Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: The Iron Dome, Press Bias, and Israel's Lack of Strategic Thinking

Un articolo equilibrato. Non interamente condivisibile, ma scritto da 
una persona indubbiamente intelligente.
 
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/11/the-iron-dome-press-bias-and-israels-lack-of-strategic-thinking/265360/
 
 
The Iron Dome, Press Bias, and Israel's Lack of Strategic Thinking
 
NOV 16 2012, 4:01 PM ET 220
Some observations as the Gaza crisis continues to unfold:
 
1. The Iron Dome anti-rocket and missile defense system seems to work 
better than most people expected. Israel is becoming very good at 
shooting down missiles.
 
2. Israel also seems to be getting better at not killing civilians in 
Gaza. The numbers are of course too large, and this could change in an 
instant, but right now the casualty rate is much lower than in Operation 
Cast Lead. And yes, of course, much smaller than the numbers from the 
American drone war in Pakistan. Hamas, of course, is trying to maximize 
civilian casualties. Which brings me to:
 
3.The media is biased against Israel. Yes, got it. Yes, Israel is being 
judged harshly. Yes, I know that probably 300 people have been murdered 
in Syria since this Gaza affair started, and no one cares. An 
acquaintance of mine, a Syrian living in Beirut, wrote me in frustration 
about this last night. "We get very little interest from the 
international press compared to the Palestinians. What should we do to 
get more attention?"
 
My advice is to get killed by Jews. Always works. That said, what do 
pro-Israel people want? And what does Israel itself want? Israel is more 
powerful than its Palestinian adversaries, and the press almost 
axiomatically roots for the underdog. There is much greater sympathy for 
the Palestinian cause than before, which is partially Israel's fault -- 
if Israel didn't appear to be a colonizer of the West Bank, it would 
find more sympathy. Jews, and certainly a Jewish state, are never going 
to win popularity contests, but the situation wouldn't seem quite so 
dire to Israelis and their friends if people plausibly believed that the 
Netanyahu government was interested in implementing a two-state solution.
 
4. Barack Obama hasn't turned against Israel. This is a big surprise to 
everyone who has not paid attention for the last four years, or who had 
decided, for nakedly partisan reasons, to paint him as a Jew-hater.
 
5. Israel's media campaign -- Gamify[1]? -- is disgraceful. David 
Rothkopf just pointed out to me that people are most influenced by their 
enemies. In this case, the braggadocio of the IDF is beginning to 
resemble the braying of various Palestinian terror outfits over the 
years. All death is tragic, even the deaths of your enemies.
 
6. I'll be asking the same question over and over again the coming days: 
What is Israel's long-term strategy? