What should have israel done instead?

Politics and religion
3741

Netanyahu and his ilk need Iran. Without an external threat they can plausibly sell to domestic and foreign (that is, US) audiences, they’d be forced to deal with the real issues facing Israel, like the occupied territories, Palestinians, their own growing religious right, and all that. Far preferable to whip everyone up about a threat that they can confront with conventional military power, and even better one that the USA has had a problematic relationship with.

Iran has a leadership that has veered this way and that over the years since the revolution, but yeah, it’s basically unpleasant and has rather hostile views of Israel. Which makes it pretty much like every other government in the region. True, the Iranians have been proactive in terrorist support and involvement in various regional conflicts, but again, this is pretty much the norm for folks in and out of the region. And right now they’re actually shooting at the ISIS types, and working with the Shia in Iraq to oppose what is a far nastier bunch of people than anyone in Tehran.

Listening to Netanyahu on the radio, he’s playing the basic Israeli trump cards we all know and love. Israel is beset by enemies, Iran is an existential threat, Jews won’t go calmly to the slaughter, never again! Etc. The litany is getting old, though. Israel is by far the strongest country in the region. Iran has never, in its entire history, shown suicidal tendencies, nor has it ever demonstrated a willingness to openly attack Israel or really anyone else. Tehran has supported very bad people and done some very bad things, but, erm, so has Israel, the USA, the Saudis, Kuwait, and pretty much everyone over there and beyond.

Do I “trust” the Iranian leadership? Not really, not if by “trust” you mean do I think they will be good boy scouts and adhere to the spirit and letter of whatever agreement we can get them to sign. They will probably more or less go along with agreements, but I fully expect them to continue a clandestine capability to at least work on nuclear weapons. But the thing is, you can’t stop that. Ever. What the Israeli government now is asking for is in effect for the US to stonewall Tehran into doing something that would allow Israel to bomb them, which I’m pretty convinced would not actually have the effect of ending the nuclear threat such as it is. Then again, I’m not sure Israel really wants the Iranians to stop being a threat.

The US and Iran are getting close to the point where we might, just might, be able to start mending fences. There are those in Israel for whom that is scary as hell. In the long run, all Israel has to offer us strategically is a bad ass military, but one that we can’t really rely on to be in sync with our policies. Our cultural ties are strong, but you can see how the relationship has changed over time. It’s a much more murky calculus now, and that scares the Israelis, because for the last forty years they’ve built their entire security strategy on making everyone else in the region insecure, knowing that we’d back them up and that we sort of wanted it that way. But things are changing, and Israel’s real challenges are internal. That’s a much harder nut to crack, and there’s virtually no political hay to be made in those fields.

I think Netanyahu’s visit is really part of this floundering about, and it’s something that overall is potentially very worrisome.

3742

Then again, I’m not sure Israel really wants the Iranians to stop being a threat.

Sigh - The current Israeli government. Not “Israel”.

And you really can’t see having a democracy for a friend and a decent economic and trade partner is worth something? You’re basically arguing that Israel needs to spend far more on weapons, you realise?

3743

Netanyahu and his ilk need Iran. Without an external threat they can plausibly sell to domestic and foreign (that is, US) audiences, they’d be forced to deal with the real issues facing Israel, like the occupied territories, Palestinians, their own growing religious right, and all that

Eh, I understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t think this is really true.

The Israelis aren’t really benefiting from that strife. They most definitely want to achieve some sort of peace accord with the Palestinians, because it’s not good in any way for Israel as it is now.

The problem is that they have numerous enemies who exploit Israel every time they let their guard down at all, and end up attacking Israeli civilians. And this itself makes it very difficult to deal with the Palestinians in a productive manner, since they are forced to essentially keep barriers up for protection. And then you have Hamas and crap firing rockets into Israel periodically, making shit blow up even more.

It’s easy to say that Israel’s enemies are manufactured, because the Israeli threat is manufactured by those enemies to placate their people… But in the case of Israel, it most certainly does face an existential threat from its neighbors. This isn’t an imagined threat like Iraq somehow blowing up the US. The enemies of Israel most definitely DO want to destroy Israel as a country. They want them to no longer exist.

It’s hard for us to appreciate that, given how secure we are in the US… but I think we need to recognize that Israel is not merely the target of tough talk, but actually has people firing weapons at their civilian population, on a regular basis, for the past 60 years.

3744

Have anyone seen the state of the armies surrounding Israel, including Iran? What threat, there isn’t a single country nearby that can do -anything- to Israel, that’s the joke.

The second joke is that Netanshit is more popular in US congress than at home.

3745

Given that they fire rockets and mortars into Israel on a fairly regular basis, I think perhaps the people in Israel consider it less of a joke than you do.

I think it’s less funny when your house gets blown up. But hey, I guess maybe your sense of humor is different than mine.

3746

Yeah, there is an occupation to speak of, guerilla stuff, but I’m talking about armies here, not the local boyscouts.

