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Israel-Gaza Megathread #2
This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
Kinoite's Strategic Plan: A Legal War and a Heartless Peace
Last week, I wrote a post about the Geneva Convention and Israel's obligations to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza.
This week, I'd like to present a strategic plan for the Israeli side of the conflict. My proposal is that Israel should† do everything possible to avoid getting into an extended occupation or police action. Instead, Israel should frame the current conflict as a war. It should use the laws of war and the rules of Westphalian diplomacy to force the Gaza into a two-state solution.
Part 1: The Strategic Landscape
I've talked to a number of people who see Hamas' tactics as not merely cruel, but pointlessly cruel. Those people argue that Hamas has no path to victory; Hamas' rockets will never win a military victory, and Hamas makes no diplomatic demands that could ever be reasonably met. So, the continued conflict accomplishes nothing of strategic value.
I agree that the attacks are cruel, but see a cold logic behind them; Hamas' best chance to destroy Israel is by preventing Israel from negotiating a two-state solution. And Hamas' best chance to prevent a two-state solution is an endless, simmering conflict.
Palestine is a Chinese finger trap; the more forcefully Israel acts, the more tightly the conflict will grip the country. The only way out is through de-escalation and the only permanent de-escalation is through formal legal recognition of Palestinians in the territories as full citizens in a democratic system. This might come from the establishment of a Palestinian state, or it might come with the absorption of the territories into a secular state of Israel-Palestine that extends perfectly equal legal and political rights to all people within it, as liberal values require.
Freddie is basically correct. The Palestinians cannot remain stateless residents of an Israeli-controlled territory forever. Israel might be able to keep Palestine as a separate-but-not-sovereign territory for another generation or two. But, eventually, there will be mounting pressure to tear down the walls that separate Israel from Palestine. Free movement will, in turn, would lead to pressure to give the Palestinians full citizenship and voting rights.
If Israel extends full citizenship and voting rights to Palestinians then Israel will cease to exist as a Jewish state.
The other possibility is an independent Palestine. If that happens, the pressure will mount in the other direction. A sovereign, successful Palestine might be able to press its land claims for a generation. Or two. But, eventually, land disputes become historical trivia rather than a live conflict and nations are pressured to accept peace.
Given the above, I think some amount of aggression served Hamas' goals. But the latest attacks were a massive overreach and a fatal strategic blunder.
Part 2: A Legal War
For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.
Israel cannot win an occupation so, instead, it should win a war.
In the short-term, Israel could successfully occupy Gaza. Certainly, Israel could blockade the region, move in ground forces, hold territory, and attempt to impose law-and-order on the population. I don't believe Israel could eliminate fighting completely. There are too many insurgents and the region seems too hostile. Worse, in-as-far as Israel spends time occupying Gaza, Israel is bringing itself ever closer to a one-state solution by default.
In addition to this, occupation creates a number of obligations on Israel:
Article 42 of the 1907 Hague Regulations (HR) states that a " territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised." [...]
When does the law of occupation start to apply?
The rules of international humanitarian law relevant to occupied territories become applicable whenever territory comes under the effective control of hostile foreign armed forces, even if the occupation meets no armed resistance and there is no fighting.
The question of " control " calls up at least two different interpretations. It could be taken to mean that a situation of occupation exists whenever a party to a conflict exercises some level of authority or control within foreign territory. So, for example, advancing troops could be considered bound by the law of occupation already during the invasion phase of hostilities. This is the approach suggested in the ICRC's Commentary to the Fourth Geneva Convention (1958). [...]
What are the most important principles governing occupation?
[...]
The occupying power must take measures to restore and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety.
To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the occupying power must ensure sufficient hygiene and public health standards, as well as the provision of food and medical care to the population under occupation.
Collective or individual forcible transfers of population from and within the occupied territory are prohibited.
The destruction or seizure of enemy property is prohibited, unless absolutely required by military necessity during the conduct of hostilities.
Cultural property must be respected.
[...]
