Ireland’s Recent Elections Are Bad News for Israel

Ireland’s parliamentary elections, held two weeks ago, are yet to result in the formation of a new government, but there is reason to expect increased official hostility toward the Jewish state, as Herb Keinon writes:

[P]ro-Israel candidates were roundly defeated across the board, while pro-Palestinian candidates enjoyed a good day . . . at the polls. For instance, . . . Alan Shatter, the sole Jewish MP who served from 2011 to 2014 as both justice and defense minister, and who has been the victim of anti-Semitic swipes for his willingness to speak up for Israel, was defeated. . . .

On the other hand, [the newly elected] Gino Kenny . . . celebrated his election victory . . . by waving a Palestinian flag. . . . Another candidate who won, John Halligan, launched his candidacy in January in the presence of the Palestinian Authority’s ambassador, Ahmad Abdelrazek. . . .

[In addition,] the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign asked candidates to commit themselves to working to end bilateral Israel-Irish arms trade, and to suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Of the 551 candidates, 263 gave some level of endorsement to these pledges, and 142 gave their full commitment.

Read more at Jerusalem Post

More about: Anti-Zionism, Europe and Israel, Ireland, Israel & Zionism, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

 

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF