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Netanyahu's victory: what it means for Israel's security

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By Eddo Bibro Bar:

Benjamin Netanyahu visits the IDF Hermon Brigade base, February 2015. Photo: Amos Ben Gershom, GPO (CC)

This is the first of a three piece series analyzing outcomes and impacts of the recent Israeli election. Next, Jill R. Russell will analyse the “new” US position on Israel.

The Israeli elections on Tuesday have ended with the overwhelming (and some might say surprising) victory of incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Now that the dust is starting to settle on what has been a very emotional election campaign, it is time to examine the effect that Netanyahu’s re-election might have on domestic and regional security.

Perhaps the biggest change following the elections is that the coalition Netanyahu will most likely form will comprise of strictly right-wing parties. In recent decades, most coalitions in Israel were comprised of members from different parts of the political spectrum. However, the new coalition is expected to consist of Netanyahu’s Likud Party, Bennett’s radical right Jewish Home Party (comprised mostly of members who live in the settlements) and the economically oriented right-wing party of Moshe Kahlon, who is himself a former senior Likud member.

During the election campaign Netanyahu repeatedly claimed that the Islamic State poses a direct threat to Israel’s security. This does not appear to be the case. The IS-affiliated groups in the Sinai desert are currently contained by the Egyptian Army, which is aggressively trying to eradicate them, and they are not likely to open a second front against Israel. On Israel’s northern border, Hezbollah, aided by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, are focusing most of their resources and efforts on defeating IS while simultaneously fighting Jabat al Nusra forces, which have obtained a number of strongholds in South Lebanon and are undermining Hezbollah’s military supremacy in the region. It is therefore safe to assume that IS will not be posing a threat on the Israeli northern border in the foreseeable future.

Indeed, the threat to Israel’s northern border is not posed by IS but by Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s ongoing war with IS and Jabat al Nusra has led its units to gain control in the Golan Heights, an area previously controlled by the Syrian Army. Israel will not allow Hezbollah (and vicariously Iran) to take over the Syrian part of the Golan Heights, as it is perceived by Israel as an area of great strategic importance. Hezbollah, which has exhausted its resources in the four-year war in Syria, has no interest in opening a new front against Israel. Yet changing circumstances might lead it to try and conquer parts of the Golan Heights. It is a scenario that Israel can’t allow and it might lead it to engage in conflict with Hezbollah.

Gaza will continue to be a major problem for Netanyahu. Operation Protective Edge has left the Gaza Strip in pieces and it is struggling to rebuild itself. Egypt’s persistent stand against Hamas, which includes closing the border between Egypt and Gaza and fighting Hamas’s smuggling industry - which has flourished since 2005 - has taken a big toll on Hamas and the Gazan population alike.

The declining economic state of the Gazan population, along with the loss of hope for political reconciliation with the PLO, are causing public unrest in Gaza. While Hamas is not interested in another war at this moment, as it has drained its resources, if the unrest continues or intensifies, Hamas might be pushed to attack Israel in order to reassert its dominance and regain its legitimacy in the Gazan streets. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition will not allow him to alleviate the blockade on Gaza, as this will be perceived as a concession to a terrorist organisation, but leaving the situation as it is at the moment will likely result in a war that neither of the sides wants.

In the West Bank, it seems like Netanyahu has dug himself a hole from which he will have a hard time finding his way out. Over the last few days of the election campaign, Netanyahu announced that the two-State solution is no longer viable, thereby retracting his 2009 ‘Bar Ilan Speech’, in which he declared that he would be striving to reach a peace agreement based on the two-State solution. In addition, his predicted right-wing coalition will not allow Netanyahu to stop building in the settlements, since the parties are heavily dependent on the settlers’ support. The US government and the EU have both demanded that Israel stops building in the settlements, and if there is no let up in the building then the tensions in the West Bank may be brought to a boiling point.

