Why the Iraqi Government Fears Peace with Israel

In response to more than 300 leaders and public figures who came together in the Iraqi city of Erbil to call for diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, the country’s president declared the gathering “illegal,” the prime minister accused it of inciting “sectarian hatred,” a court issued arrest warrants for the organizers, and pro-Iranian militias issued death threats. Washington, meanwhile, has been noticeably silent. Eli Lake writes:

[S]o far the U.S. has not offered a word of support for the private Iraqi citizens who are now facing legal and extra-legal threats for seeking [peace with an American ally]. The only public statement from the U.S. came from Colonel Wayne Marotto, the spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq. He tweeted that the U.S. “had no prior knowledge of the event, nor do we have any affiliation with its participants.” In other words, those Iraqis who want peace with Israel are on their own.

In the aftermath of the Erbil conference, one conclusion might be that most Iraqis are just not ready to make peace with Israel. . . . But there is a more plausible conclusion: Israel’s enemies are so afraid of a free debate on the Jewish state that they feel compelled to coerce a false consensus on the matter. As Joseph Braude, an organizer of the conference, told me: “The response has been a massive effort to destroy these people and send a message to the rest of the population who share their views to never open their mouths.”

The U.S. should protect the Iraqis who attended the Erbil conference. This is not only because it is in America’s interest that Iraq have a normal relationship with Israel. It is also because Iraq cannot be considered a free or democratic nation if its militias and courts are used to silence its own citizens.

Read more at Bloomberg

More about: Iraq, Israel-Arab relations, U.S. Foreign policy

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