Please explain to me the timing of Israel's tit-for-tat retaliation strikes

Great Debates
41

I do not see where Israel has any choice. So long as their Arab neighbors maintain that Israel should be annihilated, such ludicrous posturing cannot be taken seriously. Somehow, the Palestinians are able to ignore that for every Israeli killed half again as many Palestinians die. For them to pursue a war of attrition is patently insane. Yet, this is what they do.

Abbas’ unwillingness or inability to reign in Hamas and the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade has foredoomed any effectiveness on his part. The legacy of Yasser Arafat and his deceit runs deep in Palestine. Until the Palestinian people as a whole reject the use of civilian terror attacks, they cannot expect any acceptance by the global community. Whatever validity the strong support shown for them by their Arab neighbors had in the past has been seriously eroded by the recent wave of world wide Islamist terror. International opinion is now rather adamantly against those who choose to use terrorism in the furthering of their goals.

Israel knows full well that terrorists must not be negotiated with. Arafat has taught them that lesson in spades. From what I understand, Israel goes to great lengths to avoid massive civilian injuries in a lot of their strikes. Until the Palestinian people reject the sequestering of terrorist leaders in their own midst, they have little right to expect anything less than the sort of collateral deaths that are occurring when Israel eliminates Hamas leadership. How else to deter suicide bombers than to kill those who would train and convert them? Stopping the bombers individually is difficult at best. Killing the leadership that recruits them sends a dual signal that instigation and any sort of participation result in death.

I do not see how there is any other message to send violent murderers. Until the peace process is given a chance to blossom through an effective and genuine cease fire by both sides, there can be little expectation of Israel pursuing any other course. I’d like to see Jerusalem treated sort of like Berlin and contained by a massive international peace keeping mission until progress can be made. If tensions in that religiously charged city could be brought to a minimum, perhaps this would permit other progress to be made. Until then, Israel will be obliged to kill those who assail its citizenry and call for their nation’s destruction.

42

The PA ( which, some token members aside, is primarily a lineal descendant of the PLO and few related/loosely allied factions - it is internally factionalized and fragmented, but the main guys are probably all on the same page vis-a-vis Hamas ) and Hamas loath one another. Indeed when Hamas was a young and not-yet-prominent group, Israel quietly funneled some aid to them as part of a divide and conquer strategy of weakening the then dominant PLO, which was regarded as the bigger threat ( a truly spectacular error in judgement, though granted hindsight is 20-20 ). The PA is controlled by secular nationalists who are either completely irreligious or only moderately religious ( and some are Christians ). Hamas is a radical Islamist group, dedicated to a theology that holds a lot in common with ObL’s. While there is some level of connection via military ties between the al-Aqsa group ( which appears to have shadowy ties to certain segments of the PA ) and Hamas, politically it is a cold, cold relationship.

However…Hamas is now too politically powerful to be dismissed. It is well-armed, well-organized and has a popular base. Indeed it has grown very rapidly from a minor faction to the #2 player. This has been accomplished not only by their military “success” and the increasing radicalization of segments of the Palestinian population ( partly following international trends in face of the perceived failure of secular nationalism to get the job done, but much of it of course feeding from the increasing nastiness and despair of the situation ), but also by extensive charity work - hospitals, schools, orphanages, etc… In contrast to their ideological brethren, Islamic Jihad, which has remained a smallish, mostly guerilla organization despite being about the same age, Hamas has become the complete package. And in its success it has pushed all of Palestinian political society rightwards ( or whatever direction you prefer, it doesn’t really matter in this context ). The PA has been forced to become “more hardcore” to compete politically and I don’t doubt that the al-Aqsa Matyr’s Brigade arose in large part as a matter of political compeitition.

In the end it is quite likely the PA simply lacks the strength to take on Hamas without crippling themselves politically and loosing control of the situation. Regardless of whether they lack the strength or not though, it is certain that they lack the guts. Folks like Yasser Arafat are survivors - They did not get where they are today by going out on very thin limbs and they will not risk a civil war in which the outcome is highly uncertain.

