Wayward DP
Well-known member
Ben Rhodes worked in Obama's administration (Deputy National Security Advisor) and is the co-host of Pod Save the World (i.e. hardly a pro-Israeli zealot). I often disagree with him when it comes to Israel, but he wrote what I think is a really good and balanced article about the conflict in in the New York Review.
Other paths are available to Israel. A more targeted campaign against Hamas’s leadership and capabilities could be coupled with a historic effort to secure significant Arab support and resources for an alternative Palestinian leadership and a reconstructed Gaza. Israel’s military and political leadership could treat respect for the laws of war as a central goal rather than a tactical hindrance, avoiding collective punishment and respecting safe zones for civilians. Gaza’s southern border could become a conduit for humanitarian support to Palestinian civilians rather than a route to expel them permanently into Egypt. The aim of the war itself could be a lasting Israeli–Palestinian peace rather than the military defeat of Palestinian aspirations for statehood. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s past decisions and the nature of his current government suggest that these are not the paths that Israel is likeliest to follow, but that does not mean we should succumb to the belief that there are no alternatives to the overwhelming and unrelenting use of force. There are always alternatives, just as there were for the United States after September 11.
The world seems to be careening from one crisis to the next, many of which originate in the scars of the twentieth century. A catastrophic war of conquest rages in Europe while tensions rise over the unresolved status of Taiwan in Asia. Strongman politics and ethnonationalism are once again ascendant. Now Hamas’s brutal attack and Israel’s bombardment of Gaza risk igniting a war of undetermined length, cost, and consequences. This is a time to arrest cycles of trauma rather than perpetuate them. Drawing on our own recent past, the US must counsel careful deliberation, the judicious and lawful use of force, creative diplomacy, and consistent respect for the true equality of human beings—priorities that compel protecting festivalgoers and kibbutznikim as well as the children and peaceful citizens of Gaza. Otherwise even more innocent people will suffer, and I fear there will be many more phone calls in the middle of the night before the world undergoes a correction.