New York Times columnist Roger Cohen asks if the conflict in Gaza was necessary. He doesn’t think so. It was a “war of choice” and Israel simply chose badly.
Cohen starts with the story of three Israeli youths who were abducted and murdered near Hebron. He writes that Prime Minister Netanyahu used this event to further his own agenda:
The prime minister’s aim was to discredit Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, for reconciling with Hamas; vindicate the collapse of the peace talks Secretary of State John Kerry had pursued; stir up Israeli rage over the fate of the teenagers; sweep through the West Bank arresting hundreds of suspected Hamas members, including 58 released under the terms of an earlier deal with Hamas; and consolidate divide-and-rule.
Cohen makes the accusation that evidence that the youths were dead was purposefully concealed to whip Israelis into a “war frenzy.”
This was the context in which a Palestinian teenager was killed by Israeli extremists. It was also the context of the drift to war: air campaign, Hamas rockets and tunnel raids, Israeli ground invasion. Drift is the operative word.
But in describing the origins of the conflict as such, Cohen makes a huge error. Over the last few years, there have been terrorist attacks and Israeli responses. But what made this event into a military campaign was that Israel was attacked by a massive barrage of rockets fired from Gaza. Israel did not launch any military operations in Gaza immediately after the kidnapping. The Israeli response was to search frantically to find out what happened to the youths and to arrest members of Hamas. This is hardly surprising since soon after the youths were abducted, Israel obtained confessions from members of Hamas about the crime.
This was no “drift to war.” There was an effort to solve a brutal crime and bring those responsible to justice. Should all the evidence about the kidnapping have been released to the public? Debatable, but the decision to keep certain information pertaining to the investigation from the public did not whip Israelis into a “war frenzy. ” The retaliation by thugs against a Palestinian teenager was condemned throughout Israel and stands as a criminal aberration. It was not part of any sort of military campaign.
Unlike Cohen’s ordering of subsequent events, the correct sequence was:
- Hamas rockets launched against dozens of Israeli cities,
- an Israeli air campaign against rocket launchers,
- Hamas tunnel raids into Israel, and then,
- the Israeli ground campaign.
Such an order doesn’t fit Cohen’s narrative. He believes that Israel had a choice and that the “mini-war” was not necessary. It was the result of a “drift to war” that was Israel’s objective in the first place.
If any nation comes under military attack (and after all, rocket launches deep into the heart of Israel was a military attack), response is absolutely necessary. Otherwise your citizens become nothing more than walking targets. Terrorist attacks against three Israelis and an Arab did not constitute acts of war. But launching missiles on Israeli cities did.
It’s too bad that Roger Cohen fails to understand that sometimes you have no choice.
Image: CC BY flickr/John Spade
