US pause on weapons to Israel is just a signal. So is Israel’s Rafah incursion
Beyond quotidian events and troop movements on the ground, when it comes to the U.S. and Israel, there are four levels of engagement
The Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously said that war is diplomacy by other means. That’s what the limited incursion into Rafah that started Monday is: An effort to pressure Hamas to be more reasonable in the negotiations to free hostages, but not yet the real invasion everybody has been fearing for months.
A corollary might be that the provision of military supplies is politics by other means. That’s what the Biden Administration’s decision to pause the supply of smart bomb munitions to Israel is: An effort to get Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to understand it is in his interest to start paying attention to Washington’s needs and preferences, but not yet the real break in relations many have feared for months.
As I explained on Al Jazeera (above) I do not believe that Biden opposes Israel attacking Rafah, the last redoubt of Hamas inside Gaza. But he wants this to happen only after a massive effort has been undertaken to ensure that the more than 1 million civilians who have been huddling in its environs because of their displacement from other war-torn parts of Gaza have been removed from the line of fire. This logistical project will take weeks, and the fact that it has not yet begun is either evidence that the actual invasion is still far away, or that the Netanyahu government is determined to see a war crimes tribunal at the Hague. I’m guessing it’s the former. Biden’s arms signal is meant to ensure it.
Netanyahu is a political survivor and a master machinator, and he is hoping that the past day’s success in retaking the part of Rafah abutting the Egyptian border will compel Hamas to finally offer an interim ceasefire deal. A partial hostage release in exchange for a temporary halt in the fighting — and release of Palestinian prisoners — that Netanyahu can sell to the far-right extremists on which the survival of his coalition depends.
It is a gamble: the far right may not agree to anything, because in public statements its leaders have made rather clear that they are prepared to write off the hostages in favor of an intense assault to the finish against Hamas. Public opinion in Israel, meanwhile, is moving in the other direction: There is a growing desire to see the hostages returned at any cost, which is probably driving Hamas to inflexibility in the talks.
With war always comes the fog of war, so all public statements and even announced actions need to be taken with more than a grain of salt. To understand what’s going on, we need to maintain a focus on the essence. And the essence is that beyond quotidian events and troop movements on the ground, when it comes to the U.S. and Israel, there are four levels of engagement.
Short-term goals
Most Israelis and most Americans seem aligned here.
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