Netanyahu's broken concept of defence

 "Israel has a right to defend itself" has become the mantra that Sunak uses at all media opportunities.

But what does "defence" mean?  Does "defence" give Netanyahu permission to reduce the northern half of Gaza city to rubble along with any people in the area in order to bring about the annihilation of all members of Hamas? Is that what "defence" means?

No, defence in this context means anticipating the terrorist attack mounted by Hamas on October 7th, using the world famed intelligence skills of Mossad. Defence means realising that Hamas was going to react to the perceived outrage at what was happening at the Al-Aqsa mosque. Defence means listening to and acting upon the advice given by Egyptian intelligence agency three days before the attack. Defence means closely monitoring the physical fence between Gaza and Israel, and reacting swiftly to repel any invasion. In all of these defensive moves, Netanyahu failed.

Instead, Netanyahu believes that he has a right to operate a definitive solution for Hamas: he wants to annihilate them by bombing their buildings and - presumably - gas them in their tunnels (because how else can he get them out?). He is trying first to clear the human shield used by Hamas, which is why he has ordered the civilians in northern Gaza to leave their homes before he flattens them.

Netanyahu believes that this is a fine solution to his problems. His calculations are simple. If Hamas has 10,000 members, and he kills all 10,00 of them, then Hamas has zero members, and the Hamas problem is solved. 

The reality is not so simple. Not only will many Hamas members will have moved out of North Gaza City with the civilians, but also for every Hamas member killed, another Hamas member will be created because of the grief and hatred caused by the killing. "He that is killed will always kill again". Hamas, or another hate-motivated anti-Israeli movement will arise from the ashes and rubble of Netenyahu’s “solution”.

Netanyahu's actions are not defensive, they are designed to relieve emotions of anger and hatred and express the desire for retribution, but they are not going to solve the problems of Israel in the long term. Defence means long term planning to reduce hatred on both sides, for instance, collaboration in meeting the needs of both communities in Israel-Palestine for water. Defence means working with peace-loving citizens with both communities. There are at least nine cross community citizens’ organisations in Israel Palestine – The One Voice Movement, the Parents Circle family forum, Hand in Hand – Centre for Jewish-Arab Education in Israel,
Peace Now, Combatants for Peace, The Peres Centre for Peace and Innovation, EcoPeace Middle East, The Palestinian-Israeli Journal, and Women Wage Peace. If these organisations were given a louder voice in broadcast and written media, hope might be a slightly stronger emotion.

There is more, much more, to defence than bombing people and houses to smithereens.

 

Doing the same thing and expecting a different result

 

Israel has a right to defend itself - yes, for sure

But Israel does not have a right to break international law in a misjudged process of  revenge and destruction in an attempt to stamp out terrorists once and for all.

Netanyahu must realise that he cannot exterminate Hamas physically. Even if he could magically destroy every member of Hamas tomorrow, it would not solve his problem, because Hamas is an expression of hatred, nor a finite number of people.

By killing Hamas, Netanyahu is generating yet more Hamas. 

This issue can and must be solved by dialogue. 

They may say “But there have been dialogues before”. 

True, but also there have been wars before, and we still have wars.

Einstein said “Insanity is when you do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result”. 

These wars always create more wars.

War is irrational. Negotiation involves reason. 

By going to war, Netanyahu is expecting too much of his generals and his soldiery. 

The risk for the world is too great. 

If “War is the continuation of politics by other means”, the “other means” here is in fact the abandonment of rationality. Real politics, great politics, statesmanship, involves intense thought and vision. 

Let us hope that somewhere in the political world there is a group of people who have the vision, intelligence, and communication skills to get us out the highly dangerous tragedy that is the Middle East in 2023.

Israel-Palestine: three options

 We have three options with regard to the tragedy in Israel-Palestine. 

We can be on the side of the Israelis. 

We can be on the side of the Palestinians. 

Or we can be on the side of humanity, which puts us on the side of both (as communities of humans) and neither (as political groupings).

Wars divide public opinion in a binary way. The majority will reject the “humanity” option as naive, and will produce a seemingly endless reel of historical facts and factoids to back the case of one side or the other.