Most likely? They’d let him go. For the same reasons I just mentioned - They won’t risk civil war on top of the conflict with Israel. Plus, sadly, it doesn’t strengthen the PA’s hand to be identified as cooperating with Israeli security.

Of course that is pure speculation - As disorganized and factionalized as the PA is, somebody might just take a chance and put a bullet in his brain anyway. Or they might try to hold him indefinitely and/or put him on trial for one thing or another ( and then either hold him or execute him ). But my best guess they’d hem and haw, try to privately wring some political concessions from the guy while he was in their hands and then find a way to let him go ( or he’ll simply bribe his way out or be sprung by sympathizers ).

The PA is both all important to negotiations process as the only popular faction with a shred of a chance of reaching a political settlement and at the same time is mostly impotent in terms of reigning in the extremists ( probably in actuality, but at the very least in terms of political reality ). Therein lies a very ugly catch-22.

  • Tamerlane
43

Tamerlane, since you have been kind / brave enough to provide your views here, I’d like to ask some questions. Please rest assured that I don’t expect any hard and fast answers.

  1. Does Israel have any viable alternative to targeting Hamas leadership? Are there any other functional deterrents to the homicide bombings?

  2. If the PA is incapable of reining in Hamas and Islamic Jihad how can they possibly maintain any persuasive stance at the negotiating table? Bereft of any sway over the terrorists, they would seem to be without bargaining chips.

  3. What would it take to initiate a proper and effective cease fire? How can Hamas et al. be convinced that this is in their interest?

  4. Will the Arab community ever abandon this mulish posturing over the complete obliteration of Israel? Are they so dim as to be unaware of how their adamant stance neuters their credibility with the global community?

  5. Is there any way that conditions for the Palestinians can be improved without some of those same resources falling into the hands of terrorists?

44

Perhaps it’s justification for some people. “An eye for an eye” sort of thing. I agree with your OP though. The timing is practically guaranteed to backfire. The drip-drip effect is corrosive in world public opinion.

Pissing off US president after US president might eventually make one consider altering US policy re Israel. Bush staked some credibility on the roadmap. It’s looking like a DUI roadtrip already.

45

See what happens when I try to be a nice guy and offer up free minutia? Some one has to ask hard questions ;).

Yes. The question is whether the trade-off is worth it.

There is no question about run-of-the-mill bombers and snipers - Eliminating them is simply good defensive policy. It’s a guerilla war and killing enemy soldiers is always kosher. That is as long as you so after taking reasonable precautions to safeguard the safety of bystanders around them. That might mean taking the riskier path of sending in armed men, rather than firing a remote missile into a building - More dangerous and difficult for Israeli security forces in the short term, but moral imperative aside, possibly safer for Israel in the long term. More dead civilians = more Hamas recruiting ( not to mention weakening, if not necessarily eliminating, the diplomatic high ground internationally ).

However the leadership is a far thornier issue. In a group like Hamas, that seems less charisma-based than ideology-based, killing leadership is less of a structural blow. Military leadership is easily replaced. Moreover, as Hamas has a political base, killing political leadership just looks like extrajudicial assassination, even to non-Hamas Palestinians, increasing sympathy for their position. Create enough sympathy and it can turn into actual support.

No, better to seize, try, and imprison them. If you have enough evidence to order an assassination, you damn well should have enough to imprison them.

Does this solve the problem? Heck, no - It creates a whole suite of new ones. Prisoners can be martyrs, too. However it is marginally better than launching a missile that may or may not get the target, but almost invariably creates civilian casualties in overcrowded Gaza in particular ( where Hamas is strong ). And you are able to maintain that moral high ground.

That part of the problem - These aren’t good deterrents. Killing Hamas members at best will cause a local and usually temporary reduction at activity. At worst it immediately increases activity.

Targetting infratructure meanwhile, is just asinine. The best recruiting tool there is.

That is not their bargaining chip. It never really was. Their baragaining chip is influence over the largest segment of the Palestinian populace. They have the internal legitimacy to get the majority on board - Maybe. The maybe in the equation sucks, but there is no other alternative, so it’s the best there is.