[NB: I made some formatting changes and omitted a significant number of obligations]
Those obligations are quite large, especially in the context of Israel's fight against Hamas. If Israel occupies Gaza, then Israel becomes responsible for providing food, medical care, hygiene supplies and the like to the "fullest extent of the means available" to Israel. That obligation would continue to exist, even if Hamas tried to capture food, or destroy civilian infrastructure.
In addition to creating an affirmative burden to provide for the people of Gaza, an occupation limits Israel's use of force. During an occupation, the destruction of property is forbidden unless "absolutely required by military necessity." In effect, occupation turns a conflict from a classic war into the sort of law-and-order problem that countries face when dealing with domestic terrorism. This is an extremely bad position for Israel as they try to police a region where they'd intensely opposed by the civilian population.
So, rather than occupy, Israel should simply treat the conflict as a war. They might have the capability to move ground forces in Gaza. But they have no obligation to do so. And, as long as Israel's forces are not holding territory, then the conflict is a military siege of an enemy-occupied city. That has vastly different obligations.
Relevant is Article 70 of Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions.
[1] If the civilian population of any territory under the control of a Party to the conflict, other than occupied territory, is not adequately provided with the supplies mentioned in Article 69 , relief actions which are humanitarian and impartial in character and conducted without any adverse distinction shall be undertaken, subject to the agreement of the Parties concerned in such relief actions. [...]
[3] The Parties to the conflict and each High Contracting Party which allow the passage of relief consignments, equipment and personnel in accordance with paragraph 2:
(a) shall have the right to prescribe the technical arrangements, including search, under which such passage is permitted;
(b) may make such permission conditional on the distribution of this assistance being made under the local supervision of a Protecting Power;
Israel should exercise its rights under 70.3a and 70.3b. That is, they should let aid come into the country, but only after a search and some ofter technical arrangements and only if the aid is distributed under the supervision of a protecting power. Put another way, Article 70 gives Israel an obligation to allow aid into Gaza but also lays out how a country can conduct a siege of an opposing force.
The "Protecting Power" piece is interesting. In this context protecting power is a third party country, nominated by Israel and accepted by Hamas, that has permission from Hamas to enter Gaza and oversee the distribution of aid. The relevant part of the Geneva conventions is:
[2]. From the beginning of a situation referred to in Article 1 , each Party to the conflict shall without delay designate a Protecting Power for the purpose of applying the Conventions and this Protocol and shall, likewise without delay and for the same purpose, permit the activities of a Protecting Power which has been accepted by it as such after designation by the adverse Party.
[3]. If a Protecting Power has not been designated or accepted from the beginning of a situation referred to in Article 1 , the International Committee of the Red Cross, without prejudice to the right of any other impartial humanitarian organization to do likewise, shall offer its good offices to the Parties to the conflict with a view to the designation without delay of a Protecting Power to which the Parties to the conflict consent. For that purpose it may, ' inter alia ', ask each Party to provide it with a list of at least five States which that Party considers acceptable to act as Protecting Power on its behalf in relation to an adverse Party, and ask each adverse Party to provide a list of at least five States which it would accept as the Protecting Power of the first Party; these lists shall be communicated to the Committee within two weeks after the receipt of the request; it shall compare them and seek the agreement of any proposed State named on both lists.
[...]
The idea here is that Israel doesn't have an obligation to feed Hamas' fighters. Israel does have to feed civilians, but isn't expected to accept Hamas' word that civilian aid is going to civilians once it crosses into the territory controlled by Hamas. Israel is explicitly within its rights to ask that any aid be delivered to Gaza under the supervision of a protective party.
In Israel's position, I'd use my rights under 70.3.a to insist that aid shipments should only enter Gaza if they're accompanied by a military force that's large enough to reasonably defend the aid against bandits and thieves.
There are a few reasons to do this. The first is that the "protective party" clause would force other first-world nations to actually involve themselves in the conflict or admit that they don't particularly care. Next, Israel is being clear about Israel's obligations. Israel doesn't have to provide aid shipments. It simply has to allow food aid provided by other people.
