Dem
47
GOP
53
Outside of the Israeli government, perhaps, there is nobody who doubts that the situation in Gaza has deteriorated into a brutal humanitarian crisis. We could endeavor to describe it, but we don't have to, because reader D.E. in Lancaster, PA, helpfully wrote in with this, yesterday:
I'm going to say something that I'm sure will get a massive amount of blowback but I think it needs to be said. I just saw some of the pictures of the starving Palestinian children and all I could think was: How is this different from the emaciated Jews looking out between the barbed wire at one of the Nazi concentration camps? The circumstances might be slightly different but I can't see how the desired goal can be any different. Does any Israeli really believe that by breaking the Palestinian peoples this way, that if Benjamin Netanyahu ever decides to end this war, that the Palestinians will be so utterly tamed and defeated that they'll look on the Israelis as the "Good Guys?" This kind of deliberate cruelty is only radicalizing the survivors to perpetuate the cycle of violence. Unfortunately, I have to wonder what Bibi the Butcher's endgame is, because it seems like his goal is to wipe the Palestinians off the face of the Earth. If he has another destination, he certainly hasn't articulated it to the world.
I condemn, in the strongest of possible terms, the Palestinians who participated in the terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, almost two years ago; but think about what I just said. It's been almost two years of almost non-stop violence, death, destruction, chaos and now starvation. I know of the Talmudic phrase, "An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth." With Netanyahu, it's become "your family for an eye and a village for a tooth." In the two years, we slid right past retribution and are now firmly in vendetta land. I think it is safe to say that the infants and children I saw in those photos had absolutely nothing to do with the horrible attacks of October 7, and reasonable people need to ask, why are they being punished and probably sentenced to an imminent death?
Before anyone accuses me of being an antisemite, be aware that I was raised to respect all religions and my grandmother made sure that I was exposed to different religions at an early age. Even though she was a Christian, she observed the Jewish High Holy Days. Nearly every year, my family sat down to a seder, which meant that as a finicky child, I munched only on matzahs until after the seder ended. I've been to services in a synagogue and attended B'nai B'rith meetings with my grandmother. Our neighbors, the Goldmans, taught me the meaning of Hanukkah and let me light their Menorah on the first night. Since I was old enough to understand it, I was taught about the Holocaust and am horrified that people to this day deny it. I remember the Israeli Seven Days War and have always believed that the Israelis have a fundamental right to exist; but since I believe that, I have to say the same for the Palestinians. Solutions for peace in the Middle East are way, way beyond my pay grade, but I do know what's a sure fire way to ensure that it never happens, and that's to bomb everything into rubble five times over and to starve the Palestinians into cruel submission. Remember, in 1967, Israel defended itself against Arab machinations by taking control of the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula in just 7 days without venturing into the territory of genocide. Bibi can't say the same. Enough is enough.
Thanks, D.E., that is more effective a job than we could have done.
If you would like to hear more about solutions for peace—the thing that is above D.E.'s pay grade—then you might want to listen to the latest episode of the Freakonomics podcast. The episode is given over entirely to a lengthy interview with Antony Blinken, who was not only Joe Biden's secretary of state, but also worked on the Middle East as part of the Barack Obama and Bill Clinton administrations.
In the interview, Blinken points out that both sides think they are right. And, more importantly, both sides ARE right. Israel, in particular during the Clinton years, has been on the precipice of agreeing to a two-state solution, only to have Hamas blow things up (literally and figuratively). Israel has also taken steps to pull back in Gaza in the past, only to see Hamas move into the vacuum that created. On the other side, the civilians in Gaza have lived under something akin to colonial conditions for decades, leading up to the absolutely deplorable conditions right now, which are almost entirely the responsibility of the current regime in Israel. If any reader wants to know more about the current situation, including widespread starvation, see here, here, and here.
Generally speaking, people who think they are in the right do not give up, particularly at the hands of opponents who are "in the wrong." On top of that, the conflict is not going to end until at least one side sees, and more likely until both sides see, more benefit in peace than in war. At the moment, neither side has reached that place. Hamas is getting attention for its cause (and lots of money from its supporters in the Middle East and elsewhere), and is also getting a big recruitment boost. Meanwhile, the moment the war ends, Netanyahu's governing coalition will collapse, and he'll end up on trial. Although, to be clear, it's not just one man who's making this happen; the PM has fairly broad support from the Israeli public. That includes many Israelis who do not like him personally, but who either generally support shaking up the status quo, or specifically support Netanyahu's goal of wiping out Hamas. A poll published by Haaretz at the end of May says that 82% of Israelis want to expel all Gazans, and 47% support killing all Palestinians in Gaza. That level of bloodlust is a bit hard to accept, but a poll from Pew Research, published a few days later, supports the conclusion (if not the support for violent means), finding that only 21% of Israelis think that Israel and a Palestinian state can coexist peacefully.
