Gaza Invasion: Overtaken by events

I had barely finished a piece predicting that the Israelis would follow their usual methods and invade the Gaza strip in the early hours of Sunday morning. (They do like, it seems, to respect their own Sabbath, but appear to like beginning wars on Christian ones, for some reason.) But I was only half-way through when I saw the IDF moving on on Sky News, so it became redundant.

A friend commented that surely the Israelis would need a huge force to suppress (or 'pacify') the Palestinians; but with the news that Israel was calling up reservists too, I pointed out that obviously that was exactly the intention. This is not exactly a rerun of Lebanon.

At least, not in terms of the force that is obviously to be used. It is, of course, a repetition in that if the Israelis have learnt a military lesson from that foolish episode, thay have not learnt the civil or political one.

That is simply that unless you are willing and have the ability to effectively colonise a country you invade militarily, are prepared to reconstruct it politically, socially and economically, and provide and staff its government, and then either gain the support of its population or repress it totally, a military action like this is, in the long term, utterly pointless and ineffective.

Or, of course, you can drive the population from the country altogether through the destruction of their homes, through depriving them of money and food, water and electricity, perhaps force them to the border at the point of a gun until they either drown in the Mediterranean or starve in the Sinai desert.

The first option is, it seems, beyond the competence of either the Israelis or the Americans, and in any case o doubtful expediency or even practicality in the 21st century, as the Americans have discovered. The second requires a ruthlessness and disregard for international ethics and laws. Now that the Israelis, along with their American allies, do possess. And it would put them into the same moral compass box as Stalin and Milosevich, Congo, Sudan and Ruanda . . .

Would they dare? If they and their American allies do not, then they will bolster not only even more resentment and miltant anger than they have already managed between them not only in the Middle East but in the rest of the world. With unpredictable and probably even more dangerous geo-political results as both China and Russia are no longer awed or effectively threatened by the US.

If they do, then the result will be the same. In either case, it is difficult to imagine how a state like Israel can have a longterm (historically, when we talk of centuries not decades) future; not at least as a religious Jewish one.

But the long term is not relevant to either of the two politicians primarily involved at the moment. The American President does not care; his reputation in history has already been irrevocably damaged and he knew had no political future after the end of this month. The Israeli politicians currently in office know either they will lose it next month or perhaps gain another year or two.

Never underestimate the pusillanimity or mendacity of politicians. Anyone who reads political autobiographies knows very well that their concerns are with themselves, their prestige, their position. Few spend more than a small fraction of their time in office not trying to enhance the latter, or plotting against opponents. Very few consider a future beyond their next electoral term, let alone one that extends into a century or two.