Strategically, the goal of the siege is the same as the goal of any siege: Israel is pressing Hamas to surrender
With an occupation, all of the obligations fall on Israel. Hamas has little-to-no incentive to surrender during an occupation. Instead, they'd be incentivized to draw things out as long as possible, to better bleed Israel of funds and military forces. Any cease-fire during an occupation would work to Hamas' advantage.
With a siege, time would be on Israel's side. The longer a lawful siege continues, the longer first world nations (outside of Israel) are obliged to commit their forces to overseeing aid shipments. And, delays would serve to starve out Hamas' fighters.
Eventually, I think a siege would end with Hamas surrendering, if only via a claim that they no longer hold Gaza, or the conflict cooling enough that Israel is pushed by the international community to declare victory.
Part 3: A Heartless Peace
Part 3 of my suggestion is relatively simple. When Israel "wins" their siege of Gaza they should appoint a new government and do everything in their power to get out of the region as quickly as possible. From there, Israel should take the position that the newly-formed Gazan government holds sovereign control over Gaza.
From there, Israel should fall back to Westphalian Diplomacy. Questions like "Should Gaza and the West Bank count as a single country or two countries?" can be answered (by Israel at least) as "that is an internal matter for the government of Gaza."
Similarly, the newly-formed Gazan government might recognize Israel as a country, or not. Either way, Israel's reply could be "that is an internal matter for the government of Gaza." The newly-formed Gazan government might issue passports for its citizens, or not. Israel's reply could be "that is an internal matter for the government of Gaza," and so on.
I'm calling this "Heartless Peace" for two reasons.
The first is that, under the rules of international diplomacy, countries have very few obligations to one another. It's certainly kind and praiseworthy if one country sends aid to a starving neighbor. But, it's not required. It's generally good if countries issue visas so foreign nationals can cross their border for tourism or work. But this is not required. Israel would be within its rights to close its borders to Gazan residents, just as Mexico could decide not to issue tourist visas to Swedes.
In Israel's position, I'd close the borders to this newly-formed Gazan state, pending mutual recognition and a diplomatic process. This would mean that Gaza might have to import food and water via its ports and its land border with Egypt. That would certainly be inconvenient but, ultimately, not something that Israel is directly responsible for fixing.
The second reason I'm calling this a "Heartless Peace" is that I wouldn't expect it to last. Certainly, Israel should hope that this attempt at peace is the one that ends the long conflict with Palestine. And if that happens, Israel should be very happy. More likely, attacks would re-occur in a few years and Israel should be prepared.
If attacks happen, Israel should look to Article 51 of the UN Charter.
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security
The rules of Westphalian diplomacy aren't particularly concerned with proportionality, as it applies to wars. Instead, the rule is that, when one nation attacks another, the second nation can go to war. So, if Israel is attacked by the newly-formed nation of Gaza, is should go back to the siege listed previously.
To some extent, this all might seem like legal-wordplay. The status quo is still that Gaza would periodically launch an attack on Israel, Israel would respond, destroy things, and eventually withdraw. I'm expecting basically that pattern to repeat, but with different labels.
My position is that these labels matter. If a country repeatedly bombs an occupied territory (or even civilian centers in its own territory!) to fight domestic terrorists, then that really is a human rights violation. The country that's killing occupied civilians seems to be in the wrong, even if the terrorists are also immoral. In contrast, if a country repeatedly attacks its neighbor, is bombed, and surrendered only to re-attack, then the country that's re-igniting the war seems to be in the wrong.
So, given the options available, I think Israel should step away from the status-quo where the Palestinian Territories are neither really occupied nor really sovereign in favor of a new status-quo where the Palestinian Territories are sovereign and operating under the relatively bright-line rules afforded by international diplomacy.
† I dislike the word "should" since it seems to smuggle in a lot of assumptions about goals. Within this post, an unspecified 'should' assumes that an actor has Israel's general interests in mind. These include the preservation of Israel as a majority-Jewish state, peace, and resolutions to diplomatic disputes that are as favorable to Israel as feasible.
