Tag: Israel-Hamas war

Bibi’s evolving Hamas story

On By Martin Kramer

Last November, I asked this question: why didn’t Benjamin Netanyahu keep his 2009 campaign promise to topple Hamas? I found at least part of the answer in his 2022 memoir, Bibi: My Story.

In that account, Netanyahu explained, first, that “the cost in blood and treasure was not worth it.” Overthrowing Hamas would involve the loss of “many hundreds [of soldiers] on the Israeli side,” burden Israel with governing Gaza “for an indefinite period,” and result in “the wholesale destruction of Gaza, with tens of thousands of civilian deaths.” Second, it wasn’t a priority. “Did I really want to tie down the IDF in Gaza for years,” he wrote, “when we had to deal with Iran and a possible Syrian front? The answer was categorically no. I had bigger fish to fry.”

In a new interview with TIME, conducted by Eric Cortellessa, Netanyahu preempts the question before it is asked. After rationalizing the Qatari funding of Gaza, he explains that before October 7, he had conducted “three full-fledged military campaigns against Hamas in which we killed thousands of terrorists, eliminated some of their top military leadership, and sought to prevent them from having the capacity to attack us.” But he adds this:

One thing we didn’t do was we didn’t come out to eradicate Hamas completely, because that would require a full-scale ground invasion for which we had no internal legitimacy or international legitimacy. Look at the problem we have with legitimacy now, after they conducted the worst terror onslaught on the Jewish people since the Holocaust…. We sort of cut the weeds, but we didn’t come in to uproot them completely until October 7th. October 7th showed that those who said that Hamas was deterred were wrong. If anything, I didn’t challenge enough the assumption that was common to all the security agencies.

The interviewer said he would “come back to that in a second,” and when he did, he formulated the question in his own pointed way: “Why didn’t you take out Hamas earlier? You could have gone all the way in 2014.” Netanyahu responded:

No I couldn’t. I don’t think there was—there wasn’t a consensus. There was, in fact, a consensus among the military that we shouldn’t do it. But more importantly, you can overrule the military, but you can’t act in a vacuum. There was no public, no domestic support for such an action. There was certainly no international support for such an action, and you need both or at least one of them in order to take such an action. I think that became evident right after the October 7th massacre.

“I decided”

These explanations differ significantly from the rationales Netanyahu provided in his memoir. There, it isn’t the public that lacks “consensus” over toppling Hamas; rather, “The public invariably expects the government to continue the battle and ‘flatten Gaza,’ believing that with enough punishment the Hamas regime would collapse.” In his memoir, Netanyahu credited himself with tempering this unrealistic expectation, which was fueld by political rivals who would “irresponsibly take contrarian positions which they know are wrong.” The final decision he claimed for himself alone: “I decided against a full-scale ground invasion.”

As for the need for “international” (largely American) legitimacy, Netanyahu made no mention of it in his memoir. While he obviously faced constraints during the eight years of Barack Obama, everything changed during his four-year partnership with Donald Trump. A centerpiece of the memoir is Netanyahu’s exploitation of Trump’s unprecedented support, from enhancing the Israeli status of Jerusalem and the Golan to rolling back the Iran nuclear deal. There is no evidence that Netanyahu prioritized Gaza.

And that brings us to the most important difference in Netanyahu’s latest apologia. It makes no mention of his earlier view of the relative threat posed by Hamas. According to Netanyahu’s own strategic priorities, a final showdown with Hamas would have been a trap: “After destroying the Hamas regime, Israel would have to govern two million Gazans for an indefinite period. I had no intention of doing that, especially since I had my gaze fixed on Iran, a much greater threat.”

Netanyahu, then, wasn’t simply aligning with the “consensus” of “security agencies” and the public when he held back on Hamas. Clearly, he calculated his priorities and took a decision that ended a policy debate. The TIME interview is disappointing for not quoting his memoir. Bibi: My Story offers the most comprehensive statement of his pre-October 7 strategy.

