Prof. Frederick Krantz
It’s too early to draw definitive conclusions about a highly complicated political and military situation. Still, to be brief, I do not think Israel has caved over dealing with Gaza/Hamas to American pressures, far from it, nor do I believe the US, even under Biden, has brutally tried to force Israel into a policy that subverts the Jewish state’s basic existential well-being and purpose.
As you know, I do not support any aspect of Biden and his Administration. Quite the reverse, I hope the Republicans, finally now with a Congressional leader, will swiftly return to the impeachment process already launched against him. Still, he is the President, and he has acted unexpectedly well insofar as denouncing the Hamas murderers and supporting Israel is concerned —and now he and his spokesman, Kirby, are directly blaming Iran—which has hitherto only benefited from their appeasement and which is clearly behind the current crisis (in Lebanon as well as Gaza and the West Bank, and the attacks on US troops in Syria and Iraq).
Two American aircraft-carrier attack groups are now positioned in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, other naval forces and 4,000 Marines in the Red Sea, THAAD, and Patriot missile units have been rushed to defend US M.Ed. bases, and Khamenei has been directly and repeatedly warned not to escalate. Biden’s slipping never was eloquent, but “Don’t, don’t!” is clear enough.
I studied and taught the military history of WWII for twenty years, am familiar with Israeli military history from 1947-48 to today and have been in touch with several high-ranking Israeli officers in recent days, as well as reading some good stuff and watching 1-24 while doing everything else. The decision to not immediately rush into Gaza was Israel’s and wasn’t taken under external pressure. Gaza was a Hamas trap, meant to suck the Israelis in before they massed overwhelming force; it was designed to take hostages for later use and to give Israel a black eye, open it to the usual “humanitarian” media/international community” censures, etc.
Israel needs to keep an eye on Hezbollah on the northern front, as well as a possible West Bank rising, and knows—from its brief incursion into Gaza in 2014, where it lost 66 IDF soldiers—how costly dense urban warfare against fanatic and suicidal Hamas killers in tunnels and using human shields was, chose to carefully “set the table,” push the population from north to south, and reduce the urban battlefield to rubble, using airpower, artillery, and tank fire. Now tank-led raids into Gaza have begun, with efforts to identify entrances and exits of over 350 miles [!] of tunnels, etc.
Whatever Biden’s “humanitarian” concerns, partially to soothe “progressives” in the Democratic Party/partly for “international community” consumption, were/are, they have this time played into Israel’s planning. Here, we should not discount the sheer horror of Hamas’s evil slaughter —campus idiots drunk on their self-righteous virtue-signaling may grotesquely praise genocide, but Western leaders (at least for as long as Israel needs to organize its invasion) couldn’t ignore it this time. Hence, Britain, France, and the German chancellor go directly to Israel in “solidarity”. And giving minimal water, food, and medicine—but no gasoline–inspected by the IDF via Egypt, Rafah crossing, to over a million “Palestinian” Arabs crowded into the south. Gaza strengthens Israel’s case without blocking the coming decimation of Hamas.
The 220 or so hostages, including many American citizens, radically complicate the military problem, especially for Israel, which not so long ago exchanged over 1,000 prisoners including the man who organized the Hamas massacre) for Gilad Shalit. I would also not underestimate the role of the many murdered and now captive American citizens insofar as Biden’s political calculations are concerned. He will well recall the destructive negative impact of Iran’s American hostages on Jimmy Carter’s Presidency.
Netanyahu, as much as Biden, if not more, and especially after the disaster of not foreseeing the massacre itself, for which he and his government will be held liable once the smoke clears, must keep freeing as many of the hostages as possible as an overarching aspect of military-diplomatic planning. I think this is part of the reason for the seeming” delay” attempts to use external interventions—Qatar, Egypt, Saudis—to get them out. But things have changed; exchange deals of earlier, more minor crises won’t work, or—conversely—Israel can’t be held to honor them, not after the Gaza pogrom.
Every effort now must be made to ensure that Hamas treats the hostages decently and, if possible, are extracted from there. But failure here will not deter the coming—within a few days to a week—the massive total campaign to destroy every Hamas operative in Gaza and every Hamas “leader” in Qatar, Beirut, and elsewhere (the Shin Bet is already on this).
A coordinated air, sea, and land offensive, informed by good intelligence and orchestrated from the north, west coast, east border, and south, will corral Hamas ‘fighters” and squeeze them into a central killing area, where they will be eliminated. This will be costly in terms of Jewish lives, but the alternative—the survival of Hamas, and hence of more future massacres, is simply inconceivable.
With any luck (and US backing), Egypt will create a refugee-holding area south of Rafah in the Sinai. Israel will occupy and administer Gaza until a joint Israeli/US/Arab [Sunni] conference, issuing from a restored Abraham Accords including Saudi Arabia, meets to set up a joint administrative structure, which will implement basic individual rights and freedoms for those vetted former residents allowed to return as residents.
But now, Israel must deal with Hamas/Gaza. Possibly, a broader war in the region, and globally should Russia/China get involved, must also be faced. And so too, perhaps, and finally, a decisive dealing with Iran before it goes nuclear (though their Foreign Minister’s reference to Tehran using “fire” against Great/Little Satan in his UN speech yesterday may indicate they already have a bomb).
NB: As I write this, there is news on the radio of US airstrikes against Iran proxy militia bases in Syria, Austin, Kirby warning Iran specifically of wider action if attacks persist. Alia iacta est, Israeli move into Gaza is now imminent; the key issue is: Will Tehran back down (watch Lebanon!)?
