It's time (again) to ease the Gaza blockade

Photo credit: Flickr

The strictness of the Gaza blockade is dangerous for Israel and devastating for Gazans. Now is the time to change it.

Israel and Egypt let very few goods or people cross the border in or out of Gaza. Israel also restricts fishing to just a few miles offshore. When it was first put into place in 2007, the blockade was intended to punish Gazans for electing Hamas and to make running the territory difficult for it. The hope was that the West Bank would prosper and Gaza would not, convincing the latter's residents of the benefits of a Fatah-led government (the political party of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and former President Arafat). Compelling people to do something via economic sanctions has always had a mixed record (Cuba is a case in point, though some successes are also touted, including apartheid South Africa). From a deterrence standpoint (i.e. for preventing attacks by Hamas), the blockade currently makes little sense.

Easing the blockade directly after the most recent Gaza war would have looked like victory for Hamas and could have undermined deterrence by giving the appearance that violence against Israel pays. Now, however, is a good time to ease. It is obvious that Hamas did not manage to force Israel to ease the blockade: It has not done so and the war is over--for now. Hamas currently shows little inclination towards renewing violence. It makes sense to reward quiet (and not just to punish violence). In addition, some of Israel's own defense officials fear that the worsening economic situation in Gaza could undermine the cease-fire and lead to renewed violence. It seems obvious that, if the blockade harms the Gazan economy and economic hardship may lead to a return to violence, then easing the blockade and bolstering Gaza's economy should prevent such violence.

This is because deterrence seeks to maintain the status quo and there are two ways to do that. The way most security types focus on is punishing deviations from the status quo and making doing so so unpleasant that the other side opts to keep things how they are. The other way is to make the status quo more palatable. This in itself encourages the other side to maintain the status quo, but it also creates more room for punishment should violence rise again.

Given that there is little to recommend the blockade for security purposes, maintaining it is also immoral. It blights Gazans' lives and robs them of opportunities, something that should also be seen as a security risk. Whether viewed from a humanitarian or security perspective (preferably both), the strictness of the current blockade on Gaza makes no sense. The time to move is now, not during or after the next war. Furthermore, moving now could delay or prevent the next war, as well as providing more ways to fight it and giving Israel some much-needed breathing room among its international allies, who increasingly view it as excessively aggressive. Netanyahu has showed little boldness or fresh thinking thus far, here's hoping he can surprise us.

The Unity Deal, Kidnappings, and a New Round of Escalation

About a month ago, I tweeted a link to an article in Haaretz that reflected a rather disturbing aspect of the recent deal between Hamas and Fatah to form a unity government. I was feeling cautiously optimistic about the prospect for this new government to be able to serve as the first unified partner in peace negotiations since Hamas's takeover of Gaza. Even now, this is still a possibility, but I could not shake the feeling that Hamas was attempting to have its cake and eat it to. As a Hamas source put it: "Hamas wants to avoid ministerial responsibility for civilian matters, but it wants to maintain its power as a popular-resistance group." This suggests Hamas wishes for the PA to take responsibility for any domestic difficulties while it avoids having to make tough choices about day-to-day government and can stick to "resistance." The problem with that, of course, is that Hamas's "return address" is still very clearly Gaza. This allowed me to remain cautiously optimistic, but if Hamas is behind the recent kidnapping of three Israeli teens, the unity government seems certain either not to last or to suffer a complete Israeli boycott.

At the same time, the PA has talked about the unity deal in terms of a "weakened" Hamas attempting to save face by running for the PA's protection. This comes across as crowing. With Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu now saying that the PA is responsible for terror attacks emanating from any part of "its" territory, including Gaza (never mind that the PA's control over much of Palestine is tenuous at best and non-existent in Area C where the teens were kidnapped), the perceived humiliation of Hamas via the unity deal, Hamas's apparent desire to return to "resistance," and comments by Hamas's then-Prime Minister that kidnapping Israelis (particularly soldiers) was Hamas's "top priority" to use them as "bargaining chips," it would not be surprising if Hamas were responsible for the disappearance of the three teens kidnapped last Friday. It is a way of showing it is not a spent force, contrary to what the PA suggests, and it would make sense as part of Hamas's stated strategy. That said, Hamas has long said kidnappings were a priority and it's not clear that this would necessarily be the right time. Other Palestinian political groups are also annoyed at being excluded from the talks between the two largest factions, Fatah and Hamas. Some of them are quite well organized. This could just as easily be an attempt by one of them to express displeasure at the deal, weaken it, and score points for continuing "resistance." And who knows? It could be a group a criminals or an unaffiliated group of activists.