The rules of Westphalian diplomacy aren't particularly concerned with proportionality, as it applies to wars. Instead, the rule is that, when one nation attacks another, the second nation can go to war. So, if Israel is attacked by the newly-formed nation of Gaza, is should go back to the siege listed previously.
I am not sure if it works that way anymore. I am no expert but to me it seems that more and more nations use paramilitaries/PMCs/terrorist groups to conduct asymmetrical warfare with the whole purpose of keeping plausible deniability. What prevents new government of Gaza to claim that they regret terrorist attack conducted from their territory by underground terrorist group? Or even better, they can finance terrorist cells inside Israel or Syria or Lebanon or West Bank and do similar things. Now this is nothing new, for instance Pakistan does this all the time vis-à-vis India, Iran itself has parallel government structure tied to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with their own network of companies and terrorist cells and unique capability of wreaking havoc without necessarily being tied to the Government. The same goes for Russia and Wagner's adventures in Africa for instance.
I think there is a lot of grey area between "two recognized countries are fighting a war" and "internal police action". There are civil wars, insurgencies, non-state actors operating out of failed states and all other sorts of corner cases. An occupation requires a hostile army, which I guess requires a state-like entity to which they are hostile. I don't think an army being in some territory where some fraction of the population would rather they were not (which is every army, everywhere) is probably not sufficient.
Also, if something is a human rights violation is somewhat in the eye of the beholder. It is not like the Hague will deploy paratroopers to stop any human rights violation happening within 24 hours.
Politically speaking, if by some miracle Gaza was a recognized independent state, do you think that the people currently protesting that explosion in a hospital parking lot which they assume IDF caused would switch their stance and say "well, I suppose article 51 gives Israel the right to nuke Gaza after being attacked"?
…what if the “sovereign, successful Palestine” doesn’t materialize?
Your strategy doesn’t sound too different from the steelman for intervention in Afghanistan. Roll in, fuck up the Taliban, set up a functional government, roll out. There may have been something about hearts and minds in there, too. But instead, we exchanged munitions for 20 years and barely changed anything. If we’d skipped those 20 years, and didn’t even try to fill the power vacuum, would an agreeable Afghan government have materialized?
Say Israel kills every card-carrying Hamas member, and no one else. I don’t think that makes the problem go away. There will still be young, angry men looking to avenge their friends and family. There will also still be outside powers interested in pushing the infidels out of Jerusalem.
We are dozens of summits, treaties and agreements into defining a legal relationship between Israel and something resembling Palestine. The Oslo accords, in particular, govern the allowed level of Israeli force. That hasn’t stopped Israel from controlling the strip, and it hasn’t stopped Hamas from waging its campaign. Would another siege and another piece of paper be any different?
…what if the “sovereign, successful Palestine” doesn’t materialize?
Israel can guarantee a sovereign Palestine. A successful Palestine would be nice-to-have but not really a strategic requirement.
Say Israel kills every card-carrying Hamas member, and no one else. I don’t think that makes the problem go away. There will still be young, angry men looking to avenge their friends and family. There will also still be outside powers interested in pushing the infidels out of Jerusalem. [...] Would another siege and another piece of paper be any different?
I think I'm proposing two material changes.
The first is that, by withdrawing, Israel can close its borders with the now-sovereign Gaza. Israel would be within its rights to completely block the movement of people and goods between two countries. So, that would limit the extent to which Gazas residents have an opportunity to damage Israel. Israel has, until recently, not closed its borders.
The second material change is that I'm suggesting Israel treat the current conflict (and any future conflicts) like wars rather than police actions in an occupied territory. The rules for a war against a hostile state are much less restrictive than the rules for a police action in an occupied territory. Gaza might start another conflict, or a third. But realistically, a state can only lose so many wars before they run out people who are able and willing to continue a conflict.