The PA has the remote potential of maybe being able to ameliorate terrorism significantly down the road. Right now all they can do is deliver the “moderates”. However that is better than nothing and a settlement strengthens their hand at the expense of the extemists.

A ceasefire with Hamas and Islamic Jihad? Probably can’t be done.

An end to the intifida by a good part of the population? A decent settlement. What that might consist of has been argued ad nauseum already in other threads.

To my mind, you cannot. It is not in Hamas’ interest ( in their narrow, parochial view ) to have a ceasefire. Peace strengthens their ideological adversaries.

They mostly have, far as I can tell. Well, maybe not the posturing. But the reality is, is that most Arabs seem to accept that Israel is going nowhere. In the 1950’s-1970’s hope was held that that they could be expelled by force of arms. But only the true fanatics and delusionals have much hope for that at this point.

The hardcore of extremist Israel-destroyers is not going away any time soon. But they appear to be the minority ( note that I am not talking about those that wish Israel could be destroyed - just those that think it is a goal worth pursuing ).

Of the hardcore many are either hopelessly provincial, think Israeli propaganda has brainwashed the rest of the world, or couldn’t give a good goddamn ( or all of the above ).

Probably not 100%, no. Better oversight can reduce the effect of corruption, graft, and redirection. It probably can’t eliminate it.

It’s something you would try to minimize, but would likely have to live with at some level.

  • Tamerlane
46

That really needs a step 0 - Israel’s assassination attempt on Rantissi: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2982068.stm

Something condemned by many Israeli newspapers: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2981230.stm

And how tragically right they were.

So I’ve got to say, although I ABHOR the continued targetting of civilians by Hamas, it’s got to be noted that Israel did start this particular cycle of violence.

My current wondering is if whether Sharon’s plan is to create Gaza as Palestine, and eventually take over the entire West Bank as Israel, forcing remaining Palestinians there to move to Gaza. (Or at least forcibly relocating those he considers troublesome).

47

First, the phrase is suicide bombings. This homocide bombings bullshit irritates the fuck out of me. It’s suicide bombings in Sri Lanka, where no one thought they needed to add the unfelicitious upsmanship of ‘homicide’ it’s suicide bombings in fucking Israel. Renaming suicide bombings, a phrase that worked fine until now, because some right wing ideologues got it into their impoverished pea brains that somehow ‘suicide bombings’ is not stigmatizing enough is pure illiteracy and ideological pandering of the worst kind.

As for ‘deterence’ - well, giving viable options is probably the best. 3 years of military tactics and repression have done nothing to prevent suicide bombings.

Undermining Hamas by making them look extremist to the Palestinians is the best route.

Security measures are fine, helicopters firing missiles into crowded urban areas is not.

How? By both sides maintaining a rational analysis of the situation and not allowing the negotiations to be captured and driven by the extremists on either side.

Your last phrase is incorrect, the sway comes from PA getting real concessions from Israel, something they can take back to the people and say “See, this works better than bombings, the settlements are going…”

Otherwise both sides continue to blow the fuck out of eachother endlessly.

Hamas is not the fundamental issue, the general population is. Convince the general populatoin, and support will melt away.

How do you do this. End the settlements and begin to pull them out.

Already done, pay attention.

Well, it’s rich you refer to the Arabs as dim when your facts are wrong. SA and most other Arab states have signed on to Israel’s existance, and one almost never hears the phrase ‘Zionist Entity’ any more except from the hardest of the hard core.

Is there any way to provide aid to Israel without supporting expansion of the illegal settlements and furthering poisoning the process?

48

The real point of the change of terminolgy is to move the focus toward the victim and away from the assailant. I have seen articles giving profiles of the bombers that didn’t even mention the names of their dead and wounded victims.

We revile the murders of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, and rightly so. Articles properly focus on these two innocent victims, not human interest stories about their of their killers.

Look at this article, Bomb Mars Historic Day for Palestinians

The Associate Press considers the dead Israelis to be just bystanders. Their focus is that a Palestinian ceremony was marred. It’s not until the 12[sup]th[/sup] paragraph that we learn that 55 people were wounded. The article doesn’t mention the nature of the wounds, but I’d imagine some were horrendous.

