ISRAEL HAS NO GOOD OPTIONS (3 Bad Options):
By massively attacking Israel out of Gaza, Hamas has forced Israel to decide between 3 terrible options. Let’s look at each one:
OPTION 1: Bomb Gaza into oblivion the way the Russians destroyed Grozny or destroyed Mariupoul, Ukraine. Gaza is a tiny little walled in corner of Israel the size of Washington D.C. but with 2.3 million people (Israel itself is only the geographic size of New Jersey). In this first option, it is total destruction and elimination of Gaza’s buildings, infrastructure, and possibly all of its people. It’s shooting fish in a barrel. Most people in Gaza live in apartment blocks which means the entire territory is just buildings with tons of people in them all crowded together (and 50% of them are children). If Israel just bombs Gaza into oblivion, that would be like the world watching the island of Manhattan (NYC) filled with 50% children get bombed from the sky. The death toll would probably be 10 times higher (yes higher) than at HIROSHIMA after it was struck by an Atomic Bomb. It would be a televised massacre of mostly children. No matter how badly Israel needs safety and wants revenge, a death count 10 times that of Hiroshima or Nagasaki is not something the world will support.
That leaves OPTION 2: Soften the ground with air power bombing Gaza, and then launch an invasion of Gaza by sending in troops. This is the option Israel seems to be choosing and most likely will stick with. Israel has dreaded doing this before, and has only done it on a small, temporary scale and it did not go well. Why?
Israel has to go into this densely populated area (Manhattan filled with 50% children and a large population of males that own machine guns) and literally go door to door and building to building having firefights, falling into booby-traps, trying to find and use informants, getting shot at by non-military people, suicide bombers and other non-Hamas fighters, finding all of the terrorists (impossible), and rescuing the hostages (that are possibly not even in Gaza or Israel anymore or at the very least are all spread out amongst many different locations in Gaza).
With 2 million people in tiny, boxed-in Gaza, Israel would need an enormous amount of soldiers to go street by street. They will try this anyway, but they will be short of troops, it will be very, very slow, and a very high percentage of Israel’s soldiers will die and some will be taken hostage–further complicating the hostage situation. Israel’s firepower is so strong, however, that hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza (some terrorists, some not) will be out-gunned and killed. For each 1 Israeli that dies, at least 10 to 100 Palestinians will die.
Yes, Israel has practiced this and prepared for it—but they have always dreaded it because this is worse than Vietnam, this is much worse than Fallujah. Every moment will include mass murder by one side or the other. This is the option Netanyahu is saying they will do. He warns it will be long and difficult and that the goal is to destroy every single Hamas member. And the images on television will reflect badly on Israel or badly on the Palestinians (depending on your TV news network and in what country you are in–and which oligarch owns it and what their politics are) and the Hamas terrorists will never be truly caught nor will the hostages be found. Israel probably knows this already. They have regretted making deals with Hamas for hostages in the past and the hostages are not really the priority at this point. National survival is.
The surrounding of Israel by enemies on multiple fronts would probably happen with this scenario too. It will be 2 million people in Gaza alone going against a few thousand Israelis and that is just on one front. Perhaps a humanitarian corridor can be created to let out women and children, perhaps Egypt will allow 2 million people to be settled in refugee camps on their border, perhaps Arab nations will take in 2 million refugees (unlikely), regardless, most people are willing to stay, die, and fight for their homes and seek revenge for their families. So an international evacuation cannot be a complete solution. Too much blood has been spilt and many of the refugees will be radicalized even if they leave Gaza and end up in camps or prison.
This is all part of Hamas’ trap for Israel. To truly be safe and survive, Israel really needs to invade at least half of Lebanon, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and possibly parts of Syria. If we believe Israel will go all out to survive–that is what we are talking about. Hamas’ hope is that this could lead to Hezbollah (also supported by Iran) attacking Israel from Lebanon. That would most likely draw Lebanon into war with Israel and the US providing logistical support against Hezbollah. That could provoke Syria (under Russia’s guidance) to join the fight and would lead to Iraqi, Iranian, and Afghan jihadists coming in from the East. That would have Israel pretty much be surrounded.
Then there is OPTION 3: Do very little in response. Bomb and invade Gaza for a while, do severe damage to Hamas, withdraw, and make a deal with the Arab States to bring a regional cease-fire. Most Arab nations would actually want this to happen. There would be a few weeks and months of bombing, while the EU, the USA and Arab States buy off, or bribe Hamas to release the hostages and come to an agreement. Maybe the US and NATO threaten Iran behind the scenes (which seems to have just happened yesterday). This will be tried, regardless. But as Netanyahu told Biden, “in this neighborhood you can’t show weakness.” That’s true. Option 3 is a response that is too weak and would just signal to Hezbollah, ISIS, Al-Qaeda and any nation hostile to Israel that Israel is on the brink of collapse. If Israel chooses “peace” or “negotiation,” that will embolden their enemies and make them feel like their tactics are working. Consequently, Israel probably feels that this response has to be long, violent, and relentless. No peace. No negotiation. Look for Option 2 which leads to the next point: This can spread very rapidly.