The PLO is likely to try and unilaterally achieve recognition of its independence through the UN. Whereas in the past such an option seemed extremely unlikely to succeed as the US was expected to automatically veto such requests, the deteriorating relations between Israel and the US, fuelled by the mutual loathing and complete distrust between the American and Israeli heads of state, might lead the US to back such a Palestinian request. In the unlikely event that Netanyahu does in fact pursue a two-state solution, it would probably lead to the collapse of his coalition. Any attempt to pacify his coalition allies by militarily preventing the establishment of an internationally recognised Palestinian State is likely to lead to Israel’s isolation in the international community.

Netanyahu’s six years in power have severely damaged Israel’s international relations and have alienated Israel’s greatest allies. Obama dislikes Netanyahu, who, according to sources in the White House, is referred to as ‘chicken shit’. Hollande has a similarly dim view of the Israeli leader, particularly after the speech Netanyahu delivered following the attack on Charlie Hebdo in which he urged the French Jewish community to flee France. Moreover, relations with Germany are at a historic low.

Israel has always relied on international support, in one way or another, in times of war. Despite the fact that some of the threats Israel is facing may erupt due to circumstances that are not due to Netanyahu’s actions, the international isolation caused by his actions and policies, the radicalisation of his rhetoric, and the predicted formation of a radical right-wing coalition are the main reasons that it will be difficult for Israel to respond to potential future threats.

Eddo Bar holds a BA in Philosophy and Political Science from Tel Aviv University. He is currently studying towards an MA in International Conflict Studies. and Previously worked as a TA, RA and a research intern in the INSS. His work work focused on Peacemaking in Israel since 1967 and history, strategy and warfare in the Middle East.

Interview - Dr Ahron Bregman on Israel/Palestine: 'The third Intifada is underway'

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By Isobel Petersen:

On June 30th the bodies of three Israeli teenagers were found buried in a shallow grave near Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank. On July 2nd a suspected revenge killing of a Palestinian teenager took place in Jerusalem. Since these murders, there has been a renewed escalation of fighting, resulting in hundreds of deaths, injuries and displacement, predominantly suffered by Palestinians. We are now witnessing what could arguably be called the ‘Third Intifada’.

Intifada is an Arabic word loosely meaning ‘to shake off’ and has been adopted by Palestineans to describe the two major historical uprisings against Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, from 1987-1993 and 2000-2005. In recent weeks the crisis has been transposed from the rubble of Gaza to the holy Old City of Jerusalem. Ten days ago five Israelis were killed in a vicious attack on worshippers in a synagogue in West Jerusalem. Yesterday Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet said that it had arrested 30 Hamas militants in the West Bank allegedly planning attacks on Jerusalem. Israeli’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed to win a ‘battle for Jerusalem’.

Dr Ahron Bregman, an expert in the Israel-Palestine conflict, is better placed than most to talk about the current situation and its historical roots. His most recent publication, Cursed Victory: A History of Israel and the Occupied Territories, charts the Israeli occupation since the 1967 war. The first of its kind, this book uses top-secret and never-before-published documents and recorded conversations to shed light on critical moments in the ongoing peace process. Dr Bregman has lived in the UK for 25 years since leaving Israel beause of his moral objection to the occupation. He teaches at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. I interviewed him in the wake of the attacks on the synagogue in Jerusalem:

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Your book ‘Cursed Victory’ was released this year. What first set you onto the path and determination to publish the many previously unpublished documents and recorded conversations deatiled in your book?

There are so many books on Israel and the Arabs and I’ve looked for ways to attract potential readers to my book. So I’ve spent quite a lot of time researching new material. What I found – and then published in Cursed Victory – shocked me to the core. For instance, transcripts of telephone conversations between the president of the US and world leaders, secretly recorded by Israeli agents. But don’t be mistaken: for me, publishing top secret documents was only a tool to attract the readers to what I really wanted them to read, namely about the Israeli occupation, one of the cruelest occupations in modern history.

There has been criticism in the press that perhaps the book does not adequately address the past ten to fifteen years of the conflict, in which there has been increased violence, set-backs and diplomatic breakdown. Is this a fair criticism?

The perspective of time is important. Therefore, you need to stop early enough in the story so that you’ll have this perspective. The gap between the past and present provides a better view of past events. But for the American and German editions of the book, which will be published soon, I’ve added a new Foreword, bringing the story up to date.

