The Politics of Martyrdom Invite the Politics of Extermination

Israel is following a kind of logic, but where does it lead?

We are all horrified by the war on Gaza. But there is some logic to it, despite the pervasive lack of reason. Hamas has set itself up as the never-say-die defenders of Palestinian ideals. Which appear to consist of the non-existence of Israel, and the resumption of Palestinian occupation of all its historical lands. (Though it has to be said that they had been ruled by a long succession of outside powers, from the Romans to the British.) Hamas cared little about the actual Palestinians, who have been pawns in its larger play for power and martyrdom. Like the PLO in earlier decades, Hamas has largely been carrying on an idealistic PR campaign of moral absolutism, resisting the occupier, to the last breath and drop of blood. So they posited that the survival of any member of Hamas was a victory for the "movement". This makes sense in a PR sense, as a moral position against oppression.

But all this also implies the nature of the Israeli response. Against an enemy that never negotiates, or concedes, or makes peace, the only solution (as the Romans found millennia ago) is extermination. Against an enemy that hides behind its own civilians and thinks nothing of operating out of hospitals and schools, in an attempt to play on the residual morality of its enemies, one can understand that compassion takes a back seat to effectiveness.

This is not to say that Israel is right either. They have compounded their original sin of terrorism and violent expropriation by more violence, more injustice, and the slow torturous drip of more expropriation. The West Bank continues to be eaten away by settlers and official Israeli state policy, and Gaza was under debilitating embargoes / sieges. Israel thought it was secure behind its border wall, but it turned out not to be so beautiful after all, for either side. But after the long historical process that has played out, Israel has all the power- the bombs, the planes, the organized political system and military. Hamas and the Palestinians generally have lost every war, and have little but their moral indignation and hatred to stand on. Turning that into extremist absolutism and martyrdom is a recipe for an even worse outcome. 

Their Muslim neighbors and allies took a couple of stabs at helping them, but lost each war to Israel, in comprehensive fashion. Their continuing assistance to the Palestinians is little more than cynical ploy to keep the Palestinians irritated and irritating, without risking their own necks. This was first the role of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, but that mantle has more recently been taken up by Iran. And now Israel is calling Iran's bluff, taking the fight to all its proxies and to Iran itself. They have not set themselves up for extermination, but rather for deterrence, whatever level of destruction that will take. The idea that Hezbollah could just pepper Israel with artillery at will without any reply was not realistic. 

So, can Israel carry out all these logical aims- to exterminate Hamas and degrade Hezbollah and Iran sufficiently to deter further guerilla warfare? That depends on its resolve and military capacity. But it also depends on its resolve to diffuse the overall Palestinian conundrum that, in the grand scheme of things sponsors all these antagonisms, by making a grand deal that finalizes a Palestinian state and territory. And that is where the current government of Israel is fatally uninterested and incapable. It looks like this government would rather be the new Rome, projecting power throughout the Middle East, collectively punishing Palestinians, and forcing Palestinians into a modern international diaspora, (and making itself into a semi-autocratic militarized state along the way), than it is in learning from its own history.

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