Reflections on the War on Gaza

Key takeaways

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Reading notes

• This essay looks at the Gaza war of winter 2008–2009 within its broader politico-military context. At the political level, Israel’s post2005 disengagement policies and initiatives with regard to Gaza (and Egypt) and their implications relative to the future of the West Bank are emphasized.
• the line, controlled by the Israeli military, border police, and customs officials, that since 1967 has surrounded the entire Israel-West Bank-Gaza geographic entity. Success in removing Gaza from the envelope—an Israeli objective at least since unilateral disengagement was first envisaged—would convert the line separating Gaza from Israel into an international border and thus reduce the Palestinian-Israeli demographic imbalance by a million and a half Gazans, while simultaneously facilitating the further settlement of the West Bank and rendering impossible the creation of a Palestinian state.
• In concluding these few reflections on the war on Gaza, I cannot but note the failure—or at least the inconclusiveness—of Israel’s three objectives. First, the Israeli army did not prove that it would be capable of waging a successful future land war without casualties in its ranks against an enemy better armed than Hamas. Second, deterrence, unless nuclear and linked to the very survival of the nation, cannot be counted on to succeed if it is limited to threatening civilians with annihilation. The purposeful targeting of civilians depends very much on the degree of permissiveness of the international community when such targeting occurs, and thus cannot be the basis of a military strategy. Third, Israeli pressure did not compel Gaza’s civilian population, Hamas’s leadership, or Egypt to choose between two alternatives for Gaza: a humanitarian catastrophe or a return to the Egyptian fold.