Much of the book discusses former Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Dayan’s fierce policy of Israel as an ‘invisible’ presence. Today Israel argues that Gaza has the opportunity to develop independently because the state officially departed in 2005. But as we have seen this summer, Gaza is anything but free from Israeli interference. Can there be mutual trust between Israel and the Palestinians if Israel never truly leaves Gaza?

Israel withdrew in 2005, but the occupation of the Gaza Strip continues from the outside, as Israel exercises what the international law of occupation would call “effective control” over the territory. Israel controls the Gaza Strip from the air, sea and land. By now the people of Gaza are accustomed to the constant buzzing background noise of Israeli drones and helicopters overhead. Gaza’s fishermen are prevented by the Israeli navy from going deep into the sea to fish. And of course Israel can dictate – and it does – what the Gazans will have on their plates for breakfast through the army’s monitoring of the flow of food and other products into the Strip. As for real reconciliation between Gazans and Israelis – well, it will take many generations before the Gazans can forgive the Israelis for turning their lives into hell.

You have spoken openly about your time in the Israel military and your role as an artillery forward observer during the 1982 Lebanon war. This summer you have condemned unreservedly the so-called ‘Hannibal Protocol’. Could you please explain in a little more depth precisely what this military command means for both the Israeli military and Palestinians?

The ‘Hannibal Protocol’ is the Israel Defence Force (IDF) procedure aimed at preventing its soldiers from falling into enemy hands. It’s a product of Israel’s Lebanon wars - it was invented there in the 1980s - a procedure to be used in the first minutes and hours after a possible abduction of an Israeli soldier. It calls on the military to dramatically escalate attacks in the vicinity of any kidnapping – to destroy bridges, roads, houses, cars, everything in fact – to shoot in all possible directions in order to prevent the captors form disappearing with the abducted soldier.

During the conflict in Gaza this summer, when the IDF thought – wrongly, as it turned out - that one of its officers had been abducted by Hamas in the southern Gaza Strip, the “Hannibal Protocol” was activated with a devastating effects; don’t forget that the Gaza area is one of the most densely populated areas on Earth. The army used everything at its disposal – tanks, artillery, aeroplanes, drones – and pounded vast areas in Rafah [the largest town in the south of the Gaza Strip, very close to the border with Egypt], causing enormous damage, killing and wounding scores of innocent Palestinians. The brutal “Hannibal Procedure” seems to me to break all rules of war. It should be thrown out of the window and never used again in Gaza or anywhere else. The Israelis who activated it should be sent to The Hague to face trial.

It is widely known that you left Israel in 1988 for moral reasons and your deep-set disagreement with the Israeli occupation. Earlier this year there were three tragic suicides of Israeli soldiers, all of whom had been part of the Givati Brigade. This Brigade has become infamous for its heavy bombardments and zealous religious justification. There is also a drop in numbers of those continuing in the armed forces after their national service. Reflecting on your six years in the forces and your decision to leave Israel for the UK, do you think there is an underestimated negative effect that being in the Israeli military is having on public cohesion about the occupation?

Serving in the Israeli army is not the problem. In fact, for Israel the IDF is the perfect melting pot to turn people who came to the state from four corners of the earth into one nation. Young people, many of whom can’t speak Hebrew because they came from Russia or Ethiopia, or wherever, join the army and after three years of military service they can swear in Hebrew! The problem, however, is the use of the soldiers to run the occupation. These young people, often aged no more than 18, do things that poison their souls and ruin the society of which they are a part. They break into Palestinian houses in the middle of the night and humiliate Palestinians, many of whom are probably the same age as their parents or grandparents.

This summer was the beginning of a series of public and shocking acts of violence enacted by Palestinians, Israelis and the Israeli military, which arguably has begun the ‘Third Intifada’. What are your predictions for the rest of the year and into 2015?

The third Palestinian Intifada is well underway. For now it is mainly in Jerusalem. But it could easily spread into other parts of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and even into Israel proper where a large non-Jewish community live. I believe this uprising will continue well into 2015.

