by Dr. Gilbert N. Kahn

January 8, 2009

Trying to analyze a war while it is still going on was a nightmare even before the era of 24-hour news coverage and the unchecked blogosphere. Doing so today is even crazier.
Still, there are a number of observations that can be made more than a week into Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza. Underlying these considerations, however, is a fundamental Israeli axiom: Changing the culture of hatred against Israel/Jews in the Arab world can come — if ever — only from a position of strength.

One needs to assess the military and political situation in Gaza from a strategic and tactical perspective, from a short term as well as a longer term, from Israeli domestic and international vantage points, as well as from Jewish and global angles.

• More than 90 percent of the Israeli population supports the ground operation in Gaza, despite the risk of casualties. Unlike many of Israel’s supporters in the Diaspora, the Israelis — who bear the burden and the potential losses — are ready and willing. Israelis also believe that the Israel Defense Forces is better prepared for this confrontation than it was in the summer of 2006.

• Israelis want to see a permanent solution to persistent shelling from Gaza against the South, but they recognize the likelihood that they may need to settle for a serious hiatus, perhaps enforced by international forces. Such a force could facilitate the flow of humanitarian support for the Palestinian people while at the same time protect Israel’s South from continued bombing.

• Both Israel and the international community recognize that the missile threat from Hamas today almost rivals that of Hizbullah in Lebanon in terms of distance and potency.

• Israel appears, after more than a week of fighting, to have generally maintained a positive worldwide response to the legitimacy of their “right to defend their citizens” argument. Israel might be able to improve its press image further if it were to let the press into Gaza and/or make use of embedded reporters.

• The Egypt-Gaza border needs to be sanitized, the tunnel traffic ceased, and the weapons stream replaced by Egyptian humanitarian assistance.

• Critics of Israel continue to accuse it of “disproportionate response” but have gained little traction.
• As was the case in Lebanon in 2006, both the international community and the “moderate” Arab countries are more than happy to let the Israelis fight their battles against Islamist radicals. However, these moderates will not be able to withstand angry voices in the Arab street forever, which argues for an expedited end to the Israeli incursion.

• The Obama administration appears to be quite happy to let the Bush administration deal with the immediate crisis (as are the Israelis themselves) and position the new administration to promote, develop, or propose solutions. An Obama administration, for example, may well be best able to facilitate the establishment of an international peacekeeping force.

• While Israel clearly has military superiority, the Iranian-supplied fo

rces of Hizbullah as well as Hamas now have the ability to send missiles into major Israeli population centers. A two-front missile assault on Israel is indeed a possibility.

In the long term, no one should assume for a moment that the new administration in Washington will be as “laid back” as Bush was on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nor will Israel receive a blank check to do as it wishes in its movement toward peace. No matter the results of Israeli elections in February, the Obama administration will make specific demands on Israel’s next prime minister during his or her very first visit to Washington. The White House will insist on an immediate freeze on all settlement construction and expansion, with a scheduled, phased, and implemented dismantling program begun within a publicly announced timetable.

Despite a clear preoccupation with the domestic and global economic crisis, the Obama administration will quickly articulate a policy to fight terrorism and radical destabilizing threats from wherever they come and against whomever they are posed. Given the excitement that his election generated and the warm reception likely to greet the new president as he steps on to the international stage, effective leadership by an Obama/Clinton team may persuade America’s allies to be far more engaged against terrorism (read: Iran) than they were in the Bush years.

Dr. Gilbert N. Kahn is a professor of political science at Kean University in Union (e-mail gkahn@kean.edu).

Comment: comments@njjewishnews.com

--TOP--