podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/newshour/id356157099
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The government has closed the gates to an estimated 120,000 Palestinian workers since the war in Gaza began, but hasn’t presented a plan to replace them with foreign workers ■ Meanwhile, business owners who have lost a considerable percentage of their workforce are paying the price
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The dual objectives of freeing the hostages and destroying Hamas are now mutually incompatible, according to interviews with four senior military leaders, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to speak publicly about their personal opinions.
There is also a clash between how long Israel would need to fully eradicate Hamas — a time-consuming slog fought in the group’s warren of underground tunnels — and the pressure, applied by Israel’s allies, to wrap up the war quickly amid a spiraling civilian death toll.
On Thursday, Gadi Eisenkot, a former army chief who is serving in the war cabinet, exposed a rift inside the government when he said in a television interview that it was an “illusion” to believe that the hostages could be rescued alive through military operations.
“The situation in Gaza is such that the war aims have yet to be achieved,” said Mr. Eisenkot, adding: “For me, there’s no dilemma. The mission is to rescue civilians, ahead of killing an enemy.”
The commanders said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s equivocation about a postwar plan for Gaza was at least in part to blame for the military’s predicament on the battlefield.
Mr. Netanyahu has yet to clarify how Gaza will be governed after the war — and the commanders said that without a long-term vision for the territory, the army could not make short-term tactical decisions about how to capture the parts of Gaza that remain beyond Israeli control. Capturing the southernmost part of Gaza, which lines the Egyptian border, would require greater coordination with Egypt. But Egypt is unwilling to engage without guarantees from Israel over the postwar plan, three of the commanders said.
Asked for comment, Mr. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that “The P.M. is leading the war on Hamas with unprecedented achievements in a very decisive manner.” In a speech on Thursday, Mr. Netanyahu promised both to achieve “total victory over Hamas,” and also rescue the hostages.
www.nytimes.com/2024/01/20/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-hostages-strategy.html
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Thursday 18 January 2024
News Notes: Israel
The Inside Story Podcast (1/6/24)
Israeli Cabinet Argument About Military Evaluation
Herzi Halevi, the chief of staff of the Israel Defence Forces
Interview with Ofer Cassif, Member of Knesset, Gideon Levy, Columnist for Haaretz, and Daniel Levy, President of the US Middle East Project
Israeli government fight over proposed military report assessing the events of Oct 7.
Ofer Cassif:
• The debate within the Israeli. The most important issue is to end the war. First, the death toll for civilians is excessive. Second, the death toll of soldiers is extremely high (and likely to go higher). Third the risks to the hostages are enormos. This war should not have begun in the first place.
• “Unfortunately, this government consists of bigots who do not care about the lives, let alone of Palestinians, but not even of Israeli soldiers or hostages. They are just interested in revenge and hatred. That is the main thing that drives them.
Gideon Levy
• “…the politicians, as usual, are breaking away from any responsibility…” It was a historical fiasco on the 7th, and the politicians are doing everything possible to put the blame only on the army…”
• The main issue is continuing the war, but Israel is behind continuing the war at any price.
• At the end of the day it’s a question of who will be held responsible for all the fiascos. The politicians already started in the middle of the war without any shame, blaming everyone but themselves..
Daniel Levy
• The fault line is Israel is between those who say “…eradication, let’s have a second Nakba, let’s remove everyone.” “This is working. We have a very good apartheid system in place…occasionally we say to the world we’re ready to do something…” But we are not.
• Even when the opposition proposes a separate state, it’s not actually a separate state. It is more like “a Bantustan homeland” in an apartheid system than actual Palestinian freedom…”
• “You do not have any party that stands up for Palestinian rights, international law…”
• “…Netanyahu clearly doesn’t want this war to end…”
Ofer Cassif
• Netanyahu “pulls the strings” but he wants us to think he doesn’t. “Netanyahu is not interested in ending the war because he knows that once the war is over there are two alternatives. Either to begin another war, which it seems he’s interested to do in the North, or he’s going to pay the price for the fiasco and the responsibility he bears with his government for the…massacre that occurred.” “He does pull the strings” but he wants to manipulate the public and the international community and to pretend that he is a “hostage” of the larger bigots. He “manipulates and maneuvers the Israeli public and the international public to get what he personally wants.”