Religious competition over Jerusalem is at the heart of the Arab – Israeli conflict, as we saw a few days ago. Should there have been more of a focus on reconciling Jewish and Islamic tensions in recent years rather than Hamas and security? Or are they separate and yet equally as divisive?

I’m afraid that the Arab-Israeli conflict is now turning into a Jewish-Muslim conflict. This is dangerous! Holy wars are bad news.

The Arab-Israeli conflict seems to be perpetually related to Western support or disapproval. In Cursed Victory you point the finger very strongly at consistent United States backing of Israel. Many conflict theorists point to international pressure in bringing about a transformation for states embroiled in conflict and those with a weak human rights record. Israel seems to have bucked this trend, surely the US cannot be the only reason for this?

The US is part of the problem. They are just too close to Israel. In Cursed Victory I publish a secret letter from American secretary of state Madeleine Albright to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promising him that the US will never show a peace proposal to the Arabs before first showing it to the Israelis. This is incredible. It effectively gives the Israelis a veto power over their peace proposals. And yes: only international pressure, particularly on Israel, as the strongest party, holding almost all the tangibles, could move the peace process forward. Pressure on Israel should also include boycotts on products and services coming from the occupied territories.

When you conclude in Cursed Victory that Israel has ‘hardened those under its power, making them more determined to put an end to the occupation, by violent means if necessary, and live a life of dignity and freedom’ does this imply that the only way to end the occupation is through violent means on the part of the Palestinians? Or can the diplomatic route work?

The Palestinians have no other option but to embark on a massive non-violent Intifada against the occupation. Otherwise, the Israelis will not move. The Israelis, believe me, only move when under pressure. The Palestinians can’t get their state on a silver platter; they’ll have to fight for it. But it must be a non-violent uprising. An uprising of flowers and of candles; not of suicide bombings.

Two central tenets of the Palestinean indepedence cause are the ‘right of return’ and the claim to sovereignty over parts of Jerusalem, yet Israel will not entertain these ideas. As such, how can there ever be a peaceful two-state solution?

You’ve put your finger on the heart of the matter, on the two most complicated issues which the Israelis and Palestinians will have to tackle head on. I believe that technical solutions could be found to divide Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians. But what the Palestinians call “our right of return” to old Palestine; the Israelis refer to it as “your claims of return”, immediately illustrating the depth of the matter. It is much more complicated to sort out than the Jerusalem problem.

 

Note from the editors: This article was originally titled “Interview - Dr Ahron Bregman on Israel/Palestine: ‘One of the cruelest occupations in modern history'” After consideration, we have chosen to rename the article.

Dr Ahron Bregman’s book, Cursed Victory: A History of Israel and the Occupied Territories, is published by Allen Lane (June, 2014). Pages: 416. Hardback: £25. To be published in America by Pegasus in May 2015. ISBN: 9780713997750

Isobel studied International Relations at the University of Exeter and is currently reading for an MA in Conflict, Security and Development at King’s College London. Her particular interest is post-conflict resolution with a specific focus on the Arab-Israeli crisis. Other distractions from her course are current affairs, aspirations of travel and writing.

Ideas are bulletproof; why we should still be expecting Anonymous

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By Ben Collins:

Anonymous November 5th protests [photo by Ben Collins; published by permission]
In 2013 the FBI declared that the hacker activist network Anonymous had been dismantled due to the arrests of ‘major players in the Anonymous movement.’[1] Others have decried the dilution of causes and foci among those who consider themselves Anonymous,[2] as well as the allegedly hypocritical use of personal information on heavily monitored social media platforms.[3]

However, among the widespread outcries against Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, Anonymous has once again been making headlines. On July 25th 2014 22 year-old Tayeb Abu Shehada was shot and killed in the West Bank in a clash between Israeli soldiers and stone-throwing protesters. Reports and alleged pictures of Tayeb show that he was wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, unifying common symbol of those who consider themselves as part of Anonymous.[iv] In response to both Tayeb’s death and the wider context of Operation Protective Edge, the ‘AnonGhost’ hacker group interrupted access to Israeli government and military websites and claim to have hacked some of Israel’s banking systems.[v] Without understanding Anonymous’ history and development, it is difficult to determine whether these events are part of an overall reawakening and remobilisation of Anonymous, or whether they are simply ‘business as usual’ for a largely ephemeral and intangible actor.

