The Socialist International Turns against Israel

Last month, the Socialist International (SI)—a large and once highly respected coalition of left-wing parties—issued a declaration calling on its members to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel. Israel’s Labor party, a long-time member, responded by quitting the SI. Elliott Abrams comments:

Once upon a time, the Socialist International was an extraordinary organization. Founded in 1951 as a successor to various prior socialist groups, it was staunchly democratic and anti-Communist, and played an important role during the cold war. Members included such luminaries as Felipe Gonzalez of Spain and Mario Soares of Portugal, and the SI helped them and their socialist parties re-establish their countries as democracies. The SI included people like [West Germany’s socialist and anti-Communist chancellor] Willy Brandt and Golda Meir. Those were the good old days. . . .

The declaration denounces Israel’s actions on the Israel-Gaza border without one single word of comment, much less condemnation, of Hamas. . . . It [also] “reaffirms its commitment…to bringing a complete end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian state that started in 1967.” Now that’s an interesting formulation, because there was no Palestinian state for Israel to occupy in 1967—just territory governed by Jordan and Egypt.

The SI has a long history and will continue in existence, doing good work and bad. But it is sad to see what was once a staunch defender of democracy and human rights collapsing into allowing non-democratic parties to [join] and into using the usual leftist canards. . . .

I note that while Israel’s Labor party is no longer an SI member, guess which party in that region is? Fatah—Yasir Arafat’s old party, now led by Mahmoud Abbas. Fatah, whose leadership has never been chosen democratically and which rules the West Bank without elections, free speech, or freedom of the press.

Read more at Pressure Points

More about: Anti-Zionism, Communism, Fatah, Golda Meir, Israel & Zionism, Labor Party, Socialism

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