War on Hamas
Defence? Existential Threat?
I do not understand how the leaders of the United States and the United Kingdom can continue to provide diplomatic cover, weapons and military support to Israel. The latest outrage, killing 90 and injuring 300 others in a safe area only confirms this is not a war against Hamas it is against the Palestinians. It was allegedly aimed at two Hamas leaders. It will be interesting to see how the doctrine of proportionality is applied to this.
The justification is that Israel has an absolute right to defend itself against the existential treat posed by the terrorist organisation Hamas, who are responsible for all the civilian deaths because they hide amongst them.
I may be missing something, but I think this justification has limited merit at best and none in relation to the scale and nature of the response to the atrocity.
On 10/7 approximately 1,200 Israelis were murdered and in addition “over 230” Israelis were taken hostage in a barbaric attack. Since the commencement of the war on Hamas, according to Wikipeadia, up until 24 May 2024, an additional 1,478 Israelis had died, giving a total of 2,678 Israeli’s killed at that point.
Over the same period approximately 35,500 Palestinians had died, many civilians, women and children. Killed in what appears to be an indiscriminate bombing campaign.
In addition Gaza has been reduced to rubble making most of its 2m plus inhabitants homeless, reduced to living in temporary accommodation without adequate, water, food, or medical support which it will take decades to recover from. In the West Bank some 500 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli Defence Force or illegal settlers.
This is what an absolute right to defend oneself against an existential threat against a perfidious enemy who hides behind civilians looks like.
But does the justification that leads to such carnage stand up to scrutiny. The justification is not new. It is one which has been deployed by successive Israeli administrations.
Indeed, the State of Israel has been defending itself since its self-declaration in 1948, occasionally by taking pre-emptive actions against anticipated attacks, as in the Arab Israeli war of 1967.
What is common, and quite remarkable, in all of these campaigns of self-defence is how much territory Israel has gained at the expense of the Palestinians. The two maps below show the original borders of the Jewish and Arab States as proposed by the UN in 1947 and the current plan per PM Netanyahu.
The Israeli state is clearly very adept at defending itself. Existential threats have consistently failed in the past. However, to be fair, the fact such threats have failed in the past does not mean such a threat does not exist now.
So, how credible is Hamas as a threat to the existence of Israel?
Comparing the relative military capacity of Israel and Hamas using rough and ready numbers secured mainly from the CIA World Fact Book shows that Israel has between 250 and 350 jet fighter bombers / Hamas has some (number unknown) Microlites; Israel has 170,000 trained military personnel on active service and 300,000 trained reservists / Hamas has between 40,000 and 50,000 trained soldiers; Israel has circa 1,300 tanks, 7 Corvette Warships, circa 90 Nuclear Warheads / Hamas has nil tanks, nil warships, nil nuclear warheads.
Israel receives c$3.5-$4bn per annum in military support from the United States and can freely import munitions and supplies from around the world. Hamas is provided with rockets from Iran which have to get through an air, sea and land blockade into Gaza. The rockets when fired have to get through the Iron Dome missile defence system which is claimed to be effective in intercepting 90% of missiles targeted on Israel.
In terms of supporters, Israel has the United States, and that support becomes “ironclad” when any third party threat (Iran) seems imminent. When the War on Hamas started the US moved 14 warships into the Eastern Mediterranean to deter any such threat.
If Isael was engaged in a conventional war against Hamas, then Hamas wouldn’t even come second.
But, of course, it is not a conventional war. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has made much of the immorality of Hamas using the civilian population as a shield. As I have pointed out elsewhere this moral high ground is more than undermined by the IDF’s willingness to shoot through that shield.
But if we consider for a moment the logic of the critique by the IDF in the context of the asymmetric balance of military power. It amounts to a demand that Hamas, commit suicide.
Terrorists around the world, like the ANC in South Africa, The IRA in Great Britain, the Vietcong in Vietnam, and indeed the Irgun in Israel in 1946 have refused to fight fairly. They have refused to take head on the overwhelming military supremacy of an occupying power.
The truth is there is no existential threat, this is not defence. At best it is ethnic cleansing. Unfortunately, the group being cleansed have nowhere to go. Which means the longer this goes on the less it looks like ethnic cleansing and the more it looks like genocide.
What is happening in Gaza and the West Bank is obviously a moral outrage. The longer our government continues to support it the lower our moral and diplomatic standing in the world. This is not and will not be mitigated by appeals to our having exhorted the Israeli government to stick within the rules of International Humanitarian Law.
