Tag: Israel

The Chaos Caucus

The House of Representatives continues to be a national disgrace. Rep. Jim Jordan, an odious troll who has accomplished nothing in 16 years of public office, is trying to get himself elected as Speaker of the House. As of the date of this post he has gone through two rounds of voting and has lost ground in the second. As Tom Nichols writes in The Atlantic, this mess is exactly what GOP voters wanted all along. The GOP electorate does not give a damn about actually governing the country. It is all about “owning the libs” these days, which generally means spreading deranged conspiracy theories on Fox News or OANN. There is no GOP theory of governance, there is no GOP policy agenda, there is only the grift.

Meanwhile, the Russians continue to occupy a significant chunk of Ukraine as the Ukrainian people continue to bravely and deftly fight back. The situation in Gaza remains unstable as it appears that the destruction of a Gaza hospital was caused by an errant rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Here in the United States, the government will shut down in a month unless Congress can get its shit together and do its job.

In other words, the country needs leadership. The GOP is not offering it. Jim Jordan is a joke, a waste of a Congressional seat, and not remotely the sort of person who belongs in political power.

The GOP has become the Chaos Caucus. Drama leads to fundraising and news hits, and that’s all the modern GOP gives a damn about. Meanwhile, President Biden went to Israel and negotiated a deal with Egypt allowing some humanitarian aid to cross into Gaza through the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. While the GOP was fighting amongst each other like a bunch of schoolchildren that found a crate of Pixy Stix, President Biden was saving the lives of Gazans while also ensuring aid to Israel to fight Hamas.

As a former Republican, seeing the GOP in this state is horrible. The country needs two functioning political parties. Right now, it has one. Voters are noticing that President Biden is getting things done and the GOP is unable to find its own ass with a roadmap and a flashlight. And while the GOP base is never going to leave, the GOP base is not enough to win national elections as we saw in 2020 and again in 2022. Even districts like CO-3 that is “represented” by the Platonic ideal of white trash Lauren Boebert are now likely swing districts. (Boebert only barely held on in 2022 and that was before the most politically disastrous night at the theater since the Lincolns went to see My American Cousin.)

The time to show real leadership is now. The GOP cannot even select a leader amongst themselves, and the frontrunner for the job is a hysterical idiot whose only accomplishment has been in covering up rampant sexual abuse. To paraphrase Reagan, it is a time for choosing. The GOP has chosen poorly, and that was very much a conscious choice by an electorate that wants this chaos.

UPDATE:

Jim Jordan is about to announce that he will not seek a third vote and will move to give powers to the current Speaker pro term Patrick McHenry. Whether that is allowable under House rules is unclear, but what is clear is that Jordan does not have the votes to become Speaker and never will. Jordan is not formally dropping his bid for Speaker, but the chances of it going anywhere are slim to none.

Hamas’ War on Israel is a Societal Suicide Bombing

This weekend, Hamas launched an all-out assault on Israel, hitting the country with rockets, drones, and commando strikes. The death toll on the Israeli side is already approaching four digits and when the fog of war lifts that death toll is likely to increase. Hamas terrorists murdered Israelis indiscriminately, turning a music festival into a killing ground.

The Israelis have responded with their own assault on Gaza, which includes shutting off the power to the Gaza Strip. The loss of civilian lives among the Palestinian inhabitants of Gaza is likely to devastating as well. Hamas is engaging of its usual tactics of placing military assets in protected locations like mosques and hospitals, daring the Israelis to attack.

This war represents a massive intelligence failure for the Israelis. The IDF thought that they had contained Hamas, and up to 19,000 Palestinians were commuting from Gaza to Israel to work. Former US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk has a detailed analysis of what happened and why in Foreign Affairs that provides some much needed context. Indyk’s thoughts on why Hamas decided to strike are important here:

The Arab world is coming to terms with Israel. Saudi Arabia is talking about normalizing relations with Israel. As part of that potential deal, the United States is pressing Israel to make concessions to the Palestinian Authority—Hamas’s enemy. So this was an opportunity for Hamas and its Iranian backers to disrupt the whole process, which I think in retrospect was deeply threatening to both of them. I don’t think that Hamas follows dictation from Iran, but I do think they act in coordination, and they had a common interest in disrupting the progress that was underway and that was gaining a lot of support among Arab populations. The idea was to embarrass those Arab leaders who have made peace with Israel, or who might do so, and to prove that Hamas and Iran are the ones who are able to inflict military defeat on Israel.