It would be unthinkably disgusting if an article about James Byrd being dragged to death said,

In short, the term “suicide bomber” contributes to dehumanizing the Israeli victims.

49

The famous decemberist “I have seen.”

First, apparently only when it was Jewish victims did this become a concern for you, insofar as the term “suicide bombing” spent a nice couple of decades unloathed and used with no ideological content. Apparently Indian, Sri Lankan and other victims did not require such a level of tender concern. (Or rather the excuse is bullshit and has nothing in reality to do with focus on the victims.)

Second, insofar as in general the number of victims in a bombing is many while there is usually but one or two bombers, it obviously is rather difficult to achieve balance.

Third, changing the term to “Homocide Bomber”, aside from being ridiculous PC Speak for the Right, does nothing to ensure ‘focus’ on the victims.

For those with somewhat more advanced analytical and logical abilities, it should be fairly clear that ONE victim is rather easier to focus on individually than a multitude of victims, as such december is in his habitual manner comparing Apples with Rocks.

The term is in short ridiculously illiterate PC speak.

50

istara

Not factually correct.

Collounsbury

It was just a few years ago that Barak offered Arafat “real concessions,” consisting of the disbanding of all the settlements in the Gaza strip and most in the East Bank. Arafat summarily rejected that offer, without any counteroffer, returned home, and reinstigaged an intifida. Barak’s offer took Arafat by surprise. He didn’t expect such an offer, which was something Israel had rejected in the past for security reasons.

51
52

Barbitu8, a few things:

  1. The East Bank is in Jordan there aren’t any settlements there, you mean the West Bank.

  2. Arafat was expecting an offer, there had previously been years of negoitations between the two sides. The offere was substanitally less than Arafat and the world community were expecting. The negoitataions continued after this and broke off at the start of the intifada.

53

Arafat wasn’t expecting the offer Barak made. Arafat rejected that offer immediately and broke off negotiations and returned home and started a new intifida. That was the chronology.

I don’t know how the offer could have been substantially less than expected, as it contained over 90% of what Arafat wanted, including all of Gaza and most of the West Bank. (I never could get my banks right.) And the world community has been almost unanimous (except the Arab countries) in expressing astonishment that Arafat rejected it outright.

54

Coll, anyone who knows me is familiar with how much I absolutely detest PC mentality. I use the term “homicide bomber” because I feel it more accurately reflects the true intentions of those engaged in this horrendous sort of civilian terror. That is my sole reason for doing so. America’s right wing newspeak and thought police be damned.

However dated this anecdote might be, I’ve still got ask about it. Is the nation of Israel shown on maps used in Egyptian, Iranian, Syrian and Palestinian schools?

Is Iran the sole remaining Middle East country still openly advocating the complete destruction of Israel? If not, which others maintain this stance as well?

Has there been any mainstream movement among the Arab states to openly distance themselves from those who advocate the annihilation of Israel? I see this as one of the few effective ways that the Arab community can begin to discredit the unrealistic goals of fanatics like Hamas. The situation is so extreme that to remain vocally subdued on this matter is tantamount to exacerbating it.

I’ll add that while it has been stated that Hamas does not rely upon charismatic leadership, I still find this open to dispute. It has been mentioned that Hamas’ leadership is more ideologically oriented in its recruitment of new terrorists.

In my own exposure to religious fanaticism here in the United States (Robertson, Fallwell et al.), charisma is a vital component of the more persuasive ideologues. For this reason I dispute claims against the efficacy of Israel’s targeting Hamas leadership. A recent article profiled the average homicide bomber and found them to be better educated than the norm. They also did not come from extremely poor backgrounds. Here are some excerpts from an NPR Profile article.