Another question remains unlikely to be answered: Did Hamas leaders who read the relevant passages of his memoir in 2022 conclude that Netanyahu, should he return to power, would be preoccupied elsewhere? Did they believe that as long as Netanyahu ruled, they enjoyed immunity from destruction? And did this belief embolden them to implement their plan, assuming he would stop short of toppling them? The mere possibility serves as a warning to all leaders: one should never publish one’s most closely held strategic thoughts before stepping down for good.

Bibi: My Story sold well. In November 2022, it spent three weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. It remains the most reliable starting point for understanding the events leading up to October 7.

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Israel must never stand alone

On By Martin Kramer

Israeli politicians often assert that Israel can and will “defend itself by itself,” a longstanding formula dating back decades. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeated it often. But he’s added an amplification: Israel will do so “even if we must stand alone.”

From here, from Jerusalem, on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, I send a message, loud and clear: ‘You will not tie our hands.’ If Israel is forced to stand alone, we will stand alone, and will continue to smite our enemies until we achieve victory. Even if we must stand alone, we will continue fighting human evil.

This is borrowed from Winston Churchill, specifically his “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” speech in the House of Commons after Dunkirk in June 1940. There he said Britain would fight “to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.”

Netanyahu isn’t the first leader to steal a phrase from the incomparable Sir Winston. But it’s a very partial crib, as Churchill said more in that speech, and it’s the forgotten part that is more relevant.

No sooner had he spoken of fighting “if necessary alone” than he began to name allies: “The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength.”

And then this:

We shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas… would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

When Churchill aimed to raise the morale and stiffen the resolve of the British people, he promised more than blood, toil, tears, and sweat. He also promised the support of allies. When he wanted to warn Hitler against an invasion, he alluded to American intervention. The speech is about the courage to fight—and the value of alliances, especially with America. America had “power and might,” and it would come to “rescue” and “liberate” Britain.

The only friend that counts

In his Holocaust Day speech, Netanyahu said: “We know we are not alone because countless decent people around the world support our just cause.” But this is anemic. Countless people, decent and otherwise, also support the Palestinian cause. And the question isn’t whether your friends can or can’t be counted; it’s whether they are strong enough to help you stand up in a crisis. As with Britain, so with Israel, that friend is the United States.

Since October 7, Israel has not stood alone for a moment. In the direct channel, there has been a U.S. airlift of thousands of tons of war materiel, the largest since 1973. Dozens of U.S. C-17s and 747 cargo planes have shuttled in and out of Israel from U.S. bases around the world: Dover in Delaware, and bases in Germany, Qatar, Spain, Italy, and Greece. More than half of the munitions in this war have come from the United States. Looking ahead, Congress has appropriated $14 billion in special military aid to Israel.

Regionally and internationally, the United States has deployed its premier naval assets to Israel’s shores and the Red Sea approaches to deter both Hezbollah and Iran. It played an indispensable role in coordinating the region-wide blunting of the Iranian barrage on Israel on April 13. Additionally, it has provided a diplomatic firewall for Israel in hostile international forums and wavering capitals.

Has there been a grinding of gears in the U.S.-Israel relationship? Obviously. But as Churchill once put it, “There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.”

The wrong lesson

Israelis often say that the lesson of the Second World War is that, since no one stepped up to save the Jews during the Holocaust, the Jewish state must be prepared to fight alone. This past Holocaust Day, Netanyahu quoted a Holocaust survivor who told him that “gentiles (goyim) who make promises are not to be trusted.”

These heroic survivors are right. In the terrible Holocaust, there were great leaders in the world who stood by, so the first lesson of the Holocaust is this: If we don’t protect ourselves, no one will protect us.

But Israel is more similar to the states of pre-war Europe—Czechoslovakia and Poland, Belgium and Holland, even France and Britain—than to the stateless Jews who perished. Like Israel, these states had sovereignty, armies, industrial bases, weapons factories, and even fleets. However, they lacked strong, committed allies, so Nazi Germany either overran them or, in Britain’s case, bombed them relentlessly.