The reality is that the Palestinians have long been used as pawns for a proxy war against Israel. But the Middle East is changing—the Iranians have become the primary adversary for Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the UAE. And Israel is a buffer against the Iranians. This attack is likely directed by the Iranians to try to drive a wedge between Israel and the Sunni states. Whether or not that works depends both on how indiscriminate Israel’s actions become and how the rest of the Middle East reacts. But ultimately the economic, security, and political interests of countries like Saudi Arabia remain better aligned with rich and industrial Israel than the Palestinians that have been treated alternately like pariahs and useful tools since Israel’s founding. Iran is threatened by an Israel-Saudi alliance, and this attack may have been directed in large part by Tehran.

This war will not leave either Israel or Hamas in a better position. The Israelis have already declared open war on Hamas, and Israel has the military might to level the Gaza Strip several times over. Israel does not particularly want to re-occupy the Strip and try to govern over a population nearly a third of its own while facing Hizb’allah in the north and the restive West Bank in the east. No matter what happens, Hamas has forced a complex humanitarian catastrophe on its own people that will take years to resolve, and may leave Gaza permanently poorer. Israel has already taken heavy losses and has shown that its intelligence into Gaza was deeply flawed. The Israeli government has said that this will be a long and difficult war, and that prediction is quite likely to be accurate.

It is quite possible that the already unpopular Netanyahu government falls after all is said and done. Netanyahu’s appeal was primarily predicated on his ability to keep Israel safe from terrorism. It is now beyond question that the Netanyahu government and the IDF failed that mission, and failed dramatically. While Israel will likely not move towards elections during wartime, Netanyahu’s days are numbered now.

This war is a tragedy for the region. It is a tragedy for the innocent civilians in Gaza that were placed into harms way be the terrorists of Hamas. It is a tragedy for the State of Israel that has lost hundreds if not thousands of lives and has been shaken to the core. It is a tragedy for the Middle East that was for the first time in decades trending more towards peace. It is a tragedy for the world that the free world now faces another conflict in an era of relative peace.

Hamas bears the blame for this. Hamas has turned the entire Gaza Strip into a suicide bomb, using it to strike at Israel no matter what the costs to the people of Gaza. Hamas must be destroyed if there is to be peace, but the costs to both Israel and Gaza will sadly be severe.

Obama’s Dangerous Deception In The Middle East

Martin Peretz has a powerful article in The New Republic on why Obama’s Middle East policies are in utter tatters. Peretz observes the rise of a new fundamentalism in Turkey, one of the most important countries in the region and once a strong U.S. ally. But thanks to President Erdogan, Turkey appears to be moving away from the U.S. and the West and towards becoming a hegemonic Islamic state.

The reason why President Obama appears to be so blind to Turkey’s new ambitions is that Obama is making the same mistake that many others have made in assessing the Middle East: thinking that the Israel/Palestine situation actually matters. Israel is the excuse given in the Middle East (and throughout the Muslim world) for a whole host of sins, as though the mere existence of Israel gave reason for Syria to murder its own people, Saudi Arabia to embrace the 14th Century, or Iran to destabilize its neighbors. But ultimately the Palestinian issue is a sideshow, a distraction from larger concerns. What is sad is that the West consistently plays into the Israel delusion, and Obama has embraced that delusion with full force. As Peretz puts it:

This conundrum of a non-negotiated state for the Palestinians appeals to the ardent déclarateurs. It ignores the fact that free and responsible politics has never been a habit in the Arab world. Read me right: never. There is nothing in Palestinian history to have made the Arabs of Palestine an exception to this stubborn commonplace now being played out again in virtually every country in the region. A commitment is never a commitment. A border is never a border. A peace is never long-lasting. Turkey has now added its serious mischief to the scenario. Erdogan himself will now unravel Cairo’s peace with Jerusalem, as Erdogan has already locked the PA into phantom international politics.

Poor Barack Obama. His adoring view of Erdogan has stimulated the Turkish regime to be a force not for stability in Cairo or reason in Ramallah. What’s more, Obama’s Palestinian initiatives have all collapsed. But the most striking collapse of his Arab politics has been in Syria where he posited that there were sensible and dependable men with whom Israel could make peace. Of course, that would entail giving up the Golan Heights (which are not the Great Plains) to Dr. Assad. The administration courted the family tyranny and its epigones. Responsible, reasonable, reserved. Two smart-assed Jewish boys were dispatched to play computer games with the Damascus elite. They were also enthused by the possibilities. I know that none of these people pulled the triggers on any of the thousands who are now dead. They just encouraged the clan to think they will get away with murder forever.

In the last few years, the Middle East has been at a crossroads. The democratic revolutions throughout North Africa could have spread into a full-on wave of democratization across the region. But that was not going to happen without the support of the West in picking the side of democracy. Instead, we have sat on the sidelines, content to let things play out as they may. The problem with that is that democracy in a delicate flower, and it can all too easily be crushed in the treads of a tank. Right now, Libya could easily become another enclave for al-Qaead, Egypt is a de facto military dictatorship, and the Syrian regime feels free to kill without fear of anything other than a few choice words.

