Israel needs “help” from friendly states to change direction. Netanyahu’s government is a nightmare when it comes to various nationalist and settler interests and is not the easiest to politically navigate. Then you have his fear of corruption investigation too.
But yes, the Israeli political echelon and security apparatus is in sync and agrees on on the goals, but the road to them, is all over the place and I think it will lead to strategic defeat in the end because they have no clear formulated road/strategy (loss of standing, loss of influence, less security over all).
And paranoia. Many, I think, underestimate the quite real paranoia Israelis have of their own survival. Their paranoia is sometimes scoffed at, many people think they use it as an excuse, but it’s real. The Holoaust and the history of the Jewish People is a ghost from the past that influences their thinking and acting, imo.
The Hamas oct 7 attack really struck something deep in them, like Clarkson notes above too. It was always going to bring about a very “wild” reaction. They are convinced they have to instill deterrence through trauma (I think) and massive devastation and loss of assets for their enemies, so such an attack is never again repeated, and they ideally of course wants to completely annihilate Hamas.
The latter (destroying hamas is part of the “road is all over the place”, since it’s pretty clear that with current strategy they won’t defeat that organisation).
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Fundamentally, Israel is now led by a coalition that is quite willing to countenance what we would call ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and certainly wishes to annihilate Hamas. Hamas states as a premise of its existence that its purpose is the annihilation of Israel. There isn’t much of a foundation for even a ceasefire.
If a ceasefire were to come about, I think yet another utterly thankless UN peacekeeping deployment would be an absolute necessity, and I am not sure either party would accept that.
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I pity such peace keepers. They would be targeted by both sides, both in propaganda and indeed militarily.
Thankless indeed.
Yep, UNIFIL is a pretty crappy duty cycle, Gaza would be worse.
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Hamas has increasingly treated its founding charter (one written by people with an insular world view created by essentially being cut from the outside world) as a historical document that does not represent their modern position. I understand there is academic debate over the interpretation of the new charter and what it means to not explicitly disavow the language in the founding one, but while the the updated charter of 2017 does not explicitly recognize Israel it does only call for the establishment of a Palestinian State within the 67 boundaries.
What I see a lot out of these conversations is a demand that those who speak for the Palestinians change and moderate, and then when they do in attempt to find some common ground they are denied and held to old standards. See the PLO downing their weapons to become the partners in peace negotiations that was demanded of them and then never being treated as such.
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I do think it would be in Palestinian interest to ask for UNPKF to be deployed.
But as you said , Hamas wouldnt accept that and neither would the Israelis.
It is somewhat hard to give much credibility to an argument that Hamas has somehow become moderate, having launched a massive, bloody attack six months ago and sustained resistance in the midst of a civilian population ever since.
Point taken about the PLO, albeit that was in large measure a function of the fact they could not deliver as partners in those peace negotiations after the second intifada began. But certainly, corrupt though they may be, Fatah has tried for the best part of 20 years to be a state actor of sorts, and are not treated accordingly.
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Without a doubt it would be in the interest of the civilian population of Gaza.
I do think UN would have to do that though. Probably ask some of the Arab countries to contribute w.r.t troops as well.
Which country would want to send their troops to that place is another matter though. I’d expect US troops in there as well too.
I don’t think Arab countries would work. It would probably have to look a lot like UNIFIL, with possibly exclusion of some of the countries that Israel now is borderline hostile with.
…which probably means some Indian troops in Gaza.
edit: no way US troops would be trusted, and the US military are not big fans of peacekeeping missions anyway. They are hard, everybody is a bad guy and an innocent, and superior firepower is never the point. Some of the serving Canadian forces I know would do it, but I am not sure that Canada would be well-received. A lot of the West is definitely not seen as neutral, although the Israelis won’t have a lot of trust for many of the non-Western countries.
Not a bad call.
None, if they have any sense. The moment any Arab state sends troops over, the Israeli government will have an excuse to step up their “self defence”.
The Saudi regime is interested in moving ahead with the relationship with Israel.
India sending the troops (in a hypothetical scenario) wouldn’t be a bad idea.
But that depends on the resolution by the UN.
That is sort of the whole point, it is in the job description - though as I noted above, definitely not Arab countries. Even the best trained and disciplined won’t be perceived as capable of being neutral.
The reason why I would want Arab troops coming in is because both Hamas as well as Israel would behave.
That doesn’t leave a lot of countries that fit the description.
The problem with that is that is geopolitically true, but it isn’t boots-on-the-ground true. Incidents almost always flare up with low-level encounters, as trivial as conversations that go wrong. I would not reasonably expect an Arab soldier to be capable of facing down deliberate provocations.