3747

Again, I find it kind of sad that you fail to grasp the situation to the extent that you describe people firing missiles at your house to be “boyscouts”. Would that be acceptable to you, if people fired missiles and mortars at your house?

Also, you realize that those weapons are provided by Iran, right?

3748

Gaza is not a military threat to Israel, even with Iranian weapons, didn’t this summer teach you that?

3749

Part of that is historical - the Shah maintained friendly relations with Israel as an aspect of their alignment with the West, with extensive trade and even military connections. Once the Islamic Republic was established that was all tossed out the window. Now Israel is a useful foil at home and a means of maintaining influence in a Sunni region which would otherwise have no use for them. It’s an aspect of their rivalry with Saudi Arabia in particular, as the Iranians like to say they are doing more for “the cause” in supporting Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, etc.

3750

You’d be right…in 1967. Or even 1973. But, respectfully, I think you are wrong about 2015. No one in the region can even come close to matching Israel militarily. Even though many of them, in their heart of hearts, think that Israel should pack up and leave, many of them actually benefit from having Israel there to distract their own people. It’s a sort of balance of terror club; everyone needs someone as the bogie man. Israel is not surrounded by enemies with anything like the ability to do, well, anything. The terrorist attacks and rocket attacks suck, and Israel is justified in responding to them (though doing so effectively is hard), but they do not represent the sort of existential threat Netanyahu is talking about. Back when Egypt, Syria, and Iraq all had big armies and used them against Israel? You could argue the case, though events proved the threat to be largely overblown. Sure, if you say “there are X million Muslims/Arabs/whatever and only Y million Israelis,” you can make it sound fairly threatening, but even in 1947-48 only a mere fraction of those millions were even partially deployed against Israel, and today the threat is even less.

I’m not saying Israel doesn’t have enemies, or face threats. They have the single most effective security apparatus in the region, one of the best in the world, to defend themselves. They most certainly don’t need to beat the drum of “never again” like various governments have been doing. It becomes like the boy who cried wolf, for one thing.

People want a lot of people not to exist. Israel has particular historical reasons for taking that sort of talk a bit more seriously than most. But there are those in the Israeli political establishment who have made an industry of being threatened, of having to take desperate measures, of being always on the brink. And while the Palestinians are a huge part of their own problem, ultimately, it’s the unwillingness of Israel to deal effectively with the problems the occupation of the West Bank brought them–and their unwillingness to stop the settlements that actually undermine Israel’s own promises–that is the big issue in terms of their security vis a vis the Palestinians.

Unless, of course, we’re willing to let the future of the entire Middle East be determined by Israel’s perceived security needs, and willing to ignore pretty much all the other issues there to keep Jerusalem happy. I guess then we can continue to wave the AIPAC flags and cheer Netanyahu (not saying you are, just in general).

Finally, the case that Netanyahu is trying to make amounts to “we need to go to war with Iran and bomb them to the stone age.” That’s hardly the response that will help with the daily rocket attacks you mention. Some solutions simply don’t apply to some problems.

3751

Current government, some past governments, some current parties in Israel. It is a democracy, so it gets the people it voted for. So saying “Israel” is perfectly fine, just as saying “USA” when W was in power. We elect 'em, we take the blame.

And of course we benefit from a democratic friend and trade partner. Partnerships are reciprocal, though. Increasingly, Israel has been offering us less and less–and their democracy is undermined by a religious right, and their support for us is undermined by their refusal to work with us on diplomatic efforts as with Iran–and when you couple that with the sense of entitlement that extends from things like Jonathan Pollard to the expectation that all American politicians will, to be electable, endorse Israeli policy views, and I do think there needs to be a rebalancing of the friendship equation.

As far as military expenditures, it can’t all work one way. Israel gets a lot of help from us, and really, in the last decade or two, we haven’t gotten much in return as far as I can tell. In the Cold War it made sense, but now it is a much harder sell. And a lot of what Israel spends might be looked at critically as well. We aren’t the only ones with boondoggles in defense spending. And if they insist on bellicose policies and intransigent positions, well, maybe they need to spend more tax dollars on the IDF.

I say this as an American Jew who goes (um, occasionally, but I am a member!) to a conservative synagogue where opinions on Israeli policy are highly charged and highly divided. Ultimately, though, I’m an American first. I love Israel, as a Jew, but when it comes to politics, I look to Washington for better or for worse.

3752

That was pretty much my takeaway from his speech. He was saber rattling to canned applause while slighting an unpopular President to make people back home happier with him.

3753

You’re kidding, right? Israel’s margin of superiority has been dropping for decades. Conscripts are not the ideal method of running a modern army, either.
You do remember what happened when they sent troops into Lebanon, right? (The bombardment worked, the ground invasion? Oops!)