• There are differences of interest between Netanyahu and the “fanatics of the so-called religious Zionism.” There are differences in intention, but not in practice. In practice, they think the same and do the same.
Gideon Levy
• Question: During the argument of the cabinet, the former Defense Minister was mentioned. Is it the mention of his name that upset the ultra-orthodox? They said we don’t want him mentioned.
• No, they are just trying to postpone any investigation. This is a diversion.
• There is almost “no one who is clean (innocent) from any point of view.”
• What is being proposed is a military investigation. It is not the investigation that Israel deserves.” Israel needs an independent external investigation “by judges not generals,” but this might still come.
Daniel Levy
• Question: Netanyahu is not on good terms with the military establishment. The military establishment says that Netanyahu doesn’t have a clear plan for how to move forward. Who do you blame for this vague environment?
• “This is a remarkable, violent, destructive campaign….the key thing here (the remarkable thing) is the level of consensus (within the society).”
• The Israeli military was wounded by the 10/7 attack and is happy to pursue this campaign. But, you also have a military that increasingly reflects the society.
• The “national religious settler community” is very much integrated, part of the settler class. We see the images that are coming out.”
• Because of the consensus, change is unlikely to be generated inside the Israeli system. It will require some external vector. And the ability for this horrendous killing, and the humanitarian consequences (starvation, disease) depends on cost and consequence.
• Up until now that hasn’t happened. The US has provided Israel with the weapons and the political cover to continue.
• We have to look (for an external vector) at what South Africa has initiated in the International Criminal Court. This cannot stop the war, but it can generate pressure. “As long as Israel is treated with impunity, it will do its worst.”
Ofer Cassif:
• “We do need international pressure, that’s for sure.”
• But, there must be external and internal pressure. We go out to the street to demonstrate against the war (every week). But without international pressure, and with the support of the Biden administration, we can’t stop it.
• These are “terrible war crimes…the death toll especially of children and the elderly.”
• The South African case is based squarely on things that the members of the Knesset and members of the coalition have said.
• They have used words like “elimination” and “destruction.” We cannot ignore that. “I am in shock” that probably most Israelis support such policies and such language. And I am in disgust with an international community that does not do anything. It is in the interest of the Israelis to stop this killing. The interest of our society is “to be moral.”
Gideon Levy
• Question: The South African complaint is going directly to genocide. Could this be a decisive moment even though it will take time?
• “It is a beginning.” It’s not like we have so many tools. “We are very limited.” “The support of this war is almost overall support. I never remember a war in Israel with so little resistance and so little critic…” The international community continues to “hug Israel.”
• This procedure will take years, but we should start it.
Daniel Levy
• “We see the absolute inadequacy not to say collapse of the international system.”
• I hope that people have given up the illusion that America is a friend here, that America stands up for something in a consistent fashion.
• “There’s no silver bullet” but it’s a “building block.”
• Israelis “will never be liberated from being oppressors if they carry on like that.”
Ofer Cassif
• I still supports a two state solution. For years we have been saying that “the occupation is going to explode.” And it has.
• The “only solution is the two-state solution.”
Gideon Levy
• No. “That is a train that unfortunately has left the station.” There is no room for a real Palestinian state with 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and in Jerusalem. We’d better “stop with this illusion.” It only works to maintain the occupation. We must change the narrative to equal rights. There are two alternatives – it’s either a democracy or an apartheid state.
Daniel Levy
• Israel rejected the two-state solution.
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The Qataris funded Hamas for years, harbored its leaders and legitimized it as a political power. But everything it did was done with full Israeli consent and encouragement. Now, as Qatar is a sort of ‘swing state’ in Middle Eastern politics, its critics better acknowledge that it will have a key role in a reconfigured region
critics say Qatar lavishly funded Hamas, harbored Hamas leaders and enabled the group by legitimizing it as a political power. In short, It’s all Qatar’s fault.
