Watching the IDF (catch all)

[Jones_RE]

For what it's worth, Israel's security doctrine appears to call for:

1) Physical separation from Gaza and the West Bank. This is a recent phenomenon, but one that has been fairly effective in reducing internal attacks.

2) Negotiation with various Palestinian entities. This has proceeded largely without results, as we are all aware.

3) Gradual displacement of the Palestinian civilian population. A controversial strategy - not officially pursued by the government at this time. Frequently undertaken by rogue Israeli citizens, with various governments cracking down or turning a blind eye depending upon the current political climate.

4) Retaliation. Not merely military, Israel frequently closes off whole towns to outside access for days at a time. Israel also controls a large portion of the Palestinian Authority budget and other "levers." Certain air strikes and other kinetic operations have been used for this purpose.

5) Limited kinetic operations. "Targeted killings," raids and other operations designed to attack armed enemies directly.

6) Intensive internal security measures. Israel has armed guards posted at shopping malls, along with the world's toughest airport security. A wide aray of checkpoints control movement and commerce throughout the West Bank and Gaza, as well.

Israel's strategy is limited by a number of "non military" considerations. First of all, the West Bank is home to a population of 2.5 million Palestinians (per the CIA World Factbook). It would take 50,000 soldiers in formed combat units to provide the "optimal" ratio of 1 soldier per 50 civilians. This would be just under 1% of Israel's population - for the US to field an equivalent force would require 2.5 million soldiers. Given the existing bad blood and mistrust on both sides (without taking a moral stand either way, simply noting that there are hard feelings here) this would be a very long and difficult operation, involving many casualties on all sides. Israel cannot support such a move economically. Their citizenry will not permit the many casualties that would result. Tel Aviv's unstable, coalition driven governments likely couldn't affect either situation. Additionally, intesnive international scrutiny would be brought to bear. Finally, Israel's neighbors are all Arab countries who would be seriously threatened by such a military expansion, regardless of the motives. In addition to state sponsorship of Palestinian factions, the governments of Lebannon and Syria are both sufficiently corrupt and/or weak that independent actors within those nations would supply considerable outside help.

Given that confluence of factors, a "traditional" counter insurgency will not be sustainable. That is not to say that it would not be effective. Both Israelis and Palestinians are human beings - war is a part of the human condition. Regardless of the brutality, uncivilized tactics or sheer emotion on all sides - the principles of war apply without consideration of the merits of the parties.

So that leaves an interesting question: what can Israel do? I believe the most effective course of action for Tel Aviv is continued withdrawal from occupied portions of the West Bank, and a continuing effort to shore up on or another Palestinian faction. Not only as a fighting force, but as an agency that can deliver governmental services, health and welfare to the Palestinian people with pride and dignity. Such a group does not exist as such, but it might draw considerable support. Given time, it could displace the armed factions in terms of popular legitimacy and ultimately be in a position to negotiate a mutually beneficial relationship with Tel Aviv.

[Tom Odom]

Israel's biggest problem is the population issue. Time is not on their side when it comes down to looking at numbers of people and available land.

The strategic reality is that Israel is an anomaly in the post-WWII and now 21st Century world. It is very much the equivalent of a colony, implanted for a variety of reasons with and even larger number of agendas.

The situation reference "Palestinian targeting of civilians" versus IDF targeting is one of available means and achieveable effects. And it is also one of where the targeting is done, who is watching, and who is reporting. I can tell you personally that IDF targeting in Lebanon was hardly "surgical."

So that leaves an interesting question: what can Israel do? I believe the most effective course of action for Tel Aviv is continued withdrawal from occupied portions of the West Bank, and a continuing effort to shore up on or another Palestinian faction. Not only as a fighting force, but as an agency that can deliver governmental services, health and welfare to the Palestinian people with pride and dignity. Such a group does not exist as such, but it might draw considerable support. Given time, it could displace the armed factions in terms of popular legitimacy and ultimately be in a position to negotiate a mutually beneficial relationship with Tel Aviv.

The interesting point here is that the current situation is one of lost opportunities compounded by decades. The US has not done Israel a strategic favor through our policies of near total support. Israel and the Palestinians are both practioners of zero sum politics. The US role has never been effective as an honest mediator and both sides see that. Israel's "strategy" has been one of immediate tactical gains that do not necessarily arrive at a desired end state. The Gaza settlement fiasco is a classic case, repeating the Sinai settlement fiasco after Camp David was signed. The West Bank fiasco will be coming to a strategic theater near you at a date yet undecided.

Go back and read the following if you question where I am coming from at http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Researc.../rwp/RWP06-011 It is worth the effort.

Best

Tom

[Tom Odom]

Ingathering

Ilan Pappe on the Israeli election and the 'demographic problem'

From left to right, the manifestos of all the Zionist parties during the recent Israeli election campaign contained policies which they claimed would counter the ‘demographic problem’ posed by the Palestinian presence in Israel. Ariel Sharon proposed the pull-out from Gaza as the best solution to it; the leaders of the Labour Party endorsed the wall because they believed it was the best way of limiting the number of Palestinians inside Israel. Extra-parliamentary groups, too, such as the Geneva Accord movement, Peace Now, the Council for Peace and Security, Ami Ayalon’s Census group and the Mizrachi Democratic Rainbow all claim to know how to tackle it.