Their lesson from that war wasn’t that “we will continue fighting human evil even if we must stand alone.” It was that you must never stand alone. If you want to defeat human evil, you must rely on powerful allies. The combination of smallness and isolation invites aggression; strong alliances deter it. Today, these states are all embedded in an alliance system centered around the United States.

Leave no doubt

Israelis are a proud lot, and with good reason. Israel has the size and population of New Jersey. If you dropped New Jersey on the far shores of the Eastern Mediterranean, it might struggle to survive. Americans, both Jewish and non-Jewish, are right to admire a Jewish state that has held its own and more for seventy-six years.

But it’s time for its leader to stop talking like a Holocaust survivor and act like what he is: the head of a sovereign but small state whose job is to leave Israel’s enemies in no doubt that the Jewish state will never stand alone. To even suggest that “the gentiles” might shun it is an invitation to unending assaults. Any leader who errs there should be left by the Israeli people to fight for his own political survival—alone.

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Yom Kippur to Iraq: Wars in Years Ending in ’3

On By Martin Kramer

This year, 2023, marks two significant anniversaries: the twentieth anniversary of the 2003 Iraq War and the fiftieth anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The commemorations of these two anniversaries unfolded on two parallel tracks, which never intersected.

The reason for this divergence is not hard to understand. What common ground could they possibly share? The 1973 war began with a surprise attack by two Arab states against Israel, aiming for limited political objectives. In contrast, the Iraq War was a well-telegraphed American offensive against Iraq, undertaken with the ambitious goal of regime change.

If we draw parallels between Israel and the U.S., then Israel found itself caught in an unwanted war, while the U.S. actively initiated a war it desired. When comparing Egypt and Syria with Iraq, the former launched the offensive, whereas Iraq played a strictly defensive role. The 1973 war involved local Middle Eastern states in conflict, whereas the Iraq War saw the world’s sole superpower confronting an Arab state.

At first glance, drawing comparisons between the wars of 1973 and 2003 might appear unlikely to yield any meaningful insights. However, I wish to attempt the comparison anyway, as there are some underlying similarities that may be relevant to a broader spectrum of conflicts. These parallels could offer lessons for the future, although it’s well-known that deriving practical lessons from history is a perilous proposition.

Past as precedent

The first similarity is that both wars were influenced by earlier conflicts in which Israel and the United States emerged victorious. Israel’s Six-Day War in 1967 resulted in a swift and decisive victory, bringing large Arab territories under its control. Similarly, the United States’ Gulf War in 1991 was a clear win, with the U.S.-led coalition easily liberating Kuwait from Iraqi occupation.

These swift and relatively easy victories bred a sense of exaggerated self-confidence, bordering on hubris, among the victors. In Israel’s case, this led to the belief that no sane Arab state would dare attack it after the humiliating and comprehensive defeat they suffered in 1967. For the U.S., the ease of victory in 1991 fostered the expectation that Iraqis wouldn’t fight back against occupation. These assumptions set up Israel for the shock of the combined Egyptian-Syrian attack and the U.S. for the unanticipated Iraqi insurgency.

Intel and bias

A second similarity involves intelligence failures, rooted in a reluctance to acknowledge information that contradicted the prevailing narratives about the enemy. In Israel’s case, signs of Egyptian and Syrian war preparations were interpreted away as the intelligence assessments ascended the chain of command. Only at the last minute did incontrovertible evidence reach the decision-makers, but by then it was already too late.

In the Iraq case, a similar selective perception led to the exaggeration of unreliable reports about Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction. It was only after the U.S. invasion that the reality became apparent: Iraq did not possess such weapons. In both instances, Israel and the U.S. were misled by deception campaigns: Egypt and Syria fooled Israel into believing their war preparations were just exercises, while Saddam Hussein misled the West into thinking he possessed WMD. (He was under the mistaken belief that such weapons would deter an attack against Iraq.)