We lay this out because this is the situation Donald Trump now finds himself dealing with. Roughly 15 presidents before him have tried to solve this puzzle. All of those 15 were more skilled diplomatically than Trump is, and all 15 had more talented diplomats working under them than Trump does. Further, most of them were operating in circumstances that were less dire than the ones currently in effect.
We certainly understand what Trump's most basic goal is: He wants to declare that he "ended" the war, so that he can then demand a Nobel Peace Prize like the one Barack Obama has. Throughout the 2024 campaign, and through most of his time in office, he has framed Israel and Palestine as a trivially simple problem, one that could be resolved with just a few hours' attention from a "dealmaker" like him. Did Trump really and truly believe this, or was it just talk? We don't know, because he's not especially knowledgeable about complicated foreign affairs problems like this one, and he's also very good at deluding himself. Certainly, anyone who knows anything about foreign affairs, or the Middle East, knew that his claims were nothing more than hot air.
We always presumed that, when and if Trump concluded he was not going to be able to make a deal, he would just pander to his base and remove any and all American restraints on Israel. And it seemed that the President had reached that point over the weekend. He withdrew U.S. negotiators from the Middle East, and told reporters that Hamas has become so intractable, Israel was "gonna have to finish the job."
However, just yesterday, Trump did what we will call a 140, and said that Netanyahu is wrong when he claims there is "no starvation in Gaza." Trump added:
You know, you've seen the areas where they actually have food, and the people are screaming for the food in there. They're 35, 40 yards away, and they won't let them because they have lines that are set up, and whether they're set up by Hamas or whoever, but they're very strict lines, and we have to get rid of those lines.
But we're going to be getting some good, strong food. We can save a lot of people. I mean, some of those kids are—that's real starvation stuff. I see it, and you can't fake that.
So we're gonna be even more involved. We did some airlifts before, some airdrops, and the people are running for it. And the Prime Minister is going to help us. They're very effective with that. You've done that before and for many. They've done that for 100 years very well, so it's not very hard to do, actually.
It's hard to say how much of that is rooted in reality. In any case, we refer to it as a 140 because it's not technically a complete reversal of position. Trump ostensibly wants Hamas, but not the rest of the people of Gaza, bombed into submission. So, helping the starving people of Gaza is theoretically not incompatible with the violent destruction of Hamas. But in reality it is, because it's not like Hamas is in one place and the starving Gazans are in another, 20 miles to the south. If you bomb Hamas to smithereens, you're going to harm many non-Hamas people in Gaza. And if you feed the starving Gazans, some of that food is going to get to Hamas.
And just in case anyone needed a reminder that Trump takes a special-of-the-day approach to foreign policy, where today's dictums may well be forgotten or countermanded by tomorrow's dictums, he just announced that the 50-day deadline he gave Russia to make peace with Ukraine has been slashed by close to a month, and that Vladimir Putin now has just "10 or 12 days." A formal announcement is expected today, so the new deadline is theoretically somewhere around August 9.
Turning back to the Middle East for a moment, the latest CNN/SSRS poll makes clear that the domestic politics of the Israel-Gaza situation are evolving, and in a way that's not great for Trump. Only 23% of Americans now feel that Israel's actions are fully justified, which is a drop of 27 points from October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched the attacks that began the current war. A majority of Republicans (68%) still back Israel strongly, but independents have largely jumped ship, with only 14% of them saying that Israel is fully justified. Meanwhile, Democrats are coalescing around an Israel-skeptical position; only 7% of them now say that Israel is fully justified. With the images and reporting coming out of Gaza right now, these numbers do not figure to get better for the pro-Israel position.
So, the pro-Israel position is strong (but not overwhelming) in the Republican Party, and is increasingly off-putting to everyone else. Oh, and as the administration tries to deal with the Israel-Gaza situation, it also has an Israel-Iran situation. Ostensibly, ending arms sales to Israel is the biggest way the White House could put pressure on the current leadership of that nation. But doing so runs contrary to the goal of using Israel to keep Iran in check.
In short, in nearly every way—humanitarian concerns, geopolitics, domestic politics—it is a giant mess. And although we follow politics very closely, we really don't have the faintest idea how Trump will try to deal with it. (Z)