We need to be knowledgeable about the history, to understand the motivations of both sides, especially the intensity of Israeli intention never again to be passive subjects of genocide. 

But we need to focus with great determination on the future. What is the future of the “Holy Land”? 

Is it simply to be laid waste by a never ending series of manifestly unholy wars?

Or is it to be an inspiration to the whole world, as a place where people decided that hatred is not a helpful emotion, and that cooperation is better than conflict in creating a better life for all humans?

When we look at I-P from the latter point of view, the first and most striking feature of the land is that it is semi arid. Water is in short supply, and this limits the amount of food that can be grown. 

Already Friends of the Earth Middle East are working on cross community projects relating to water, especially around Jordan. https://ecopeaceme.org

This approach can be taken further in a water harvesting project, where the EU and UK could supply kit for communities to gather water  https://greenerblog.blogspot.com/search?q=Water+harvesting+Israel

There are numerous organisations which promote cooperation between the two communities. Here is a Chat Gtp link for nine of them https://chat.openai.com/share/92954bae-1ffb-450c-a43c-cf55e66c0291

If we look to the past, there is no solution, just endless war.

If we ask how two peoples can life together in the future, we find that it involves cooperation in constructing adequate amounts of water, food, energy, housing. sanitation, health, education and social care for everyone living in the land.

WAR AS MADNESS

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Wars do not usually result from just causes but from pretexts. There probably never was a just cause why men should slaughter each other by wholesale, but there are such things as ambition, selfishness, folly, madness, in communities as in individuals, which become blind and bloodthirsty, not to be appeased save by havoc, and generally by the killing of somebody else than themselves - General Tecumseh Sherman, Speech to the graduating class of the Michigan Military Academy 1878

"Insanity is when you do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result” - Albert Einstein 

“War is madness” is a cliche, but it is a true cliche. 

First, war is madness in the US sense, of mad as in angry. War is a political expression of frustration, anger and hatred. Anger is an outgoing reaction to perceived threat.  As it is an emotion, anger can bypass reason. There is an immediate feeling of wishing to destroy the threat immediately, although history, reason and psychology teach us that in the process of destroying perceived  enemies, the destroyer is creating yet more enemies. 

Second, war is involves detachment from reality. In war, we humans divert from the everyday central  human purposeful work, that of trying to create healthy and happy human communities by addressing our individual and societal needs. In war we are expected to turn our hand instead to destroying the lives, health and structures of our perceived enemies.  War is a state of mutual paranoia and mutual destruction. War is the exact opposite of what the human race needs to be doing in 2023, which is of course, to be working to normalise Earth’s greenhouse effect, to satisfy our human needs for health, education and security, and to protect and restore ecological systems.

Third, war is insanity in the sense that Einstein pointed to when he said “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. This applies very much to the Israel/Palestine situation, where both Hamas and the Israeli Government are participating in an upward spiral of hatred, violence, killing and destruction.

What can we ordinary humans, do? We may raise our voices in protest, we may call for a ceasefire and an end to violence, but this call is not likely to be heard by leaders who are in the grip of war fever. 

We may hope that our Governments and diplomats are doing what they can to avoid escalation, but we have little influence on diplomacy, apart maybe in a slight way through the  United Nations Association. https://una.org.uk/ 

We can give humanitarian aid to the victims of war, carefully balancing our donations to both Palestinian and Israeli causes. This will be controversial I know, but to me it is essential to give to both sides. (In writing that, I realise that I should personally give to Russian humanitarian causes as well as Ukrainian).

Can we influence the situation, or do we just have to wait for this phase of political insanity to come to an end, before we can put in suggestions as to how to prevent the next outbreak of insanity?

If we all spoke with one voice, our leaders would at least hear what we are saying, even if they do not listen. 

However, they might listen if we have something helpful to offer, because, behind the mask of confidence, our leaders are as terrified as we are. They know, as we know, that this conflict could end up with a global nuclear war.

If this war is not solved with some brilliant diplomacy, it could  which would put an end to human civilisation. 

It is as simple as that, 

This thought should motivate us to come up with a cunning plan.

I am asking my readers to put their cunning plan in the comments in 40 words or less into the Comments section below. Thank you

[minor edit 15/10/23]