Both intelligence failures underwent scrutiny in post-war analyses, which arrived at similar conclusions: preconceived biases had distorted the analysis of the collected information. As a result, Israelis overlooked actual threats, while Americans perceived threats that were non-existent.

Tainted victory

A third similarity is the perception of failure despite achieving military victory. Israel arguably secured its greatest military triumph in the 1973 war: it swiftly repelled and encircled the enemy on both fronts, ending the conflict with more territory than at its outset. Yet, the 1973 war is remembered as a low point in Israeli history, its successes overshadowed by the initial surprise attack and the high number of Israeli casualties.

Similarly, the Iraq War is perceived by many in America as a strategic failure. Despite the U.S.’s rapid overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime and the subsequent “surge” that curbed the insurgency, the conflict led to a prolonged and costly occupation, inadvertently strengthened Iran’s position in the region, and contributed to the emergence of ISIS.

The political price

This leads to the fourth similarity: both wars had profound consequences for the politics of Israel and the U.S. In Israel, the 1973 war eroded public confidence in the Labor party, ending its quarter-century of dominance. In the U.S., the Iraq War and its aftermath deeply polarized public opinion, undermining the Republican establishment along with its neoconservative wing, and spurred a reevaluation of America’s role in the world.

The effects in both cases were not immediate. Despite the public disaffection over the 1973 war, the Labor party under Golda Meir won the parliamentary election two months later, with the government lasting until 1976. (Meir herself resigned from the prime ministership in 1974, succeeded by Yitzhak Rabin.) Similarly, George W. Bush was reelected in 2004, continuing his presidency for another four years.

However, in the longer term, the wars significantly undermined the standing of both Meir and Bush. When historians and experts are surveyed, these leaders frequently rank in the bottom third among prime ministers and presidents, respectively. Moreover, the wars set the stage for the ascendancy of outsiders (and outliers) from the opposition: Menachem Begin in 1977 and Barack Obama in 2008.

Painful reassessments

The fifth similarity lies in how Israel and the United States reassessed their approaches to the Arab world following each war, albeit in opposite directions. Prior to the war, Israel had favored maintaining the status quo, valuing the certainty of territorial control over the uncertainties of peace. The war, however, convinced Israel that peace, even if it required territorial concessions, could bolster its security.

Conversely, the United States had been inclined to break the status quo in pursuit of a “freedom agenda” and the promotion of democracy. The Iraq War and its aftermath led America to conclude that the risks of this approach far outweighed its potential benefits. The 1973 war diminished Israel’s pessimism about peace, while the Iraq War dampened American optimism about promoting democracy. Both events became significant conceptual watersheds.

What’s to be learned?

The lessons drawn from these similarities might seem obvious. Indeed, wars often stem from hubris, particularly the belief that past military successes can be easily replicated. Intelligence failures frequently serve as a prelude or even a necessary condition for war. It’s possible to achieve a military victory yet still feel as though the war was lost. Wars can significantly reshuffle domestic politics, especially when the costs are perceived as excessively high. And certainly, wars prompt the overhaul of previous strategies, necessitating reassessments. These truths apply not only to the wars of 1973 and 2003 but also to many other conflicts that did not share an anniversary this year.

But are these lessons ever truly learned? We find ourselves in the midst of another war in the Middle East, between Israel and Hamas. Already, the initial similarities are evident: Israel lowered its guard, basing its confidence on previous rounds with Hamas which supposedly left Hamas deterred; meanwhile, intelligence, filtered through biases, rendered Israel blind.

And it’s likely that we’ll soon witness the rest unfold. Israel will prevail militarily, but its people already perceive the Hamas war as a new low point. The nation’s political and military leaders likely will pay a steep price for perceived failures. And there will probably be a reassessment of the strategy that aims to bypass the Palestinians entirely in the pursuit of regional peace.

These similarities have yet to fully materialize. Perhaps I’ll revisit them in 2033, when we will be marking not just two, but three war anniversaries.

From a roundtable discussion marking the Iraq War anniversary, annual conference of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA).

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