Meanwhile, President Obama is playing the same old fool’s game of trying to negotiate a settlement between the most democratic state in the region and a loose-knit confederation of cast-offs who would like to see nothing more than the destruction of their democratic neighbor. There will be no solution to the Israel/Palestine problem until the Palestinians truly recognize the right of Israel to exist. Only then can the conditions for a lasting piece and Palestinian statehood exist. President Barack Obama is not going to talk them into that, no matter how much he thinks of his oratorical skills.

While the world occupies itself with the prospect of the UN recognizing a Palestinian state, the Middle East becomes increasingly dangerous after years of hope. Turkey’s sudden turn towards becoming a regional Islamic hegemon, Syria’s continued brutalization of its own people, and Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons are all more important than playing into the Palestinian mythos. Until the U.S. and other world powers stop playing into the idea that Palestine is the be-all-end-all of Middle Eastern affairs, the Middle East will not change for the better. What is sad is that Peretz is right—Obama thoroughly misunderstands the Middle East, and it will cost us in the long run.

Fifteen Seconds

Michael Totten has an amazing dispatch from the besieged Israeli city of Sderot, the most common target of Hamas rockets. He notes what it’s like for the residents of Hamas’ war zone:

Fewer than twenty Israelis have been killed by rocket fire from Gaza since Hamas and Islamic Jihad adopted the tactic. A few single suicide bombers inflicted more casualties all by themselves. Hezbollah killed around ten times as many Israelis in one month in 2006 than Hamas has managed with crude rockets for years. It’s no wonder, really, that critics slammed Israel for its “disproportionate” military response in the Gaza Strip.

It’s not just about casualties, though. Leave aside the fact that Hamas was escalating its attacks with bigger and longer range rockets and that a far deadlier scenario was on the horizon. Living under Qassam and Grad rocket attack doesn’t sound like much fun, but it’s worse than the low body count makes it seem.

Thousands of rockets have fallen on Sderot. And every rocket launched at the city triggers an air raid alert. Everyone within ear shot has fifteen seconds to run into a shelter.

Imagine sprinting for cover 5,000 times.

What constantly amazes me about the Israelis is not that the respond in a “disproportionate” manner, but that they don’t. If Mexicans rained fire down on Texas like Hamas rains fire down on Sderot, right now US Marines would be storming the beaches of the Yucatan and Vincente Fox would be running for his life. Very few countries would possess the singular patience that the Israelis have. Had the Holocaust not been such a terrible formative event for the Israeli state, I wonder if Gaza would not be a smoldering ember right now.

The people of Sderot should not have to live in fear. There is no excuse for such wanton violence. Hamas’ terrorism has not only killed Israeli citizens, but it is unraveling the social fabric of the region. The Israeli people have acted with incredible patience and restraint in the face of indiscriminate attacks against innocent civilians. It is unconscionable for the people of Sderot to have to live under such conditions.

Their story needs to be told, and thankfully independent and honest journalists like Michael Totten are out there to bring those important stories to light.

Another False Peace

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are soon to meet in Annapolis and there have been comments indicating that there’s hope for a settlement by the end of the year. Unfortunately, even if that does happen—and there’s good reason to be skeptical—that agreement will no more bring peace than the Oslo Accords or the Camp David Accords before that. The problems in the Middle East are far more complex than anything solvable by mere diplomatic agreement.

The problem boils down to this: so long as the reprehensible anti-Semitism that is endemic in the Palestinian Authority persists, there will be no peace. So long as Palestinian children are indoctrinated to hate Jews, there will be no peace. So long as the Palestinians support acts of barbarity and terrorism against Israel, there will be no peace. So long as the Palestinians think that their end goal is the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state, there simply can be no real settlement. The best that can be hoped for is a cold peace with both sides under constant tension. That may be possible, but it’s not going to be much different from the status quo.

Groups like Hamas don’t want peace: they seek the destruction of Israel. Their terrorist forces rain crude home-made missiles on Israeli border towns like Sderot. They continue to force-feed their population with crude propaganda. They continue to say one thing in English and then the opposite in Arabic.

Golda Mier had it right: there will be no peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis until the Palestinians love their children more than they hate Israel. Sadly, that is not the case. While Palestine continues to slide into anarchy and remains mired in poverty, the leaders of the Palestinian Authority (such as it is) continue to misappropriate funds for terrorism and their personal enrichment. A wise set of rulers could have turned Gaza into a seaside paradise rather than the war zone it is.

The Palestinians may talk peace, but until they start living like they want peace with Israel, the best that Annapolis can bring is another stalemate.