Yes, Israel does have some effective anti-rocket defences now in Iron Dome, but they’re using $20,000 interceptors (and that’s down from an initial price northwards of $100,000) to hit rockets costing $1-2 thousand. (Iron Beam might change that in the next decade, but it’s early days for that). Jamie Levin has been shown to be right.

Netanyahu is warmonger, yes, but the strategic situation isn’t that bright especially in the longer term.

Current government, some past governments, some current parties in Israel. It is a democracy, so it gets the people it voted for. So saying “Israel” is perfectly fine, just as saying “USA” when W was in power. We elect 'em, we take the blame.

And… So you’re happy to take the blame for what each elected Republican says? To be clear? Because a lot of the incendiary quotes are from backbench MK’s.

Also, you need to look into some of the US-Israel joint platforms. Israel gave America a couple of complete Iron Dome’s a few years back - they were part-funded by American cash, sure, but it’s in Israel where the concept was worked out and implemented.

Again, at the end of the day you’re saying that Israel needs to increase domestic military spending sharply. And that means a sharp turn right, because it leaves the left without the social platform they’re running on.

Dan_Theman - Absolutely. He’s locked in an bitterly fought election campaign in Israel.

(There was a swing of 5-6 seats right after Fatah unilaterally went to the ICC, I note…the left had a far more commanding position before that)

3754

I don’t understand, who exactly in the region is Israel loosing margins too, Saudi Arabia? Last I checked one of their old enemies is not going to be a threat in our lifetime. Irans Air Force is junk, and Iraq, well duh and pretty sure Egypt is too unstable to even think about old feuds.
Note, conscript armies don’t suck, they just aren’t useful in the conflicts Israel faces, where you can’t use max force cause it would look like bullying small children.

So, you are back to talking about how to defend against home made mortars with 20k a pop iron dome defense, eventually maybe ending the occupation is cheaper?

3755

I’m still not really getting your point here. That Israel isn’t actually endangered by any of the countries that want to destroy them?

3756

who cares what they say, are they a threat, this is actually the important bit. The rest is just empty rhetoric

3757

And you’re back to advocating free access for terrorists.
Surprise!

Yea, you’re back on ignore for that one. You’ll be making excuses, of course.

3758

omg, the ignore button, grow up you twat, it’s a forum.

Labeling people as terrorist has been the best way to get those people killed without having to deal with their side of the story, but who cares.

3759

Given they actually fire missiles into Israel and kill Israeli civilians, it would seem that they are in fact a threat.

I suspect if they were blowing up your home, you would consider them a threat.

3760

The difference here (and one which is somewhat debatable, I suppose) is whether the Palestinians are an existential threat to Israel. While they’re not boyscouts, they don’t constitute (in themselves) an existential threat. If it came to it, Israel could (and would) level the Gaza strip, killing every man, woman, and child, before allowing the Palestinians to become a truly existential threat in and of themselves. Israel has a long history of defending itself, even when complaining to the US that they were beset with enemies and facing destruction.*

The real threat of the Palestinians is not the occasional mortar or rocket (which kill significantly fewer people than traffic accidents in Israel annually), but the ability of neighboring governments to use the Palestinians as a distraction from their own problems. Right now, even that’s not a real threat – Syria and Lebanon are caught up in the crisis with ISIS, Egypt is dealing with its own internal politics (and the current regime is actually relatively friendly to Israel), and Jordan remains an ally to Israel, if not a friend.

Iran could be an existential threat to Israel. The Iranian government has certainly used inflammatory rhetoric against Israel. However, over the last 35 years, it’s really only been rhetoric (aside from their efforts to consolidate their own sphere of influence in Syria and Lebanon, often using Israel to do so). Plus Israel’s military could wipe out the Iranian military and still be home in time for supper. So the only real explanation of how Iran becomes an existential threat is if they develop nuclear weapons and deploy them against Israel. The only problem there is that Israel would like counter any Iranian nuclear strike with a strike of their own, and likely the US would nuke any remaining signs of life in Iran after that, and, as noted upthread, Iran hasn’t shown itself to be particularly suicidal (actions speaking more loudly than words).

In the short term, you have a weird triangle where Iran, the Palestinians (or at least Hamas), and the current Israeli government all need/use each other to be the bogeyman in order to maintain their own domestic grip on power. In the long term, all three could pose existential threats to each other, and likely will if the current rhetoric is taken to heart.

  • The most obvious example is back in 1967. Israel was complaining to the US that they needed more assistance; the administration asked the CIA to do an assessment of how long it would take for Israel to be overwhelmed if they were attacked simultaneously by Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. The CIA initially responded that Israel wouldn’t be overwhelmed, and would in fact defeat the combined forces of its neighbors in about two weeks. Incredulous, the administration asked the CIA to reconsider. The CIA changed its estimate to one week. They were off by 24 hours – the war only took six days (and, incidentally, involved what I think is still the worst “friendly fire” incident by an ally on US forces in post-WW2 history, where the Israelis killed 34 Americans and wounded 171 on the USS Liberty).