As Israel continues to eliminate Gaza ...
The deeply uncomfortable historical analogies continue to arise
I have written here in the past my sense of Israel’s grand strategic logic with regard to Gaza and Hamas.
It's go time for Greater Israel
From the river to the sea, radical acceptance of what inevitably will be
Basically, Israel can no longer live with Gaza as a permanent threat vector — not after Oct 7.
Hamas cannot be erased, but Gaza can.
Israel takes that path by bombing the entirety of the place into rubble, making it uninhabitable even as Palestinians are subsequently re-admitted, the goal being for conditions there to be so bad that eventually these people want out and grow willing to go anywhere for relief.
Basically, engineering a humanitarian disaster to achieve ethnic cleansing.
To call it anything else is a euphemism.
Key to this concentration of suffering: denial of external aid efforts, and this is where the historical analogies get brutal for all involved.
During WWII, Nazi Germany imposed severe restrictions on aid to Jews who had been forcibly concentrated in ghettos designed to become uninhabitable with time. Ghettos were — in effect — a way station as the regime tried to think through ways of encouraging their departure from Europe while fleecing whatever wealth they had. It wasn’t until the Wannsee Conference in 1942, by which time it was clear to the German leadership (other than Hitler) that the two-front war was destined for doom, that the regime decided to go all-in on exterminating the remaining Jews in Europe — their truly insane “gift” to history and the world.
If you want to understand the banal evil of that decision-making process, see the HBO movie Conspiracy. It is Hannah Arendt’s analysis made manifest. It is the ultimate bureaucratic horror film.
What you hear in this historical film: They know that what they’re doing is right and good, and that history will thank them for their diligence and courage in ridding the world of this “evil.”
[Hmm, which conspiracy does that remind you of right now? How many “evil” sub-populations are out there needing to be eliminated for “goodness” and “greatness” to reign supreme?]
We live in an Age of Absolutism — one in which compromise and tolerance is judged to be weakness and defeatism.
Not terribly surprising given the pace of technological advance combined with the turn of the millennium (we are still operating in its historical shadow): big changes create big uncertainty create big fear create big hatreds.
And, as Darwin and evolution teach us: it’s the most intransigent species and those most unwilling to change who are … doomed.
I watch Conspiracy regularly, like once a year, to remind me. I do the same thing with docs about 9/11, because it’s important to understand — truly understand — where people are coming from, which is why, when I realized that Oct 7th was the worst killing day for Jews worldwide since WWII, I knew instinctively that Israel’s practice of “mowing the grass” was over. This time it would be truly scorched earth designed to prevent any recovery whatsoever.
I understand and support Israel’s decision to eliminate the Gaza Strip. It was and remains simply untenable as a long term solution. It also denies Hamas that workspace, so to speak — not now but once complete.
Completing that process involves a certain amount of deception, which also brings up very uncomfortable historical analogies of how the Nazis pulled the wool over the eyes of investigating Red Cross representatives. It involves all manner of diplomatic lying about long-term intentions, along with regularly “oops” excuses when, say, relief workers are accidentally or not so accidentally targeted and killed.
Israel is most definitely not playing fair, choosing the trauma of Oct. 7 to justify their strategy — not unlike how the US did with 9/11.
In the end, these things are always a choice — not a given.
WAPO: Israel enacts exacting new rules for aid groups assisting Palestinians
By deception, I mean, whatever Israel says or does about Gaza that may seem like it is seeking a solution, ultimately the government is engaged in sabotaging the Gazan recovery on every level possible — again, the end-goal being to encourage/force the departure of sufficient numbers so that an incremental annexation process of settlement and reconstruction can unfold (and yes, that includes entertaining fantasies along the lines that will keep Trump enticed for as long as he is in power, so time is of the essence).
It is better for Israel for this whole process to unfold slowly within the confines of the Trump administration, meaning they have until January 2029 to get this done. The time allows for periodic showy compromises (ceasefires) where all Israel has to do is wait for Hamas to revert to its normal behavior — thus justifying the next stage of Gaza’s elimination.
Since I have written about this before, why bring it up again now?
This article:
ALJAZEERA: US, Israel want to displace Palestinians from Gaza to East Africa: Report; Officials from US and Israel say governments of Sudan, Somalia and Somaliland have been asked to take in people of Gaza.
Historically speaking, just way too on the mark — right down to East Africa as the focal point.
