What the Israeli Left Could Learn from “Brexit”

Comparing the rhetoric of the Israeli left with that of British advocates for remaining in the European Union, Liel Leibovitz notes a common thread of disdain for constituents, which he connects to a shared lack of political success:

[H]ave a chat with anyone who still votes Meretz, though you may have to hurry as there are fewer and fewer of them with each electoral cycle. Catch one on a good day. . . and you will probably hear the following account of all that plagues the state of the Jews: Israelis, goes the leftist narrative, used to be reasonable and genial people. They used to believe in peace, which is why they signed the Oslo Accords and welcomed back Yasir Arafat and strove toward a permanent two-state solution. . . . Then, like a devil out of [the work of the Russian novelist Mikhail] Bulgakov, Netanyahu, a Middle East Mephistopheles, appeared on the scene and, with his dark tricks, poisoned hearts and minds, turning Israelis from a gaggle of glowing Labor-voters into a rabble of benighted boobs, always reaching for their pitchforks and always thirsty for blood. If only reason would prevail, cries the Israeli left, peace would soon return. And if it does not, disaster is almost certain.

Omitted from this story, of course, are a few inconvenient facts, including . . . unrequited Israeli concessions and . . . escalating Palestinian incitement and violence. But bring none of this up with the left, please: only fools and racists still talk about things like terrorism or religion or national pride. . . .

If you’ve listened to the [British] Remainers during these last few weeks, you’ve heard this . . . noxious form of condescension in play. . . . To make their case, the Remainers marched out a phalanx of experts, all of whom sternly warned that departure would be disastrous for this reason or that. They also dialed up the anti-Brexiter rhetoric, accusing EU opponents of being chauvinistic xenophobes and promoting the narrative that only the elderly, the unemployed, or those without formal education supported separation from the EU.

Read more at Tablet

More about: Brexit, European Union, Israel & Zionism, Israeli left, Meretz, United Kingdom

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