Insights into the Current Israel-Palestinian Conflict: Why an Israeli Ground Invasion Would only Perpetuate the Conflict

First, it is important to set-up a short description of the most recent background to the conflict.  It is not possible to detail the entire conflict in any detail without writing at least one book, so only a brief overview of the most recent events can be achieved.  Attempting to isolate this current crisis from the rest of the conflict as much as possible, the most likely starting point was Israel’s targeted assassinations of Hamas leaders.  This lead Hamas and any other like-minded groups to retaliate by firing rockets into Israel, something some Palestinians probably barely needed provocation to do.  What makes this particularly dangerous for Israel is that the Palestinians in the West Bank have upgraded their munitions with smuggled weaponry, most likely from Iran, which can now reach further into Israel and cause more damage.  Thus, Israel feels that it must take action to disable such armaments in order to, at the very least, protect its citizens, so it has stepped up its targeted assassinations and has tried to destroy weapons and missile staging grounds.  However, air (and recently even maritime) raids have only limited effectiveness against such a mobile and guerilla operations, so Israel has decided to marshal its forces near the border in bid to stage a ground offensive.  Many countries have started to intervene in an attempt to halt the hostilities; these countries include but are not limited to Turkey, Egypt, America, and the UK along with some of the European Union.  However, there are many forces that are conspiring to prevent a successful resolution of this crisis. 

First, despite Israel’s modern-day precision weaponry, collateral damage on the Palestinian side has been extensive (last counts were around 100 Palestinians, around half civilians, have died while only 5 Israelis, one may not be a civilian but military, have died).  Israel has expressed little discomfort over the ensuing human cost on the other side, blaming how embedded Hamas is in the community presupposing that Hamas is using the Palestinian people as a human shield and the urgency of their current mission to protect their citizenry.  However, Israel has never held the Palestinian people and their lives to a very high regard as their mere presence is an obstacle to a unified Israeli state in that Israel can’t kick them out of the West Bank, and they have no desire to be absorbed into a larger Jewish state.  Israel (as a state) cannot directly kill the Palestinians as this would cause international condemnation, and it is hard to imagine that the population of any state would be supportive of such an action even if it came with promises of increased security.  Collateral damage while targeting Hamas installations, on the other hand, reduces the grounds for international condemnation and is easily justified to internal citizens.  This approach, however, comes with a major drawback as Palestinians, who may have been moderate or even progressive, are effectively ideologically pushed toward extremism.  For example, the entire extended family of the victims of the dead civilians now see the Israeli state as the unjustified aggressor and have a strengthened desire to see the removal of Israel.  Thus, Israel’s approach has, in fact, created more potential combatants than actually reducing the number, much like the cutting off the head of a hydra and having two additional heads taking its place.

Second, the Arab Spring revolutions have dramatically altered the power distribution of the area.  For example, potentially working in Israel’s favor, the current civil war in Syria leaves an army that would typically be against Israel (in fact, is still technically in a state of war with Israel) is now tied up battling its own people and as such cannot come to Hamas’ aid.  On the other hand, Egypt’s recent revolution may actually be a boon to Hamas since the previous government was hampered by an internationally approved peace treaty with Israel and because Hamas and the new Egyptian government are under the same umbrella of the Muslim Brotherhood.  While Egypt may not be one hundred percent in a capacity to devote military resources to a battle in the West Bank, it ideologically and politically leans toward Hamas, has vocally opposed an Israeli ground invasion of the area, and is looking to make a name for itself in the region; thus, there is a greater chance that Egypt will be willing to go further in its support of Hamas than a non-aligned state would, possibly even up to and including arming Hamas or militarily intervening.

As for other states, Iran has been, of course, a supporter of Hamas and an opponent of Israel, but the other states around Israel are more complicated.  For instance, while Jordan has not suffered a major revolution, it does have slight civil unrest that would probably expand should it intervene too far, but it also has a sizeable Palestinian refugee population that is most likely full of anti-Israeli sentiments and would not be opposed to actions against Israel.  Palestinian refugees in Jordan, however, are not very mainstreamed so their views may not fully balance out those voices opposing military intervention.  Turkey, however, is much more supportive of Hamas but may not be in a position to offer immediate militaristic intervention via the ground, assuming that it ever got to that point as Turkey’s commitment to the West Bank may be more confined to ideological and political support rather than a predominantly resource based role.  Finally, Iraq is in an interesting position as much of its infrastructure has been damaged, and it is still fighting internal battles with dissidents.  Additionally, its current government has been oscillating between a close relationship with Western powers and integration into the wider Arab world, a move which puts it at odd with some Western powers (namely the United States). 

Therefore, overall, Hamas could be in a slightly stronger position with Egypt, Turkey, and Iran which could outweigh the losses of Iraq and Syria.  Israel, on the other hand, benefits from Syria’s absence and has always had America’s full support ever since America’s theological shift.  What is Israel’s main problem, however, is not really Hamas’ military strength or potential resources from its allies as Israel has the resources and political clout to defeat Hamas (and probably even Egypt and Turkey should they join in the fight).  As example, just look at the current death tolls from the conflict so far, Palestine has lost twenty times more people than Israel, and the ratio is becoming more and more imbalanced each day.  What Israeli’s really have to fear is their social capital, a fact that Hamas knows very well, and Israel has much of its social capital invested in its status as a victim that is always at the mercy of Arab (and gentiles as a whole for that matter).  The mantra of victimization and its resonant mantra of a need for security has played out through almost every negotiation, if not every negotiation, that Israel has been a party to, it even underlies the Zionist movement that founded the nation of Israel.  Should Israel engage in a ground war in the West Bank, the resulting bloodbath may jeopardize its position as a victim since the international mood seems to be against a ground invasion (as seen by the statements of William Hague the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom) and the imbalanced ratio of Palestinian to Israeli deaths would show the imbalance of power in region.  If Israel can no longer be the victim, it will have a hard time keeping the implicit support of all of its Western allies, and with less support it will be under more of the international pressures that are felt by other nations such as South Africa a few decades ago.