Do I believe Al Jazeera on this one? Yes, I do. Pushing Palestinians on these three failed/vulnerable states is just a path of least resistance. If it works out, then great. And, if it doesn’t, still great because all we’re despoiling (further) are nations already in ruins.
Either way, it would work as a way to get rid of people in large numbers.
Plus, it’s just the logical next step when Jordan and Egypt balk at the prospect, having both taken in so many Palestinians in the past to their detriment.
It also works, for the Trump Administration, in its complete turnaround of US foreign policy on Russia, both (a) sidelining Putin on this point (particularly to the extent this all gets tied up with a comprehensive beatdown of Iran in the works) while (b) blessing his similar efforts as he pushes to grab annexed Ukrainian territories that still remain outside his military reach.
It is also brutally reflective of a realist logic that says, amidst this emerging superpower (US, EU, Russia, India, China) competition for global influence, there is no point in allowing Cold War “tailbones” to possibly trigger WWIII.
I first broached that logic in my 2005 book, Blueprint for Action.
Who cares if Russia gets Ukraine? Does that really change any great global correlation of forces? In truth, it does not.
Same for Taiwan with China.
Hell, we’d love it if China just eliminated the Kim regime in North Korea and took it over.
My point is this: the Palestinian question is viewed along similar lines in this realist perspective: Why should the region suffer instabilities and terror and delays in its inevitable rise within the global economy (led by the Gulf monarchies, of course, but Israel is a real player there too) over this population that NOBODY in the Arab world is willing stand up for in any meaningful way, instead preferring to keep it as a cudgel against Israel for all time?
The Arab world has had decades to solve this problem and chose not to do so time and again.
Truly, at this point, just saying “two-state solution” is surrendering to Israel’s harsh-but-logical decision, because all you’re doing with that phrase is fostering the illusion that any other way out the current trajectory remains possible.
By that I do not rule out the possibility of a small West Bank Palestinian state someday; I’m just ruling out that Gaza will ever be part of anything along those lines.
In the realist mindset, then, this isn’t personal, it’s strictly business. Palestinian independence makes about as much sense as Tibetan independence — meaning, zero because expending great treasure and blood to try and achieve it will never produce that outcome.
Radical acceptance says, move beyond this problem (and its suboptimal outcomes) and find other, better ones to solve.
And yes, that is me in high realist near-term mode, which can often strike people as decidedly cruel and morality free. I just find this approach to be a necessary intellectual and moral counterweight to my long-term idealism regarding globalization’s future iterations.
In short, when I weigh climate change, demographic collapse in the North, and the rise of the global majority middle class concentrated more to the South, I do not recognize any logic in embracing this quartet of challenges (Ukraine, Taiwan, NorKo, Palestine) to the extent of extending or replaying Cold War dynamics between East and West. I see that whole endeavor as an almost criminally stupid — in a grand strategic sense.
Why?
The needs of the many (entire Global South, or roughly half of humanity) outweigh the needs of the few (quartet of untenable states in a superpower-dominated world order).
Grand strategy, in my definition and practice, is the balancing of near-term realism with long-term idealism — a classic ends-justify-the-means approach.
And yeah, I know that, nowadays, that formulation is typically offered as a brutal criticism.
But it still works and always will. Comprises will be made. Those compromises will deny some and empower others — no doubt. But, it is in that weighing of alternatives (scenario-based planning) that the right calls become clear: Would you rather?
Would you rather risk WWIII with a Russia still undergoing a long-term imperial collapse or make Kyiv knuckle-under now and play the longer game with a mortal Putin whose regime will collapse like a house of cards upon his death?
I know that is some FDR-level long-term self-confidence, but I vote for strategic patience there — and confidently so.
Would you rather risk WWIII over Taiwan with a China right as it bumps up against some serious reform requirements at home?
No, I would rather not, confident as I am in our ability to beat China long-term on everything we expect the Singularity to be.
As for North Korea? I’m all in for any superpower collusion that terminates that regime with extreme prejudice. It is a waste of everybody’s time.
And yeah, for me, Palestine falls into that same basket of deplorables — or things I am NOT willing to sacrifice global progress for.
And that’s why I watch WWII docs all the time: to remind me why Israel was created and how morality is still on that country’s side.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Thomas P.M. Barnett’s Global Throughlines to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.