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

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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.

Easing the Gaza Blockade

Since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, Israel and Egypt have enforced a blockade on the territory. The intention was to weaken Hamas by cutting it off from weapons and other supplies and to weaken support for it by making life difficult for Gaza’s residents. Hamas has still succeeded in arming itself and, though support for the group has fallen, it is not clear that this is due to the blockade nor is Hamas’s imminent downfall apparent (though this is a region where attempting to predict the future often proves to be a foolhardy endeavor). The blockade thus does not seem to be working. Israel has instead entered a tenuous deterrence relationship with Hamas, whereby retaliations for Hamas violence against Israel have mostly kept that violence to a minimum. The prospects for continued deterrence, albeit with occasional outbreaks of hostilities, are reasonably good, but the blockade does not necessarily help them. Given the massive cost of the blockade in terms of lost opportunities and economic hardship for the residents of Gaza and the damage this does to Israel’s reputation, one wonders if the policy can safely be eased—to everyone’s benefit.

Deterrence relies on threats of punishment if an opponent alters the status quo. It also relies on a promise of no punishment if the status quo is maintained. This doesn’t mean a deterrer must reward an opponent for good behavior, but it doesn’t rule that out, either. What’s more, there are reasons that easing the blockade could even help bolster deterrence. This could work in three ways. Perhaps the most obvious is that, by making the status quo more tolerable, the threat of punishment becomes that much worse. An additional factor, however, and one that is often overlooked by overly hawkish deterrence practitioners and theorists alike, is that deterrence often breaks down due to “push” factors rather than due to opponents taking advantage of a perceived weakness. A Gaza resident I recently spoke to told me how Gazans felt in 2008 in the run-up to the 2008-09 Gaza war: People were so fed up and angry, and had grown so accustomed to the idea that a war with Israel was coming, that many felt that any change, even a war, was better than the status quo. If your opponent prefers a war with you to leaving things as they are, deterrence will be difficult to say the least, and an eventual reconciliation or peace deal even more so.

The final reason that easing the blockade can help deterrence is that it may grant Israel greater leeway in the case of future escalation. A gracious Israel that, despite having previously been attacked by its neighbor, eases restrictions on it, ought to have an easier time gaining support for future reprisals if it suffers violence. This also provides the opportunity to wrong-foot anti-Israel campaigners: If they continued to claim Israel was acting unjustly in Gaza, it would be clearer that their problem is more about what Israel is than what it does—a sign of prejudice behind a veil of humanitarianism.

Easing the blockade needn’t mean dealing with Hamas or easing sanctions on it. It needn’t happen all at once, either, and could be reversed in steps as easily as it is eased in steps, provided more possibilities for deterrence-related reprisals. This means there is little risk in easing the flow of goods and people across the border and much to gain in terms both of security and quality of life. One caveat though: Easing must only be done during periods of quiet and it should be done then. Easing after a period of escalation rewards that escalation. Given recent rocket barrages from Gaza, now wouldn’t be the best time, but if things settle down again soon, soon would be a good time.