My views on the context of the Israel-Hamas War. (v1.1)

I had written this some time back. I decided to update it to today and post. 

I don't put much stock on historical claims on any territory or sovereignty anywhere. How far do you go back in time? If you go back far enough, do animals own the whole world? Do American Indians own all of America? Do the British and French and Spanish own all of America? Is Bangladesh really part of Pakistan? If you use this argument, every border and every sovereignty claim in the world would be disputed and the whole world would descend into chaos and strife and ultimately annihilation.  

The only reasonable way to look at it in my view, is with a more modern lens on what the UN and most of the countries recognize as a sovereign state in recent times. Also factored in is the current sovereignty landscape and military strength to back it up, and the desires of the people in the region. Israel is a sovereign state by every single metric of these criteria.  It deserves to live in peace within its borders and prosper. There is no place for actors like Iran and its proxies like Hizballah, Hamas and Houthis whose main goal is to wipe Israel off the face of this earth.  Hizballah and Hamas are designated terrorist outfits by the US and EU. Iran and its proxies want to keep the middle east unsettled and volatile to serve their own ends and Israel to cease to exist. Actors like Saudi Arabia and UAE instead advocate concessions to the Palestinians on the west bank (with the two-state solution as the apex of this) and strive for regional integration, and normalization of relations with Israel. US policy has been a two-state solution with boundaries to be negotiated and has been working on a regional realignment and integration plan that would change the whole equation. The timing of the Hamas attack may be related to advances on this front.  

Israel has been repeatedly attacked. In the 1967 six-day war, it was attacked on multiple sides and gained control of the west bank. The disposition of the west bank is still an unresolved issue. Annexing the west back is not in Israel's interest because then Israel will no longer be a Jewish state with all kinds of consequences for the Jewish people. The alternative is apartheid that the world won't stand for. I am confident the majority of Israelis don't want to annex the west bank if they think it through.  

The current status quo is unstable. The Palestinian people have legitimate aspirations for self-governance. However, the experience in Gaza is not encouraging to Israel when Israel withdrew 20 years ago and allowed independent governance in Gaza. Gaza a couple of years later fell into the hands of Hamas. The west bank Palestinians were given many opportunities to settle the issue the most notable being Clinton's effort which Arafat walked away from although he got most of what he wanted. Clinton was left with mud on his face. It was poor Palestinian leadership. I agree with US policy of a two-state solution as the only reasonable choice. But Israel has to feel safe within its borders given the history of animosity and attacks against it. Many attempts were made to solve this but the forces of keeping things unstable have prevailed. The border between the west bank and Israel is yet to be determined. Unfortunately, I fully understand that the Palestinian lot is not enviable given Israeli rule. After this attack though it may be a long time before there is movement in the two-state solution.   

A change of status of west bank is hard given all the dynamics at play here. Don't know the full history, but they got the west bank in 1967 after they were attacked. There are malign forces both in Palestinian leadership and outside forces who don't want to settle this reasonably factoring in Israeli legitimate security concerns. There is also the Israeli settler movement and the Jewish ultrareligious who want territory. There are sizeable factions in Israel who don't trust the Palestinians as negotiating partners (Mohammad Abbas was elected in 2005 and is 87 years old and hasn't held any elections since so is he legitimate, and will he be around? He is very weak so would he be deposed in a coup, like Hamas in Gaza, if west bank was independent?). I am a realist. Given Israel is powerful, unless its security concerns are addressed and there is a credible negotiating partner and the territorial aspiration in Israel is tamed, there won't be a negotiated solution.  

The boundary between Gaza and Israel is clear. I consider Gaza to be a separate territory from the west bank. It is ruled by a terrorist organization who don't seem to at all care about its people but just their crusade against Israel. Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel. Israel has the right of self-defense. How did Mossad miss this completely? As far as I can see it is not an Arab-Israeli war, nor is it really a Palestinian-Israeli war. It is a Hamas-Israeli war. But Israel's goal of eliminating Hamas, crafted in anger, can at best be looked at as aspirational, but likely unrealistic. But how do you separate ordinary Gazans/hostages/foreigners from the terrorists? That is where it gets really ugly. Israel has to ask itself - How is victory defined? 

The conflict may spread if Syria, Iraq,  Lebanon, West Bank militants, Houthi’s or Iran jump in. The focus of US is to ensure Israel can defend itself with weapons supplied, avoid a spread of this conflict, and support Israel without any US boots on the ground. The misery and deaths of ordinary Palestinians caught in the middle is also an area of deep concern for the US. The US had significant concerns about current Israeli government (corruption charges on Netanyahu, a far-right government, attempt to cripple the courts to rule on laws passed by legislature, a far-right wing base of the disruptive settler movement and the ultra-religious, etc.) but this is about Israel survival.

The Biden administration has done everything it can to try end this conflict, avoid it widening, provide humanitarian aid to the trapped Palestinian citizens, tone down Israel’s devastation on Palestinian civilians and places like hospitals and Mosques, get hostages freed, and get a cease fire in place. But it is not easy at all. Harris, the democratic presidential nominee, is also following these goals but is also more sympathetic to Palestinian misery and longer-term aspirations. It is a nuanced position. The pro-Palestinian/Hamas voters in US need to understand that the choice coming up is not between Harris and Hamas/Palestinians, but between Harris and Trump. Trump is unabashedly pro-Israel and does not give a hoot for Palestinians.