Your strategy doesn’t sound too different from the steelman for intervention in Afghanistan. Roll in, fuck up the Taliban, set up a functional government, roll out. There may have been something about hearts and minds in there, too. But instead, we exchanged munitions for 20 years and barely changed anything. If we’d skipped those 20 years, and didn’t even try to fill the power vacuum, would an agreeable Afghan government have materialized?
I mean the difference is that, in the hypothetical provided, Israel expends roughly the same resources, gets attacked roughly the same amount, and uses roughly the same force in both scenarios, but they get significantly less international flak for one of them.
As opposed to the US Invasion of Afghanistan, where the option was between a costly invasion and occupation and a ton of international flak, and expending roughly nothing because Afghanistan wasn't exactly a threat (possibly some assassinations and drone strikes still happen in this scenario).
I've been thinking that something like this would work as a solution for the Israelis. Once Gaza is an independent state, Israel can justifiably fortify their side of the border as much as they like. After all, their neighbour is aggressing them. Nobody can accuse them of apartheid (with regards to Gaza) since they have no obligation to allow foreign citizens to enter their territory at all. If the government of Gaza attacks them, they can justifiably use force to defend themselves. Egypt can take refugees without being accused of being complicit in Israeli ethnic cleansing of the strip.
I mean, it's not as if Gaza has any religious significance (like Jerusalem), strategic significance (like the Golan Heights) or economic significance (like Tel Aviv). An Israel without Gaza is an Israel with 2 millions fewer Arabs and nothing of value lost.
You realize that Israel left Gaza in 2005, right? The Palestinian Authority held elections in 2006, and Hamas won. Fatah did not accept the results, and they split to Hamas ruling the Gaza strip while Fatah rules Judea and Samaria (where they are allowed according to Oslo). Hamas did not declare an independent state, since that’s not what they’re after. Israel did fortify itself, and after rocket fire started from Gaza it was blockaded. There were roughly 0 voices saying Israel is justified in anything.
This is basically where we are now, 17 years later.
This is the situation since 2007. And the government of Gaza has just attacked them. Well, in fact it's been attacking them all along, but this time it was a much bigger attack than usual.
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Notes -
Kinoite's Strategic Plan: A Legal War and a Heartless Peace
Last week, I wrote a post about the Geneva Convention and Israel's obligations to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza.
This week, I'd like to present a strategic plan for the Israeli side of the conflict. My proposal is that Israel should† do everything possible to avoid getting into an extended occupation or police action. Instead, Israel should frame the current conflict as a war. It should use the laws of war and the rules of Westphalian diplomacy to force the Gaza into a two-state solution.
Part 1: The Strategic Landscape
I've talked to a number of people who see Hamas' tactics as not merely cruel, but pointlessly cruel. Those people argue that Hamas has no path to victory; Hamas' rockets will never win a military victory, and Hamas makes no diplomatic demands that could ever be reasonably met. So, the continued conflict accomplishes nothing of strategic value.
I agree that the attacks are cruel, but see a cold logic behind them; Hamas' best chance to destroy Israel is by preventing Israel from negotiating a two-state solution. And Hamas' best chance to prevent a two-state solution is an endless, simmering conflict.
To use a passage from Freddie DeBoer:
Freddie is basically correct. The Palestinians cannot remain stateless residents of an Israeli-controlled territory forever. Israel might be able to keep Palestine as a separate-but-not-sovereign territory for another generation or two. But, eventually, there will be mounting pressure to tear down the walls that separate Israel from Palestine. Free movement will, in turn, would lead to pressure to give the Palestinians full citizenship and voting rights.
If Israel extends full citizenship and voting rights to Palestinians then Israel will cease to exist as a Jewish state.
The other possibility is an independent Palestine. If that happens, the pressure will mount in the other direction. A sovereign, successful Palestine might be able to press its land claims for a generation. Or two. But, eventually, land disputes become historical trivia rather than a live conflict and nations are pressured to accept peace.
Given the above, I think some amount of aggression served Hamas' goals. But the latest attacks were a massive overreach and a fatal strategic blunder.
