Max Singer, at the neoconservative Hudson Institute
I missed this crazy argument out of Israel, but Paul Pillar has pointed it out in a great op-ed at the National Interest– a piece from two Israelis at the Bar-Ilan University calling for a largescale attack on Gaza to “mow the lawn” again before the end of the U.S. presidential campaign forecloses the possibility.
The Efraim Inbar-Max Singer piece reminds us that Israel’s chief and favored response to political problems is: massive violence. The attack would be bigger than Cast Lead of ’08-09! Demonstrating the role of impunity– Goldstone was squelched, these guys think that Israel can just squelch the next Goldstone.
Pillar denounces the thinking eloquently:
Their piece is titled “The Opportunity in Gaza”—it’s interesting how a violent, destructive clash is viewed as a “opportunity.” They argue for a full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip now—one even bigger and more damaging than Cast Lead, with the objective of destroying as much of Hamas as possible. They blatantly recommend exploiting the U.S. electoral calendar, arguing that “until November, the U.S. is likely to restrain rather than promote international action against Israel in response to an action in Gaza.” They say “deterrence created by Cast Lead” is “wearing thin,” and “military action now could restore deterrence.” Someone should point out to Inbar and Singer than when you repeatedly have to go to war that means deterrence is not working. But they don’t seem to care, fully accepting the prospect that in the future “Israel will probably have to ‘mow the grass’ again.” There is not a single word in their paper about the lives and livelihoods of the residents of the Gaza Strip, or the effect what they are recommending would have on those lives.
From Inbar and Singer at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan:
Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz stated several times that a large-scale operation in Gaza is inevitable. If he is right, this is the time…
Gaza is small enough so that Israel can find and destroy most of the Hamas military leadership and the leadership of Islamic Jihad and other groups that have been firing missiles at Israel. It is likely that doing so would reduce the amount of missile fire on Israel from Gaza for much longer than Operation Cast Lead did…
In addition, a serious blow to Hamas and other Islamist organizations in Gaza is a signal of Israeli determination to battle the rising Islamist forces in the region, which will buttress Israel’s standing among those powers in the region – as well as elsewhere – that fear the Islamist wave…
By taking the current opportunity to act in Gaza, Israel will greatly reduce the missile retaliation it would face if it attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities..
Finally, because of the election campaign in the US, it will likely be safer for Israel to act against missile attacks from Gaza now rather than eight months from now. Until November, the US is likely to restrain rather than promote international action against Israel in response to an action in Gaza…
Although an Israeli action in Gaza can achieve a significant increase in the protection of Israel from enemy fire for some time, and other security advantages, Israel cannot attain an everlasting victory. There is a good chance that Hamas would be able to restore itself in a year or so. In any event, Gazans and their outside supporters will create new organizations to fight Israel. Even though Israel can destroy a large share of the military equipment that has been smuggled into Gaza in the last several years – which will be an important benefit for the next year or two – we must assume that sooner or later other weapons will be smuggled in to replace those captured and destroyed by Israel. Israel will probably have to “mow the grass” again.
The tragedy of this piece is manifold. It is war to achieve political aims: to show the Islamic world that we know how to take on Islamists, to cripple Hamas (which is not directly responsible for the rocket attacks), to attack during the U.S. presidential campaign. And the military aims are disgraceful: to preempt attacks that might follow the preemptive attack on Iran, and worse, to “mow the lawn” in a way that Israel will have to mow it again in another year or so.
Also, Max Singer’s son Alex died in combat in Lebanon. You’d think Max Singer might be more thoughtful about the Palestinians who will die when Israel mows the lawn?
Zionism is programmed differently. Zionist leaders dogwhistle to their people and the inferences are very clear.
Gazans are somehow not fully human, deserving of human rights.
Catherine Ashton, EU foreign minister supremo said very innocently :
“And the days when we remember young people who have been killed in all sorts of terrible circumstances – the Belgian children having lost their lives in a terrible tragedy and when we think of what happened in Toulouse today, when we remember what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, when we see what is happening in Gaza and in different parts of the world – we remember young people and children who lose their lives.”
Kadima chairperson and Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni said that Ashton’s comparison “between the murder of children in Toulouse and the massacre [Syrian President Bashar] Assad is leading in Syria, and the situation in Gaza is reprehensible, infuriating, and wrong. A hate crime or a leader murdering his people is not like a country fighting terror, even if civilians are hurt,” Livni said, adding that Ashton’s comment “represents the misconception in the world concerning the State of Israel and the current leadership’s inability to create the appropriate moral distinction.”
Israeli FM Mad Dog Lieberman said
“Israel is the most moral country in the world, despite having to fight terrorists operating from within a civilian population. The IDF is doing everything it can to not hurt that population even though it is defending terrorists,” Lieberman said.
The FM added that the “children Ashton needs to focus on are the children of south Israel, who live in constant fear of Gaza rocket attacks.”
My favourite settler said
She’s a blood thinner in not differentiating between the acts of an anti-Semitic murderer who, as video surveillance footage showed, shot one child at close range in the head**, and those in Gaza, victims of their neighborhood terrorists who were firing at Israeli schoolchildren and killed incidentally in acts of legitimate self-defense.
I used to wonder how German academics in the 1930s could support the Nazi program, as many did and chalked it up to some peculiarity among German academics at the time. I no longer do. Inbar and Singer demonstrate that being an academic is no shield from being evil and twisted.
They should be seized and tried at the Hague for inciting offensive war and for promoting crimes against humanity and war crimes.
In ancient times, doctors believed, taught, and practiced that blood-letting was good for the health of the patient.
Israel has gone one better: blood-letting of your victim/enemy (that is, of the unfortunate people you haver chosen to dispossess and oppress) is good for your own health.
World reaction to Goldstone Report (among human beings) suggests this view is wrong, but world reaction (among governments) shows that it was not necessarily wrong.
The story of Max Singer’s fallen soldier son can be read in two diamtrically opposed ways. There’s the standard Mondoweiss way, typified by Seifoid’s response, which essentially sees the Israelis as monsters, who shrug off the deaths of their own sons and are totally impervious to any consideration of anyone else’s lives.
Then there’s the opposite explanation, whereby Israelis, familiar with death and violence from close up, are continually seeking ways to control it and to limit it. They know that it can’t be made to disappear, but they are determined to reduce it to a bare minimum on all sides of the conflict.
There is endless documentation to prove this second explanation. But I doubt the denizens of Mondoweiss are open to seeing it. Still, Phil Weiss does have an inkling: he’s puzzled by Max Singer.
Inbar and Singer demonstrate that being an academic is no shield from being evil and twisted.
i dont’t mean to be critical, woody, i get your point. but most of these institutions have what i call ‘inverse bacterial filters’ which allow fecal matter to pass through, and gain tenure, while blocking innovative thinkers whose ideologies don’t suit the purpose of the institutions. like martin kramer and his aptly named blog ‘sand box’, certainly a freudian reference to his subconscious wish to be buried like feline droppings. (if you go to his home page you’ll find martin’s larger-than-life portait projected onto an egyptian pyramid. no delusional pathologies there.)