Israel's response has been swift (after initial delays, it seems) and forceful: It has run a large search operation throughout the West Bank, focusing in particular on Hebron and, later, Nablus. It has arrested 240 Palestinians since the start of the operation, 180 of them Hamas men. As part of these operations, Israeli soldiers have not always acted in a way that will win them friends among Palestinians. For example, I have heard that some Israeli soldiers had removed three Palestinian families from their homes so they could sleep there. Maybe there was no other option and maybe this was an isolated incident, but it is definitely something that will increase tensions rather than ease them. (Though one must admit that "easing tensions" is understandably not currently part of Israel's agenda.)

All of this may backfire strategically. The PA's president Abbas has said that the kidnap victims must be returned and he had previously said that security cooperation with Israel is "sacred." A Palestinian academic I recently spoke with on the subject related to me that Abbas risks being seen as a "collaborator," further damaging his legitimacy in the eyes of Palestinians. The PA's apparent cooperation with Israel while the latter seems determined to root out Hamas in the West Bank is almost certain to drive a wedge between the two Palestinian groups and destroy the unity government. This may be what Netanyahu wants: To force Hamas back out of an arrangement with Fatah. But it is not clear that weak, divided, and desperate opponents are always the best option for peace and stability over the long term. Israel is right to do whatever it can to rescue its kidnapped citizens and the Palestinian side has often been disappointingly cynical, sometimes denying that the boys were even kidnapped and at other times suggesting that this is entirely equivalent to Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Nevertheless, Netanyahu risks sparking a new round of violence and uniting Palestinians in anger, rather than a mood for conciliation, with his current, divisive approach.

Israel and Palestine: What's the Strategy?

I have argued before (and I'm not the only one) that it is impossible for a conflict to be settled if one side thinks it would do better to continue the conflict. My previous example was Afghanistan, in which all Afghans, including the Taliban, know that the US will not remain forever (see post). The Taliban know that time is on their side. Whenever a disagreement seems intractable, something like this probably lies behind the scenes.

Take the long fight between the Israeli government and authorities representing the Palestinians. There seems to be no ending this fight. But why? It is easy to see why Palestinians believe time is on their side, if for none other than demographic reasons: the Palestinian population of the region, including inside of Israel proper, is increasing more quickly than the Israeli population. Beyond that, there seems to be a general, but gradual, shift in world politics away from unquestioning support of Israel. This has a couple reasons, among them a relative decline of the "West" along with the slow slippage of the Holocaust into something only read about in history books.

In this environment, it would seem wise for Israel to talk tough but to try to find a solution as quickly as possible, allowing it time to mend relations with antagonistic neighbors. Instead, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that Israel will not accept a path to peace that his predecessor had already essentially agreed upon. In effect holding up hopes, then changing the terms at the last minute. There seems to be no rush for peace. What is going on here? There are a few possible explanations:

1. Israelis, too, feel that time is on their side and that the Palestinians will eventually give up hoping for a better solution. This may also fit in with creating "facts on the ground" by continuing settlements on the West Bank, making their eventual removal politically all but impossible in the future. This is like a game of chicken.
2. Another possibility, and this is one that I seem to hear coming from Israel, is the one I call the panic strategy. Israelis are well aware that time is not on their side. Furthermore, they do not believe that even a two-state solution will convince their hostile neighbors to leave them alone. Better, then, to try to push for all concessions they can, now, while they still have clout This, too, is a somewhat different game of chicken.

One of the most important concessions for Israel, and one that is entirely understandable, is that Hamas renounce the use of violence and recognize Israel's right to exist before it even begins to negotiate with it. Ironically, diminished US and European support for Israel might actually end up helping Israel in this regard: as long as the US was seen to be 100% behind Israel, the Palestinians did not feel there was any way to be sure that their concessions would be met with real concessions from Israel. With President Obama putting public pressure on Israel, while still leaving no doubt as to his support for Israel's security, Palestinians may become less uncomfortable with making concessions, while still seeing that Israel is not about to be weakened to the point of making more concessions than it has hinted at in the past.

In such an unstable place, a little more trust could go a long way.