Part 2: A Legal War
Israel cannot win an occupation so, instead, it should win a war.
In the short-term, Israel could successfully occupy Gaza. Certainly, Israel could blockade the region, move in ground forces, hold territory, and attempt to impose law-and-order on the population. I don't believe Israel could eliminate fighting completely. There are too many insurgents and the region seems too hostile. Worse, in-as-far as Israel spends time occupying Gaza, Israel is bringing itself ever closer to a one-state solution by default.
In addition to this, occupation creates a number of obligations on Israel:
[NB: I made some formatting changes and omitted a significant number of obligations]
Those obligations are quite large, especially in the context of Israel's fight against Hamas. If Israel occupies Gaza, then Israel becomes responsible for providing food, medical care, hygiene supplies and the like to the "fullest extent of the means available" to Israel. That obligation would continue to exist, even if Hamas tried to capture food, or destroy civilian infrastructure.
In addition to creating an affirmative burden to provide for the people of Gaza, an occupation limits Israel's use of force. During an occupation, the destruction of property is forbidden unless "absolutely required by military necessity." In effect, occupation turns a conflict from a classic war into the sort of law-and-order problem that countries face when dealing with domestic terrorism. This is an extremely bad position for Israel as they try to police a region where they'd intensely opposed by the civilian population.
So, rather than occupy, Israel should simply treat the conflict as a war. They might have the capability to move ground forces in Gaza. But they have no obligation to do so. And, as long as Israel's forces are not holding territory, then the conflict is a military siege of an enemy-occupied city. That has vastly different obligations.
Relevant is Article 70 of Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions.
Israel should exercise its rights under 70.3a and 70.3b. That is, they should let aid come into the country, but only after a search and some ofter technical arrangements and only if the aid is distributed under the supervision of a protecting power. Put another way, Article 70 gives Israel an obligation to allow aid into Gaza but also lays out how a country can conduct a siege of an opposing force.
The "Protecting Power" piece is interesting. In this context protecting power is a third party country, nominated by Israel and accepted by Hamas, that has permission from Hamas to enter Gaza and oversee the distribution of aid. The relevant part of the Geneva conventions is:
The idea here is that Israel doesn't have an obligation to feed Hamas' fighters. Israel does have to feed civilians, but isn't expected to accept Hamas' word that civilian aid is going to civilians once it crosses into the territory controlled by Hamas. Israel is explicitly within its rights to ask that any aid be delivered to Gaza under the supervision of a protective party.
In Israel's position, I'd use my rights under 70.3.a to insist that aid shipments should only enter Gaza if they're accompanied by a military force that's large enough to reasonably defend the aid against bandits and thieves.
There are a few reasons to do this. The first is that the "protective party" clause would force other first-world nations to actually involve themselves in the conflict or admit that they don't particularly care. Next, Israel is being clear about Israel's obligations. Israel doesn't have to provide aid shipments. It simply has to allow food aid provided by other people.
Strategically, the goal of the siege is the same as the goal of any siege: Israel is pressing Hamas to surrender
With an occupation, all of the obligations fall on Israel. Hamas has little-to-no incentive to surrender during an occupation. Instead, they'd be incentivized to draw things out as long as possible, to better bleed Israel of funds and military forces. Any cease-fire during an occupation would work to Hamas' advantage.
With a siege, time would be on Israel's side. The longer a lawful siege continues, the longer first world nations (outside of Israel) are obliged to commit their forces to overseeing aid shipments. And, delays would serve to starve out Hamas' fighters.
Eventually, I think a siege would end with Hamas surrendering, if only via a claim that they no longer hold Gaza, or the conflict cooling enough that Israel is pushed by the international community to declare victory.
Part 3: A Heartless Peace
Part 3 of my suggestion is relatively simple. When Israel "wins" their siege of Gaza they should appoint a new government and do everything in their power to get out of the region as quickly as possible. From there, Israel should take the position that the newly-formed Gazan government holds sovereign control over Gaza.