HOW THE CONFLICT CAN SPREAD RAPIDLY
Regardless of the 3 options, there will be one inevitable result: Other countries, lone wolfs around the world, and jihadists will join this fight. Whether it’s Shiite Iraqis, or Taliban fighters, or Al-Qaeda, or ISIS, or Syria via Russia—if this becomes A HOLY WAR to get revenge on Israel, it will become a multi-national war quickly. It already is a HOLY WAR for Israel now. So This will mean attacks on synagogues and Jewish communities all around the world. All Jews and the State of Israel will be targeted and this would most likely force the United States into joining the war to protect Israel. It will also probably lead to more security threats, more attacks on cities, and a return to the post 9/11 atmosphere of late 2001.
The most alarming thing is that it only took 2 to 3 days for some of these things I just mentioned to start coming together. That’s a bad, bad sign. Predictable, but very bad. Saudi Arabia which is split between the pro-Palestinian King’s camp and the pro-Globalization-with-Israel camp announced that it was siding with Palestinians in Gaza. So did Iraq. So did Yemen’s Houthi rebels who promised to send fighters if the US gets involved. Hezbollah has threatened to join if the USA joins and is already firing rockets. NATO member and “ally” authoritarian Turkish leader Erdogan is also strongly supporting Palestine. Afghanis requested permission to travel across Iran to join the jihad. And the real war in Gaza hasn’t even started.
For about a couple of decades, the Arab World had forgotten about Palestine. The New Arab world was about Dubai, Qatar, turning Saudi Arabia into a sports-hub, and making alliances with anyone that can make them money (including Jews in Israel). This has angered Iran, jihadists, and Palestinians. Hamas has now successfully made destroying Israel the Arab World’s number one priority again. That will grow as Israel takes its revenge. Playing golf and football in Saudi Arabia and vacationing in Dubai is going to get much less attractive quickly.
In some sense, this war between Israel and Hamas is now out of their hands–and that’s a KEY POINT. Both sides could choose peace tomorrow, but ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Russia via Syria, Turkey via Kurdistan, the Taliban, and lone wolf attackers may already have decided, “this is the opportunity to strike.” Even if they don’t, Israeli Jews are already shooting their Palestinian neighbors in Jerusalem. Israeli settlers are already taking up arms and getting revenge without the help of the Israeli army or government. Muslim groups are already promising to take up arms. This quickly becomes a cultural, religious war based on ancient historical grievances for anyone who is Jewish or subscribes to militant Islamist ideology. That will become the rocket fuel, not what the political leaders of Hamas and Israel decide. The evil genie is out of the bottle.
THE AXIS OF AUTHORITARIANISM: As a response to the rapid integration of globalization, the extreme rich-poor divide it created, and challenges it brings to local and national culture, many nations have chose to deal with the challenge by following authoritarian leaders who promises to take everyone back to a “golden age” (same promise Osama Bin Laden made). Brazil, Hungary, Turkey, the Philippines, China, Iran, Russia, and other countries have seen authoriatrian leaders gain power to “make things right.” They rely on the culture wars, xenophobia, and idealism about the nation’s glorioius past to divide the nation and weaken democracy. Nations like France and the United States flirt with the idea of becoming authoritarian nations, but the jury is still out. The first goal of this form of authoritarianism is to gain complete control of the institutions and political processes of the country. It’s about power.
But there is a second agenda that has been growing that deserves a post of its own (the focus of my next post). Neither Russia, nor China, nor Iran, nor Saudi Arabia, nor North Korea can hope to replace the United States as the premier global power. But all four nations want to see the end of American power (and that includes the US dollar losing currency reserve status). What would weaken the USA the fastest is culture wars–a civil war, replacing the dollar with a new alternative, forcing the USA to overspend by going to war, or for the USA to stop being a functional democracy and become an authoritarian non-democratic state. That is exactly where Israel was headed before the October 7th attacks: A democracy dying and headed toward civil war with each other). Any chaos these 5 countries can stir is to their advantage and weakens the United States.
It’s pretty clear that the tactics used by Hamas come from their Russian and Iranian training. These are the same Russians that Netanyahu had been cosying up to for years in order to win Israel’s culture wars and remain in power (see photos of him and Putin together recently). Under Netanyahu, the Russian mafia has an enormous amount of power and operates a large sex-trafficking network out in the open from Tel Aviv. Russian billionaires hide their wealth and live in Israel. Security looks the other way. Hamas relies on the Russians for training and the Iranians for weaponry. The drones they used most likely came from Iran. Israel’s leadership naively got caught up in the games Saudi, Russia, and Iran in particular have been playing and weakened themselves. It also starts a trap for the United States: US carriers are already headed to the Mediterrenean and that will be explored in the next post.
I suggested World War 3 may have already started. We already have a war in Europe (Nato & Ukraine vs. Russia with assistance from China, Iran and North Korea—-drones, weapons, political support). Now we have a war in the Middle East (Israel and its Western allies vs. Hamas (most likely to be supported by many Arab states and terrorist groups). So that’s war in Europe, also in the Middle East….and what if China invades Taiwan (Asia)? Sounds pretty World Warish to me.
The axis of authoriarians are setting it up so that the US will quickly be in a trap like the one Hamas set for Israel. In the next post I will discuss how the United States is itself trapped now, how this benefits Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and China–but also how it has the potential to backfire enormously on all 4 nations. In their effort to weaken the United States’ dominant global influence, they will need to risk their own regimes.