Anonymous emerged from the image-board website 4chan.org which was created in 2003. Initially conducting limited raids on other web communities for both the entertainment value and to document for posterity, these attacks escalated in scale and sophistication over the next four years. Anonymous’ breakthrough moment was a protest campaign in early 2008 against the Church of Scientology, dubbed ‘Project Chanology’ after the Church removed a video from YouTube showing Tom Cruise talking about Scientology for breach of copyright. Anonymous subsequently campaigned worldwide to raise awareness of the Church’s habitual censoring of information online, their litigious pursuit of detractors and the numerous suspicious deaths that are allegedly attributed to Church activities and members.

Project Chanology boosted Anonymous’ support and popularity beyond their original constituency, starting an upward trajectory of actions and campaigns. In 2010 Anonymous struck again, this time against the entertainment industry for the removal of several file-sharing websites, which in turn snowballed into ‘Operation Avenge Assange’, attacking Mastercard, Amazon and Paypal for freezing Wikileaks’ financial services.

This momentum continued into 2011 thanks to the Arab Spring. Anonymous worked to help activists circumvent internet censorship and attack government websites in Tunisia and Egypt. From these events the hacker splinter group LulzSec emerged, who in the first half of 2011 went on a 50-day hacking spree against governments, security services and corporations around the world. As one would expect, this campaign gave LulzSec, and vicariously Anonymous, a long list of powerful enemies. During this period Hector Monsegur aka ‘Sabu’, one of LulzSec’s members, was caught by the FBI and turned into an informant. Information he supplied helped authorities in the UK and US arrest the rest of LulzSec and a number of other prominent activists such as Jeremy Hammond.

The combination of the events surrounding LulzSec and the widening spectrum of causes being championed by those considering themselves Anonymous meant that many of their activities moved towards the path of least resistance. These were either humanitarian causes such as Operation Safe Winter which sought to raise money and awareness for the homeless during the winter months, or attacking targets who were unlikely to respond with the levels of legal reciprocity as were faced by LulzSec and their predecessors. These targets have included the government websites of Syria, North Korea, Russia, as well as the ‘500 plus’ Israeli websites hit by the AnonGhost team.[vi]

The arrests of individuals or small groups may have impacted overall morale, but they fail to stop the spread of the ideas behind the mask. The ubiquity of the internet means that protest and resistance movements can organise and communicate instantaneously on a global scale, connecting disparate movements and groups that otherwise would have had a much harder time finding others sympathetic to their cause.

This cellular and largely independent nature, coupled with the digital Matryoshka doll of IRC internet chatrooms and networks makes Anonymous very resilient - they should not be viewed of as a conventionally organised movement or group. The idea of Anonymous is more akin to a brand or franchise; a patron collective nomenclature which is invoked to strengthen solidarity and create an identifiable in-group among widely disparate causes and beliefs. This unifying common denominator brings ‘concerned citizens’ together against a system they deem unfair and impossible to change through traditional political channels. As such, individuals and groups adopt the common visual language of Anonymous as a tool of solidarity and recognition with other activists: Tayeb fought and died while wearing the Guy Fawkes mask, but it is highly unlikely that he was involved in Chanology, Operation Payback or LulzSec, for example.

Ultimately, the AnonGhost attacks are not a precursor to some new galvanisation of all the widely disparate cells, nodes and individuals who consider themselves Anonymous. Tayeb’s death will fade from collective memory and at best become a brief mention on Anonymous’ Wikipedia page. It is highly unlikely that the attacks carried out by the AnonGhost hackers will have any long-term effect on Israel’s military or political policy. However Anonymous is an actor with a completely different political agenda and language; reducing complex arguments to sticky, violent images which dominate and subvert conventionally written and spoken political discourse. These images diffuse through social networks and the wider media, resulting in self-generating feedback loops of outrage and opposition to perceived injustices. If indeed ‘the screen is our generation’s North German Plain’,7 then this ability to wield and deploy such images and information to the wider public, outmanoeuvring states and governments on the way is a significant capability that we would do well to continue to expect.