From there, Israel should fall back to Westphalian Diplomacy. Questions like "Should Gaza and the West Bank count as a single country or two countries?" can be answered (by Israel at least) as "that is an internal matter for the government of Gaza."
Similarly, the newly-formed Gazan government might recognize Israel as a country, or not. Either way, Israel's reply could be "that is an internal matter for the government of Gaza." The newly-formed Gazan government might issue passports for its citizens, or not. Israel's reply could be "that is an internal matter for the government of Gaza," and so on.
I'm calling this "Heartless Peace" for two reasons.
The first is that, under the rules of international diplomacy, countries have very few obligations to one another. It's certainly kind and praiseworthy if one country sends aid to a starving neighbor. But, it's not required. It's generally good if countries issue visas so foreign nationals can cross their border for tourism or work. But this is not required. Israel would be within its rights to close its borders to Gazan residents, just as Mexico could decide not to issue tourist visas to Swedes.
In Israel's position, I'd close the borders to this newly-formed Gazan state, pending mutual recognition and a diplomatic process. This would mean that Gaza might have to import food and water via its ports and its land border with Egypt. That would certainly be inconvenient but, ultimately, not something that Israel is directly responsible for fixing.
The second reason I'm calling this a "Heartless Peace" is that I wouldn't expect it to last. Certainly, Israel should hope that this attempt at peace is the one that ends the long conflict with Palestine. And if that happens, Israel should be very happy. More likely, attacks would re-occur in a few years and Israel should be prepared.
If attacks happen, Israel should look to Article 51 of the UN Charter.
The rules of Westphalian diplomacy aren't particularly concerned with proportionality, as it applies to wars. Instead, the rule is that, when one nation attacks another, the second nation can go to war. So, if Israel is attacked by the newly-formed nation of Gaza, is should go back to the siege listed previously.
To some extent, this all might seem like legal-wordplay. The status quo is still that Gaza would periodically launch an attack on Israel, Israel would respond, destroy things, and eventually withdraw. I'm expecting basically that pattern to repeat, but with different labels.
My position is that these labels matter. If a country repeatedly bombs an occupied territory (or even civilian centers in its own territory!) to fight domestic terrorists, then that really is a human rights violation. The country that's killing occupied civilians seems to be in the wrong, even if the terrorists are also immoral. In contrast, if a country repeatedly attacks its neighbor, is bombed, and surrendered only to re-attack, then the country that's re-igniting the war seems to be in the wrong.
So, given the options available, I think Israel should step away from the status-quo where the Palestinian Territories are neither really occupied nor really sovereign in favor of a new status-quo where the Palestinian Territories are sovereign and operating under the relatively bright-line rules afforded by international diplomacy.
† I dislike the word "should" since it seems to smuggle in a lot of assumptions about goals. Within this post, an unspecified 'should' assumes that an actor has Israel's general interests in mind. These include the preservation of Israel as a majority-Jewish state, peace, and resolutions to diplomatic disputes that are as favorable to Israel as feasible.
I am not sure if it works that way anymore. I am no expert but to me it seems that more and more nations use paramilitaries/PMCs/terrorist groups to conduct asymmetrical warfare with the whole purpose of keeping plausible deniability. What prevents new government of Gaza to claim that they regret terrorist attack conducted from their territory by underground terrorist group? Or even better, they can finance terrorist cells inside Israel or Syria or Lebanon or West Bank and do similar things. Now this is nothing new, for instance Pakistan does this all the time vis-à-vis India, Iran itself has parallel government structure tied to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with their own network of companies and terrorist cells and unique capability of wreaking havoc without necessarily being tied to the Government. The same goes for Russia and Wagner's adventures in Africa for instance.
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I think there is a lot of grey area between "two recognized countries are fighting a war" and "internal police action". There are civil wars, insurgencies, non-state actors operating out of failed states and all other sorts of corner cases. An occupation requires a hostile army, which I guess requires a state-like entity to which they are hostile. I don't think an army being in some territory where some fraction of the population would rather they were not (which is every army, everywhere) is probably not sufficient.