This might be true, but it’s totally devoid of the political context. As such, it is a lazily convenient way of designating a fall guy so as to detract and deflect criticism, and shift the responsibility away from those who should bear it – particularly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
First, Hamas committed the atrocities, not Qatar. Second, Qatar funneled money into Gaza to maintain the Hamas regime at Israel’s request. Third, when Qatar was deliberating whether to stop the payments in 2018, Israel sent high-level emissaries to Doha to plead with the Qataris to continue. Fourth, Qatar is indispensable in mediating the release of Israeli hostages. It has done so already and continues to do so. Fifth, in the broader geopolitical dimensions of a postwar Middle East, Qatar could and should be a central part of the solution, and certainly not the problem.
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Despite U.S. pressure, the only ‘day after’ Netanyahu is concerned about is post-Biden ■ The war cabinet is torn on hostage release, and for Netanyahu, his coalition comes first. If Gantz and Eisenkot bolt the emergency government, it could spark a wave of mass protests on the streets of Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also keeps repeating his empty slogans (“we’ll fight until victory”), but in his case, this stems mainly from considerations of political survival. Netanyahu knows that despite the growing public support for a hostage deal that would include difficult concessions, such a deal would break up his government, because his far-right partners would likely quit over it.
Netanyahu’s failed government is continuing its derelictions and horrifying behavior, from its neglect of evacuees from the north and the south to the incident in which, during an argument in the security cabinet, Transportation Minister Miri Regev reportedly took out a bag of popcorn so she could enjoy the show (according to the public broadcaster Kan).
Something else that could create a domestic crisis is the issue of army investigations into the failures that led up to the October 7 attack. Halevi didn’t properly prepare his announcement that he appointed retired generals to a military inquiry commission to investigate some of these key failures. After he was attacked by several ministers, the plan was frozen.
But this is a missed opportunity, because the IDF must startinvestigating some of these issues now. They involve dramatic errors that also have implications for its present conduct.
Netanyahu, who encouraged his ministers’ attacks on Halevi, is preparing is own move. State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman has already informed the army of his plan to complete an initial report on the war by July.
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Israeli officials and soldiers who have since been in the tunnels — as well as current and former American officials with experience in the region — say the scope, depth and quality of the tunnels built by Hamas have astonished them. Even some of the machinery that Hamas used to build the tunnels, observed in captured videos, has surprised the Israeli military.
The Israeli military now believes there are far more tunnels under Gaza.
In December, the network was assessed to be an estimated 250 miles. Senior Israeli defense officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, are currently estimating the network is between 350 and 450 miles — extraordinary figures for a territory that at its longest point is only 25 miles. Two of the officials also assessed there are close to 5,700 separate shafts leading down to the tunnels.
In a meeting in January 2023, a top Israeli military official said the tunnels would not even be a factor in any future war with Hamas because of Israel’s military strength, according to a transcript of the discussion reviewed by The New York Times.
“Hamas has used the time and resources over the last 15 years to turn Gaza into a fortress,” said Aaron Greenstone, a former C.I.A. officer who has worked extensively in the Middle East.
Hamas released a video in November showing how it lured a group of five Israeli soldiers to a tunnel entrance in Beit Hanoun and then used a roadside bomb to kill the soldiers.
Ms. Richemond-Barak said Hamas had imported the tactic from Syrian rebels who killed dozens of government troops in a tunnel attack in 2014 in Aleppo.
Hamas has improved its ability to conceal the tunnels, but the senior official said the Israeli military had figured out one of the group’s operating models. The official called it the “triangle.” Whenever the Israeli military finds a school, a hospital or a mosque, soldiers know they can expect to locate an underground tunnel system beneath them, the official said.
Destroying the tunnels is not an easy task, the official said. They need to be mapped, checked for hostages and not just damaged but made irreparable. Recent attempts to demolish the tunnels by flooding them with seawater have failed.
The official estimated it could take years to disable the tunnel system.
www.nytimes.com/2024/01/16/us/politics/israel-gaza-tunnels.html
Haaretz
The Israeli army’s spokesperson said that the IDF destroyed a strategic tunnel used for terrorist activity, that connected between the north and south of the Gaza Strip.
According to the announcement, the tunnel was hundreds of meters long and 90 meters deep, and was used by Hamas terrorists for getting across the Strip.
Law, Power, and Justice 