 

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Ben Collins is a 2nd year PhD student looking at hacker activists in comparison to 19th century Anarchism. Other focus includes how war and conflict are portrayed in videogames, as well as how players interact and question both the events in them and the relevant analogous real-world wars, conflicts and insurgencies we see in comparison.

 

NOTES

[1] Smith, G., FBI Agent: We’ve Dismantled The Leaders Of Anonymous, The Huffington Post 21/08/13, accessed 06/08/14 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/21/anonymous-arrests-fbi_n_3780980.html
[2] Anonymous, Anonymous R.I.P., AnonUKRadio 21/08/13, accessed 21/08/14 http://anonukradio.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/anonymous-rip.html
[3] The pages of at least two Anonymous Facebook groups have been verified by Facebook, a process normally reserved for celebrities or brands/products as, ironically in the case of Anonymous, ‘having an authentic identity’.
[iv] Gilbert, D., Hacktivists Hit Back at Israel After Death of Anonymous Member in West Bank, International Business Times 28/07/14, accessed 06//08/14 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/hacktivists-hits-back-israel-after-death-anonymous-member-west-bank-1458623
[v] AnonGhost Team, BREAKING NEWS: #OpSaveGaza The Biggest Bank System in Israel Has Been Hacked By AnonGhost Team الحمد لله, Twitter 23/07/14, accessed 06/08/14https://twitter.com/AnonGhostTeam/status/491836637761245184/photo/1
[vi] Ridley, R., Gaza Anonymous Hacking Attack Shuts Down ‘Hundreds’ Of Israeli Government Websites. The Huffington Post 05/08/14, accessed 06/08/14http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/08/05/gaza-anonymous-hacking-at_n_5650652.html

Israel vs. Hamas: Undermining deterrence

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By Charles Kirchofer:

Israeli soldiers in Hebron [Photograph taken by the author, 5 June 2014.]

Israel’s military response to the abduction and murder of three teenaged Israeli citizens, which has included a massive deployment of Israeli soldiers in the Palestinian territories, is understandable. But, this response has threatened to undermine what had been a relatively stable deterrence relationship with Hamas, however. The border with Gaza had been reasonably quiet, but recent days have seen increased rocket fire that has now hit homes in southern Israel. Israel’s military is now shifting troops to the Gaza border. Together, these actions threaten to be the start of another round of escalation between the two sides. Was this deterioration of the situation inevitable? If a ceasefire soon comes into effect, what does this say about Israel’s deterrence relationship with Hamas?

Despite Hamas’s anti-Israel Charter and its unrelenting stance against recognising Israel or even accepting the idea of a permanent peace with it, Hamas has avoided provoking active conflict with Israel since 2012. There has been a trickle of rockets from the Gaza Strip, but this has long been the case. What’s more, it does not appear that Hamas itself was responsible for any of these attacks until just recently. In fact, Hamas has long arrested militants launching rockets from within Gaza to prevent Israeli retaliation. The fact that the number of rockets launched in 2014 has at times risen above 20 per month may, in truth, be more a sign of Hamas’s weakness than of its strength: Egypt has tightened its control over Gaza’s southern border, closing smuggling tunnels that Hamas relied upon for much of its revenue, and Hamas’s relations with its sponsor Iran have been strained since it declared itself opposed to Iran’s close ally and Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad, and moved its headquarters out of Damascus. Even now, Hamas’s leadership has said it does not desire escalation, despite recently launching its first rockets on Israel since 2012.

