How Israel Found Itself in a Second Coronavirus Lockdown

As the Jewish new year begins, with its many holidays, Israelis will be confined to a 500-meter radius around their homes, and a series of other stringent measures similar to those imposed in March at the height of the COVID-19 crisis are going into effect. The restrictions come amidst much dissatisfaction over the government’s handling of the situation. Raphael Bouchnik-Chen explains how the threat from the virus again became so dire:

The second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in Israel is proving to be more severe than its predecessor, and the data on its spread are dizzying. . . . The current dramatic infection rate in Israel is not preordained but largely an outcome of public contempt and disregard for social-distancing instructions that rendered the decisions of the political and professional echelons totally ineffectual. This tendency was also fueled by the perceived application of different standards for different sectors when it comes to enforcing restrictions on gatherings, and especially by the focus on very specific population groups.

The legal restrictions that prevent decision-makers from enforcing social-distancing restrictions on the mass demonstrations outside the prime minister’s residence—in flagrant violation of Supreme Court President Aharon Barak’s ruling that limited demonstrations opposite Prime Minister Yitzḥak Rabin’s official residence during the Oslo process—are a Pyrrhic victory for the self-styled defenders of the “freedom of expression.” Apart from its immediate adverse health implications, the inevitable consequence of this absurdity is to encourage defiance even among those who have already internalized the need to obey the rules.

And as if that were not enough, agenda-driven public-health “experts” and commentators keep saying the demonstrations should continue and even broaden in scope since there is no danger of infection in the open air.

If implemented with resolve, aptitude, and sensitivity, this lockdown could curb the rising infection rate just as its predecessors did during the first wave in Israel and around the world.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Coronavirus, Israeli politics

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