Profile: Look at the Mind of a Suicide Bomber

Morning Edition: March 7, 2003 Research Reveals New Profile of Suicide Bombers

All of this points towards individuals that require a larger degree of persuasion. Such deft steering does not come from a frothing Imam. It comes from charismatic individuals. Not being a fundamentalist, I may be underestimating the motivational power that scholarly quotation of the Qur’an might provide. However, I find it difficult to believe that Hamas leadership does not consist of individuals who are better educated and more persuasive then many of their peers. These characteristics seem rather common amongst politicians of all stripes and I’m hoping no one will argue against Hamas leadership being politicians at heart.

Consequently, eliminating these more glib and influential members could easily degrade the ability of Hamas to recruit effectively. Yes, eliminating these leaders does spark outrage among the Palestinians, I am not arguing that. I also recognize that the margin of return for the Israelis may be razor thin, but there are few other ways to fight fanatics. I also feel it is rather unrealistic to expect the IDF to insert assassination squads in place of the rocket attacks they now favor. Terrorist cell structures rely heavily on familial ties and are therefore rather difficult to infiltrate. Likewise with gathering intelligence about their activities.

Thank you both, Tamerlane and Coll (and others), for responding to my questions. I’m hoping we can continue civil dialogue on this topic. While I feel it is necessary for Israel to start moderating its activities and begin making substantial overtures in the peace process, I find it difficult to fault their insistence upon wiping out those who promote anti-civilian terror. Sufficiently large portions of the international Arab community have yet to openly condemn Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade for their intransigent stance against Israel’s continuing existence. This represents a form of tacit support that is reprehensible and creates a basis for the culpability of these same nations.

I am well aware of these governments’ precarious and fragile nature. Egypt is a sterling example, just as Iran is an ignoble one. Until both monetary and (tacit) ideological support for these fanatics is choked off, I foresee little, if any, hope of resolution in this matter. At some point fellow Arab countries, along with the United States, will have to take a long hard look at their role as accessories to this mayhem. Let us all hope this happens sooner than later.

55

Ermm, barbitu8 the intifada didn’t start until two months after Camp David during which period negoitaations contiuned between the two sides. The peace process had been going on roughly seven years before Camp David in which time Israel had failed to comply to it’s side of the agreements vis-a-vis settlement expansion.

The world community were expecting a total Israeli withdrawal and complete dismantlment of the settlements to be the end result of the peace process and quite frankly no-one expected Arafat to accept any less than full compliance to UN resolution 242 (As both sides had recognized the need for a solution based on resolution 242 at the Oslo Accords).

56

Aparently you missed this part of the article: “Israel has defended its actions, saying Mr Rantissi was behind suicide bombings and a deadly ambush of Israeli soldiers last Sunday.”

Did you really think that Israel just out of the blue decided to attack a Hamas leader for no particular reason?

57

Seeing as how the PA never lived up to the Oslo accord, it seems sort of lopsided that the world would expect Israel to comply completely. In the first place, the Oslo accord provided that the PA would recognize the state of Israel and amend its Charter, which called for its destruction in over a dozen different sections. Years after Oslo, the Charter was finally amended, but some sections still called for the destruction of Israel. Moreover, Oslo only provided that Israel shall not set up any new settlements. There was no provision for the complete dismantlement of the existing settlements. It was Israel’s position that it lived up to Oslo, with no new settlements, but merely was expanding existing settlements.

58

Actually barbitu8 expanding existing settlments was prohibted too and just after Camp David Israel started on the construction of a new settlement. Your not quite right on the PNC charter Arafat twice renounced the offending parts and the PNC voted to remove them it was only the person who redrafted it who left in some of the parts that had been voted out.

It’s clear the settlements must be removed in any peace deal for it to be accepted by the Palestinians. Israel has no legitmate claim to any land in the West Bank.

59

Israeli settlers have just as good a claim to their settlements as do the Palestinians to any part of the West Bank. The West Bank belonged to Jordan IIRC. It never belonged to the Palestinian Authority. The claim the Palestinian people have to the West Bank is that they live there now. I think that’s pretty reasonable and they ought to have a state. But, the settlers have the exact same claim to their settlements. They live there now.

60

Did the West Bank really “belong” to Jordon? My understanding is that Jordan occupied the West Bank ostensibly in the interests of the Palestinians, but never had any more valid claim to it than Israel does now.