If Hamas activists are proved responsible for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens, this in itself would already indicate a massive escalation, justifying a retaliatory response from Israel. Hamas internal chief Ismail Haniyeh allegedly said as recently as this April that abducting Israeli soldiers was a ‘top priority’ to use as ‘bargaining chips’ to free Palestinian prisoners. When three Israeli teens were reported kidnapped, justified suspicion quickly fell on Hamas. Hamas’s leaders denied all knowledge of the kidnapping even as Israeli security claimed to have found solid evidence of the group’s involvement. Reports have now come to light that suggest that both are ‘correct’. It seems the kidnappers are a ‘rogue Hamas branch’ that was not acting on orders when it abducted the teens. The fact that the teens were quickly murdered rather than held for ransom and that Hamas from the start denied responsibility and was unable to reap any political or strategic gain from the incident lends credibility to this claim. It thus seems that the attack was a criminal act motivated by sectarian hatred rather than a terror tactic used as part of a plan to improve Hamas’s bargaining position with Israel or the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Israel’s military response, named ‘Operation Brother’s Keeper’, has been calibrated on the assumption of the latter rather than the former. Israel detained over 300 Hamas members and some other Palestinians not associated with the group, also raiding Hamas institutions. A report noted that ‘soldiers entered Palestinian cities and towns in numbers not seen there in years, which led to frequent violent clashes with Palestinian youths. Five Palestinians [were] killed by soldiers’ fire during the clashes. Only a few of those detained are suspected of actually participating in terrorist activity.’ A Palestinian academic commented to this author and asked “Don’t you think Israel is using the disappearance [of the three teens] as a pretext to go after Hamas?” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated openly that attacking Hamas’s infrastructure in the West Bank was a central aim of ‘Operation Brother’s Keeper’.

From a deterrence perspective, this could be an appropriate response if Hamas as an organisation were indeed behind the murders of the three Israeli youths. It would help to reinforce clear ‘red lines’ that Hamas may not cross without inflicting significant damage on itself. If Hamas is already deterred and did not commit the murders, however, such a broad attack on it is not necessary to maintain or re-establish deterrence. What’s more, unnecessarily forceful responses are risky. The operation has stirred up anger among the Palestinian population, for example in several clashes with Israeli troops, which resulted in the death of five Palestinian youths. These deaths have naturally intensified anger and threaten to escalate the situation further. Israel’s air force also struck targets in Gaza. In response, Hamas then launched its first rockets since 2012 at Israel on 30 June. Further violence is possible.

The recent escalation was not inevitable. If Hamas as an organisation was not behind the abduction and murder of the three Israeli teens that sparked this latest round of violence, the escalation also does not appear necessary. There have been discussions today of a possible ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, but at the time of writing, one had not yet taken effect. Both sides appear willing to de-escalate, however, with an Israeli official saying that ‘quiet will be met with quiet’.

If things do quiet down, this will be evidence that Hamas is weak and deterred. If they do not, we will look back on Operation Brother’s Keeper as understandable, but we may also view it as a mistake that led to further unnecessary bloodshed.

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Charles Kirchofer is a PhD candidate at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He is currently researching the use of deterrence against non-state actors using the case of Israel’s conflict with Hamas and has recently conducted field research in Israel and Palestine. You can follow him on Twitter @CPKirchofer

Operation Pillar of Defence Revisited

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By Hayden Pirkle

The outbreak of violence between Israeli and Hamas forces that erupted in mid-November 2012 and captivated spectators’ attention across the globe is now just a minor blip on the radar of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is amazing how short-term the media’s and the general public’s respective memories can be. Our attention spans are seemingly short, as even major events quickly fall into obscurity. In review, at the time of the latest spurt of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there was widespread speculation among political pundits that the Israeli campaign in Gaza, dubbed “Operation Pillar of Defence”, was fuelled by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s motivations to ensure victory in the forthcoming elections in January 2013. The elections have come and gone. The results are in. As such, it is worth revisiting November’s conflict in order to connect the dots, if any, between Pillar of Defence and the 2013 Israeli elections.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched Operation Pillar of Defence on 14 November 2012 in response to sporadic rocket fire coming out of Hamas-controlled Gaza. That day’s most significant event was the Israeli assassination of Hamas’ military commander, Ahmed Jabari, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike. As a result of the assassination, there was a rapid intensification of violence from both sides, although the Gazan population shouldered a disproportionate amount of the force and destruction, as the IDF pounded the densely populated Gaza Strip with a formidable aerial campaign. The violence came to an end eight days later, as Egypt’s recently-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The brief conflict killed nearly 150 Palestinians and injured upward of 1000, over 200 of which were children. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, six Israelis were killed, 17 critically or moderately injured, and some 220 ‘lightly’ injured throughout the escalation.