Faced even with the slight possibility of a loss of social capital, it would make sense for Israel to continue its current air and maritime campaign without engaging in a ground offensive.  However, Israel has its own internal struggles to deal with.  With the current leading political party just forming a new coalition with an even further right-wing political party in order to stay in power, there is strong political pressure to go to war in the West Bank if only to keep internal political clout.  Add to that, the fact that almost all Israelis have extensive military training and access to weapons, and as psychological research shows, the mere fact that weapons are present in an environment increases the hostility in individuals.  On top of all of that, there is even another layer; the state of Israel is going through growing pains.  As an example, the amount of fresh water available in the region is scarce, making it a competitive resource over which Israelis feel they have to protect in order to survive.  Thus, Israel appears to be trapped between widening the conflict and maintaining the current level of aggression.  The direction it ultimately takes will probably depend on the mediation efforts of other nations, most likely Egypt this time around due to America’s constraints about talking to Hamas.  If Hamas is convinced to take a lull in firing rockets, then Israel will have an exceedingly hard time not looking like the aggressor, a role it would like to avoid.  Either way, it should be an interesting week.

Why a Win for Obama is a Win for Republicans

The main problem for the Democratic Party today is not what will happen on November 6th, 2012 but what will happen on the same date in four years.  As of right now, it looks like the race for the White House is leaning slightly towards Obama, and it looks like (based on the less than perfect science of poll data) that he will take the office of president, if only just.  But while a win for President Obama now may make many democrats breathe a sigh of relieve, it causes a serious problem for the party four years from now for reasons I will outline below.

The real issue comes from the divided electorate.  While I do think that the media has to a large extent overplayed the political divisions in this country, the truth of the matter is that the populace is fairly polarized.  This could be a by-product of talk radio, negative TV advertisements, and the reductive sound-bite quality of our news, but I think that it is probably due even more to the  fact that the political class has become relatively detached (economically and knowledge-wise) from the rest of citizenry.  Regardless, this polarization of the electorate means that whichever candidate wins, they will not have a clear mandate.  And without a clear mandate, it becomes tricky to measure successes and progress achieved. 

Add to this that there is a very good chance that the congress might once again fall into the hands of the Republicans who are currently very opposed to Obama and his agenda and will most likely only be more against him should they face a defeat in the presidential elections.  Thus, they will undoubtedly do their utmost to stop any legislation from his administration or at the very least dilute it as much as possible.

Additionally, one of the biggest public relations problems of any president is that it takes a long time for concepts or ideologies to become law and then for their effects to actually be felt by the average citizen.  Therefore, even if we assume that Obama will be able to pass legislation in a non-diluted form in his second term, it is not unheard of for it to not actually be noticeable until the next administration four years later (or maybe even more).  In fact, that is the usual time that it takes for policies to really kick in.

So, what does all this mean for an Obama victory?  Well, without a clear rubric for success, a possibly hostile congress, and a policy delay, it becomes very hard for a second-term Obama (and by extension, the Democratic Party) to prove that they were really the right choice and that the voters did not make a mistake.  And this is, of course, assuming that the future President Obama and his administration do not make any mistakes or produce bad policy on their own, which is a pit that all presidents have fallen into so there is little hope Obama will be able to avoid it.

Thus, four years from now, voters that were on the fence about Obama in this election may feel that it is time for them to change parties, and unsurprising current Republicans will not be likely to vote Democratic even years later.  So, if the Republicans can field an even remotely plausible candidate four years from now, they are likely to retake control.  And possibly even take credit for any of the delayed results of any good policy decisions Obama would be able to push through.  The only way the Democratic party can avoid this would be if Obama miraculously has an unprecedentedly great second term where he really makes an impression on voters; however, the precedent of his last term alone, ignoring the aforementioned obstacles, makes this unlikely.

However, should Romney win, the future is much less certain.  It appears that Romney will be forced to make some choices that will anger some on the fence voters (cutting or raising taxes on certain individuals/groups and dealing with a sluggish and possibly decaying economy) while also being unable to push through the really far-right policies some in his base demand (ending abortion and gay marriage permanently).  Just as with a second-term Obama, this could galvanize enough voters against the Republican Party to cost it the election. 

A Romney presidency will, of course, leave a legacy: reduced regulations on big industry, Supreme Court nominees, and possible restrictions on birth control and abortion just to name a few and all of which will take a while to reverse.  But it would be hard pressed for the Republican party to really come charging back; they'd finally have gotten their chance, and they've talked up how better their policies are to the other guy's that the voters will be severely disappointed if they do not see significant improvement in their lives.  It may just be, however, that the world has shifted such that we may have to get used to a different standard of living than the one we have gotten used to and feel entitled to, and no Democratic or Republican administration will be able to change that.

So, the bottom line is this, the Democratic party has two choices: elect Obama and have a possibly discrediting second term which would lead to increased Republican support along with a Republican president or suffer a conservative administration for four years and its aftermath that would possibly damage the Republican party's reputation for some time (and may even result in the division of the Republicans into two parties as the Tea party becomes a new third party which further weakens the Republican party's power).  Neither really feels like a "win", but they do seem to be the most likely options.