Also, if something is a human rights violation is somewhat in the eye of the beholder. It is not like the Hague will deploy paratroopers to stop any human rights violation happening within 24 hours.
Politically speaking, if by some miracle Gaza was a recognized independent state, do you think that the people currently protesting that explosion in a hospital parking lot which they assume IDF caused would switch their stance and say "well, I suppose article 51 gives Israel the right to nuke Gaza after being attacked"?
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…what if the “sovereign, successful Palestine” doesn’t materialize?
Your strategy doesn’t sound too different from the steelman for intervention in Afghanistan. Roll in, fuck up the Taliban, set up a functional government, roll out. There may have been something about hearts and minds in there, too. But instead, we exchanged munitions for 20 years and barely changed anything. If we’d skipped those 20 years, and didn’t even try to fill the power vacuum, would an agreeable Afghan government have materialized?
Say Israel kills every card-carrying Hamas member, and no one else. I don’t think that makes the problem go away. There will still be young, angry men looking to avenge their friends and family. There will also still be outside powers interested in pushing the infidels out of Jerusalem.
We are dozens of summits, treaties and agreements into defining a legal relationship between Israel and something resembling Palestine. The Oslo accords, in particular, govern the allowed level of Israeli force. That hasn’t stopped Israel from controlling the strip, and it hasn’t stopped Hamas from waging its campaign. Would another siege and another piece of paper be any different?
Israel can guarantee a sovereign Palestine. A successful Palestine would be nice-to-have but not really a strategic requirement.
I think I'm proposing two material changes.
The first is that, by withdrawing, Israel can close its borders with the now-sovereign Gaza. Israel would be within its rights to completely block the movement of people and goods between two countries. So, that would limit the extent to which Gazas residents have an opportunity to damage Israel. Israel has, until recently, not closed its borders.
The second material change is that I'm suggesting Israel treat the current conflict (and any future conflicts) like wars rather than police actions in an occupied territory. The rules for a war against a hostile state are much less restrictive than the rules for a police action in an occupied territory. Gaza might start another conflict, or a third. But realistically, a state can only lose so many wars before they run out people who are able and willing to continue a conflict.
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I mean the difference is that, in the hypothetical provided, Israel expends roughly the same resources, gets attacked roughly the same amount, and uses roughly the same force in both scenarios, but they get significantly less international flak for one of them.
As opposed to the US Invasion of Afghanistan, where the option was between a costly invasion and occupation and a ton of international flak, and expending roughly nothing because Afghanistan wasn't exactly a threat (possibly some assassinations and drone strikes still happen in this scenario).
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I've been thinking that something like this would work as a solution for the Israelis. Once Gaza is an independent state, Israel can justifiably fortify their side of the border as much as they like. After all, their neighbour is aggressing them. Nobody can accuse them of apartheid (with regards to Gaza) since they have no obligation to allow foreign citizens to enter their territory at all. If the government of Gaza attacks them, they can justifiably use force to defend themselves. Egypt can take refugees without being accused of being complicit in Israeli ethnic cleansing of the strip.
I mean, it's not as if Gaza has any religious significance (like Jerusalem), strategic significance (like the Golan Heights) or economic significance (like Tel Aviv). An Israel without Gaza is an Israel with 2 millions fewer Arabs and nothing of value lost.
You know the rockets are usually coming out of those Gaza borders, right?
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You realize that Israel left Gaza in 2005, right? The Palestinian Authority held elections in 2006, and Hamas won. Fatah did not accept the results, and they split to Hamas ruling the Gaza strip while Fatah rules Judea and Samaria (where they are allowed according to Oslo). Hamas did not declare an independent state, since that’s not what they’re after. Israel did fortify itself, and after rocket fire started from Gaza it was blockaded. There were roughly 0 voices saying Israel is justified in anything.
This is basically where we are now, 17 years later.
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This is the situation since 2007. And the government of Gaza has just attacked them. Well, in fact it's been attacking them all along, but this time it was a much bigger attack than usual.
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