In the eyes of many, the November escalation, falling just two months before the 2013 general elections, was strategically instigated by Netanyahu as a means of diverting public attention from the numerous socio-economic issues that currently plague Israel. Such issues, which include the rising cost of housing and living, have resulted in domestic unrest within Israel. As such, it seems that Pillar of Defense could have been a pre-election attempt to distract the public from the real issues facing the country by drumming up a collective emotional response against a common enemy. This beating-of-the-war drum prior to an election has been used in Israel before. Israel’s politicians and ruling parties have utilized, with varying degrees of success, strategically timed military offensives as a means of galvanizing their respective electorates and redirecting national attention from detrimental domestic issues, as, according to Haaretz, “social and economic problems are edged off the national agenda.”

Perhaps the most telling evidence of an election-based ulterior motive is the event that led to the intense escalation of violence in the first place: Israel’s assassination of Hamas’ military- wing leader, Ahmed Jabari. Jabari was the key actor used by high-ranking Hamas officials to feel out how ceasefire negotiations between the party and the Israelis would be received by the local population in Gaza. He also played a critical role in the release of Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, last year while representing Hamas during the prisoner exchange negotiations. The assassination of such a crucial figure was imprudent for Israel in two ways. Firstly, Israel killed off a key, seemingly pragmatic, figure for potential peace negotiations in the future. Secondly, the Israelis should have no doubt expected a violent response by Hamas. Such a response would in turn result in an escalation of violence between the two sides. Perhaps this was the desired effect. In other words, if Netanyahu wanted to incite a skirmish with Hamas to overshadow burgeoning domestic issues right before an election, he certainly picked the right target. This is not to say that Jabari’s assassination is indisputable proof of an election-based ulterior motive for the Netanyahu regime. There is certainly no direct link in causation between the two; although in my opinion, assassinating such a strategic figure in Israel-Hamas dialogue and negotiations, and thus instigating a round of violence just before a key election, is highly suggestive of such an ulterior motive.

To return to the present, nearly three months since the Egypt-brokered ceasefire, the elections have been held and the process of coalition building has finally concluded. But what were the results? Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, the expected favourite, in conjunction with its electoral ally, Yisrael Beiteinu, won a mere 31 of 120 available parliamentary seats. This is down from the 42 seats that the two-party alliance won in the last election. The surprise of the election was the success of the centrist party, Yesh Atid, which won 19 seats. Yesh Atid, led by Yair Lapid, campaigned for the alleviation of Israel’s socio-economic ailments and championed middle-class interests. Coming in third was the Labour party, which like Yesh Atid, also focused on domestic issues, albeit from a more leftist political position.

To Netanyahu’s chagrin, the coalition-building process proved to be far trickier than he likely ever could have imagined. Nearly six weeks since the elections and after considerable political wrangling, Netanyahu finally formed a coalition. However, although Netanyahu narrowly succeeded in forming a coalition, its composition is without question not the ideal result that he envisioned. Most notably, it includes the centrist Yesh Atid and the pro-settler Jewish Home party, and for the first time in a decade, the coalition government will not include any ultra-orthodox groups. Netanyahu’s new government is expected to focus on domestic socio- economic issues rather than the situation with Palestine. This focus is far more tenuous than posturing political support on the basis of national security.

In sum, Netanyahu and Likud experienced rather disappointing election results, which forced Netanyahu into forming a rather unstable coalition government. It appears that the socio- economic issues that parties like Yesh Atid and Labour based their campaigns upon could not be masked by conflict with Hamas. In other words, if Operation Pillar of Defence was intended to secure Netanyahu and his allies a decisive political victory in 2013, it was a complete failure. What now remains to be seen how the new government will handle the Palestinian situation. Will the presence of pro-peace Yesh Atid within the Netanyahu-led coalition result in the curbing of conflict and resumption of the peace talks with Hamas? Or will the more hawkish voices once again prevail and the tense and unproductive status quo remain?