Apart from the ten members of the Palestinian parties and two eccentric Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox Jews, all the members of the new Knesset (there are 120 in all) arrived promising that their magic formulae would solve the ‘demographic problem’. The means varied from reducing Israeli control over the Occupied Territories – in fact, the plans put forward by Labour, Kadima, Shas (the Sephardic Orthodox party) and Gil (the pensioners’ party) would involve Israeli withdrawal from only 50 per cent of these territories – to more drastic action. Right-wing parties such as Yisrael Beytenu, the Russian ethnic party of Avigdor Liberman, and the religious parties argued for a voluntary transfer of Palestinians to the West Bank. In short, the Zionist answer is to reduce the problem either by giving up territory or by shrinking the ‘problematic’ population group.

None of this is new. The population problem was identified as the major obstacle in the way of Zionist fulfilment in the late 19th century, and David Ben-Gurion said in December 1947 that ‘there can be no stable and strong Jewish state so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60 per cent.’ Israel, he warned on the same occasion, would have to deal with this ‘severe’ problem with ‘a new approach’. The following year, ethnic cleansing meant that the number of Palestinians dropped below 20 per cent of the Jewish state’s overall population (in the area allocated to Israel by the UN plus the area it occupied in 1948, the Palestinians would originally have made up around 60 per cent of the population). Interestingly, but not surprisingly, in December 2003 Binyamin Netanyahu recycled Ben-Gurion’s magic number – the undesirable 60 per cent. ‘If the Arabs in Israel form 40 per cent of the population,’ Netanyahu said, ‘this is the end of the Jewish state.’ ‘But 20 per cent is also a problem,’ he added. ‘If the relationship with these 20 per cent is problematic, the state is entitled to employ extreme measures.’ He did not elaborate.

The extract above is from an article by, Ilan Pappe, a senior lecturer at the University of Haifa was in this months London Book Review. You can see it at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n08/papp01_.html



Best

Tom

[echoparkdirt]

The "Harvard Paper" is an attempt to paint American support of Israel as motivated solely by a dark conspiracy to further the interests of "The Israel Lobby" and The Jews. It is a fairly classic anti-Semitic line of reasoning, which depicts geo-political action as emerging out of Jewish conspiracy. David Duke, former Klansman, has endorsed the paper.

America supports Israel for the same reason America supports Taiwan. We have an interest in supporting democracy around the world against fascist or communist threats. Nobody speaks of a "Vast Taiwanese Conspiracy" motivating American policy. It would be laughable. Yet, when people speak of a "Vast Pro-Israel Conspiracy", that's somehow considered a legitimate argument.

For parallels between the "Harvard Paper" and the classic anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, click here

A short point by point refutation is here.

Illan Pappe is considered the "Noam Chomsky" of Israel, a former Communist party member that seems to consider Israel as evil and illegitimate as Chomsky finds America. If you wouldn't go to Chomsky for geo-political insight, you probably should skip Pappe as well.

Respectfully

Gary

[Tom Odom]

Once again, the anti-semetic argument emerges.

Interesting and completely expected.

you can read the pro and con reader responses to the Harvard paper at:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n08/letters.html the editors there have responded to criticism as well.

The paper hardly matches the Elders of Zion crap. Pappe regardless of affiliation raises points that are never discussed in open forum. And as is the case, here, the immediate respones is to start throwing mud. I put the Harvard paper on here because it is one of the few that actually raises hard issues with regards to US and Israeli ties. Pappe's essay looks at demographics; an issue I would still say is the long pole in the Israeli tent.

Best

Tom

[echoparkdirt]

It's not just "anti-semitic" to claim that shrewd Jews are using/buying influence over the United States policy-making apparatus against our interests, it's also plain dumb.

By all means, ignore the anti-Semitism inherent in this paper endorsed by David Duke. Note, however, its circular logic;
its factual errors
its lack of original scholarship
its mono-causal social science
its unsubstantiated generalizations
its selective use of evidence
its insinuations of dual loyalty;
its strawman counterarguments.

Basically this is a "Hail Mary" from "realist Arabists". Their "realism" infers that America takes action for its own best interests. But now they must explain why America has been supportive of Israel for decades -- and why we invaded Iraq -- if as they believe, both actions are not in American interests. Why, the answer must be those powerful Jews! Or, to use the more socially acceptable term, "The Lobby".

Also, Tom, you wrote this:

The situation reference "Palestinian targeting of civilians" versus IDF targeting is one of available means and achieveable effects.



Would you explain this statement? Do you see any moral difference in exploding buses and targeting civilians and "targeted killings" of terrorists or retaliation where innocents may die because terrorists insert themselves in civilian areas? If not, is there a difference between the insurgents in Iraq exploding mosques and American use of force which may cause civilian damage? Please elucidate.

[Jedburgh]

The Economist, 20 Jan 07: It's The Little Things That Make an Occupation

During 2006, according to B'tselem, an Israeli human-rights group, Israeli forces killed 660 Palestinians, almost half of them innocent bystanders, among them 141 children. In the same period, Palestinians killed 17 Israeli civilians and six soldiers. It is such figures, as well as events like shellings, house demolitions, arrest raids and land expropriations, that make the headlines in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What rarely get into the media but make up the staple of Palestinian daily conversation are the countless little restrictions that slow down most people's lives, strangle the economy and provide constant fuel for extremists....