Center for a New American Security

Israeli officers, realizing this hasn't been the best few weeks for their institution, are pushing back on stories of abuse and indiscipline in Operation Cast Lead. In the same way, Jeff White -- a longtime (and highly respected) DIA analyst who now writes for the Washington Institute -- has written a largely apologetic* consideration of Israeli operational behavior in Gaza. We've debated IDF performance in Gaza, and some of the threads were so intense that I almost re-instituted the (in)famous "No Israel and Palestine" rule for the blog. But I might as well instead link to two pieces offering interpretations of events contrary to those printed in Ha'aretz.

*I use "apologetic" in the Greek sense of the word.

Although this blog steers clear of all things Israeli and Palestinian, the New York Times asked me -- in light of the civilian deaths in Gaza -- to consider proper rules of engagement for conflicts in which civilians are caught up in urban combat.

The recent Israeli campaign to end rocket fire originating from Gaza left 1,300 Palestinians dead and many wondering about the morality of such seemingly “disproportionate” operations. Questions of morality in warfare, though, are notoriously difficult to referee and inspire more emotion than sober thought.

A related question to ask — and one more accessible to traditional tools of measurement — would be one concerning effectiveness. In pursuing military options that carry with them such a high human cost, did the Israel Defense Force achieve operational successes at the expense of Israel’s long-term strategic interests?

In modern conflict against violent nonstate actors like Hamas, Hezbollah or guerrilla groups in Iraq and Afghanistan, it may be in the best interests of the dominant military actor to adhere to rules of engagement that go beyond the laws of land warfare and international conventions. As the United States military has discovered in both Iraq and Afghanistan, civilian casualties have a direct effect on the effectiveness of operations in the strategic sense.

Traditionally, Israel — much like the United States — has subscribed to a Jominian concept of warfare that privileges the destruction of the enemy’s fighting forces above other considerations. In the Clausewitzian model, though, the supreme question of war has to do with whether or not military force served its purpose in advancing national political aims.

The time may arrive when Israel decides that highly kinetic, enemy-centric military operations do not necessarily serve Israel’s longer-term strategic aims. Instead, Israel may want to adopt lessons learned from the United States experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and place a higher emphasis on the prevention of civilian casualties at the expense of lethality and force protection.

I wrote this before I had a chance to read some of the disturbing testimonies of Israeli soldiers who fought in Gaza.

What’s great about Gaza — you see a person on a path, he doesn’t have to be armed, you can simply shoot him. In our case it was an old woman on whom I did not see any weapon when I looked. The order was to take down the person, this woman, the minute you see her. There are always warnings, there is always the saying, ‘Maybe he’s a terrorist.’ What I felt was, there was a lot of thirst for blood.

Ha'aretz and other Israeli newspapers promise to run more of these stories in the days to come.

[A] reserve officer who looked at the transcript Wednesday said: "This is not the IDF we knew."

Okay, I may live to regret this, but take it away, comments section. Please, though, avoid anything that could reasonably be interpreted as anti-Jewish or anti-Arab.* I would very much like to keep this discussion about the issues I discuss in the Times piece -- with a similar level of sobriety -- without descending into hate speech. Thanks.

*Regarding some of the comments thus far, I'm not trying to get into an argument over semantics here. "Anti-semitic", "judeophobic", whatever... You guys and girls are all adults and know what I'm talking about. Let's just keep the conversation lively without descending into ugliness.

I was having lunch yesterday with a noted defense intellectual and retired military officer who was, among other things, giving me some hilarious career advice for when I finish my PhD. ("If I worked in the Pentagon," he told me, "I would be naked with a rifle on the roof within a week." I probably would be as well. Ah, well...) The conversation turned to Gaza, though, and he asked me what I thought.

I first said that Hizballah -- a group I know a hell of a lot more about than Hamas -- excels along three lines of operation: combat operations, information operations, and the provision of social services to the population. Hamas, it appears, is not nearly as sophisticated in any of those three lines of operation despite being almost exactly as old, as an organization, as Hizballah was in 2006.

That said, the parallel I keep drawing is not between Hizballah in 2006 and Hamas in 2009 but rather between Gaza in 2009 and southern Lebanon in both 1993 and 1996. Without getting into the nitty-gritty of Operation Accountability (1993) and Operation Grapes of Wrath (1996), let me just say this: In 1993, Israel conducted an air- and artillery-based campaign which displaced over 100,000 Lebanese and destroyed around 6,000 homes in southern Lebanon. That's about how many homes have been destroyed in Gaza. Immediately following the operation, though, UN observers in southern Lebanon began to see something they had never observed before: Jihad al-Bina, Hizballah's construction arm. For the first time, Jihad al-Bina had a major presence in the area and in fact rebuilt many of the home that had been destroyed in the fighting.

One of the Israeli goals in 1993 was to create a rift between Hizballah and the population in the naive hopes the population would "crack down" on the guerrillas in their midst. The way in which Hizballah was able to distribute aid and reconstruction services following the operation, though, ensured Israel would not be able to do that. Hamas, like Hizballah, has an interest in similarly helping the population. But unlike Hizballah, they have serious competition. Both Fatah and international aid organizations will also be attempting to help the people of Gaza. Understand that in the same way in which Hizballah does not like aid programs taking place in southern Lebanon without at least their tacit -- and public -- approval, Hamas does not want competitors in this arena either. This explains some of the fighting which has taken place between Hamas and Fatah in the past few days.

In the aftermath of the war, Fatah and Hamas are already fighting over who will distribute humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. Hamas is preventing Fatah activists from playing a role in the rebuilding of Gaza, and recently hijacked 12 trucks full of aid donated by the Jordanian government, meant for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

So this is the fight to watch next. Pay close attention to who rebuilds Gaza -- and how Hamas will seek to get credit for every bit of aid that is delivered to the people. That fight will help determine the long-term strategic effects of this latest spasm of violence.