What is happening needs to be condemned unequivocally. Further, there should be an immediate recognition of the State of Palestine. After 77 years the recommendation of the United Nations should be given some support on the Palestinian not just the Israeli side. Recognition would perhaps lead to a stronger commitment to serious negotiations on the Israeli side.
Whilst what is happening to the Palestinian people is horrendous and their capacity to respond in kind is nonexistent, my concern is not just for them. The Israeli people have been taken down a path by Prime Minister Netanyahu which will have, I fear, serious consequences for them. It will obviously be a moral stain difficult to eradicate and one which has and will continue to shift global public opinion against Israel.
Even when the “war” ends, as independent reviews of what happened are conducted, there will be a drawn-out documentation of atrocities. Surely, it will start on 10/7, but then it will proceed. Covering month after month after month of death and destruction wrought on the Palestinian people. Slowly building a picture which is almost certain to undermine the credibility of the claim that Israel had to defend itself against an existential threat.
Ironically, and sadly, it may prove that the Israeli defence has created more of an existential threat than the Hamas attack.
UNWRA
The current controversy around the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA) is dfifficult to make sense of.
On the strength of allegations by the the Israeli Government that 190 employees of the agency are members of Hamas or Palestinian Jihad and, even more seriously, that 12 of it employees were active participants in the atrocities of 10/7 some of its major donors have suspended their funding of UNWRA.
This is funding to an organisation of 30,000 employees who operate across Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon providing a range of welfare services including health, education and relief for people displaced by decades of conflict in the region.
More specifically it is currently engaged in providing food, water and health services into Gaza where the Israeli government’s war on Hamas has cost over 25,000 Palestinian lives and displaced 85% percent of the territories 2.2m inhabitants.
The speed with which the USA and the UK suspended its payments seemed remarkably swift. It was based on the allegations contained in a 6 page dossier which the Israeli Government would not provide to UNWRA. It is still not clear if these allegations have been independently corroborated.
It is not as if the allegations have emanated form an independent source. The allegations came shortly after the International Court of Justice found it plausible that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide in relation to its operations in Gaza. Trying to undermine the work of UNWRA might be seen as consistent with attacking the Palestinian civilian population as opposed to Hamas.
But even if we assume the allegations are eventually proved to be true. Is the response of the US and the UK appropriate?
If we add together the 190 accused of membership of Hamas and the 12 accused of engagement in 10/7 it amounts to 1.5% of UNWRA’s workforce in GAZA. Hardly definitive evidence that the Agency is systemically infiltrated by Hamas.
As soon as the allegations were made the head of UWRA preemptively dismissed the twelve employees accused prior to any independent investigation into their guilt or otherwise. Further, he referred the allegations to the UN’s Investigations Department for a thorough, Independent review of them.
Whilst UNWRA does carry out background checks on its employees, it also provides a list once a year to the Israeli government of the names of all its employees in Gaza and the West Bank.
An agency which acts in such a manner seems to be behaving precisely as you might expect and it is difficult to see what more it could do. Particularly as it is operating in a very challenging environment and has had 133 of its staff killed in Gaza since 10/7 as they struggle to support the 85% of the 2.2m Palestinians that have been displaced by the Israeli bombing.
In any circumstances a more appropriate response from our government and that of the US would be to set out their concerns and seek to ensure that a thorough and independent assessment of the allegations is carried out. If it proves to be true that 1.5% of UNWRA’s staff have gone rogue but that sensible precautions to avoid this have been taken then it should be a “lessons learned” exercise. UNWRA should set out how it would seek to prevent this in the future. This can never been anything other than best endeavours.
Only if it were to be proved definitively that the leadership of UNWRA were actively engaged in supporting the activities of Hamas should further action be taken.
But of course if UNWRA did not exist it would have to be invented. The needs of the Palestinians will not go away. Israel is not going to support them. Is Britain or America wanting to take on the role themselves?
After some very harsh words there seems to be some drawing back. The US pointing out that the vast bulk of its funding has already been paid to UNWRA. That they have money until the end of February. That the UN Investigation should be carried out in record time. Investigations that normally take months are to be completed in weeks.
It may have started to occur to the US and Britain how this is going to play around the world if relief via UNWRA stops. They will look even more complicit in the destruction of one of the last remaining homelands of the Palestinians. In a changing world this is not just morally indefensible it is diplomatically crazy.
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