, there is evidence that Israelis do care a little bit about human rights. I forget the exact number, but the percentage of Israelis polled who do not want military rule of Gaza after this is over is somewhere in the sixties or seventies. Israelis want Gazan self-governance.
On the one hand, it's hard to deny, military rule of Gaza would be the most secure option - so long as Israel is protected by a right-wing government in the US, which, starting next year, the US might have forever. But even now, Israel doesn't value their security to the point that they're willing to countenance a true apartheid government.
From 1967 to 2006, Israel ruled the Gaza strip. Israel was desperate to not have it, but Egypt wouldn't take it back in their 1979 peace treaty (the Camp David Accords) and the Palestinian independence movement was nowhere near what it is today. Israel controlled it as a temporary security measure that became more and more permanent, and while there were settlements in Gaza, Gaza is small enough to be nearly settlement-proof. Settlements in Gaza were nowhere near so serious a threat to a lasting peace as it was in the West Bank, where the settlement movement was serious indeed. In 1990, if you asked the average Israeli whether they wanted to keep the West Bank, it would be a resounding yes. If you asked the average Israeli whether they wanted to keep Gaza, it would have been a resounding 'f-ck lo.'
In 2006, prime Minister Ariel Sharon simply disengaged from Gaza and let them break their own heads. Who knows what circumstances it would have taken to work the way we hope, but the fact remains that George W. Bush insisted on a free and fair democratic election. Hamas won the election by three percentage points, and there was never another election. Had a leader like Mahmoud Abbas simply ruled Gaza as a dictator from Day 1 of the disengagement, it would not have been the disaster it was to let Gazans elect Hamas.
If there is no postwar plan, all that would be left is for Israel to simply retake Gazan territory. Last time, the territory was taken with the intent of getting rid of it, this time, the territory would be taken with the intent of holding it. The intent would be the opposite of what it was from 1967 to 2006. Gaza would be ruled with the intent to rule it permanently, and that, therefore, would very much be an apartheid situation.
Whether for moral, humanitarian, or practical reasons, this is the precise situation most Israelis don't want. 100,000 protest it every week. Whatever is going on Israel vs. the world, Israel is at an internal boiling point over the issue of controlling Gaza again, a notion that, for the vast majority of Israelis, is an unacceptable trauma.
More tomorrow, I mean it this time. I'll start working on it now.
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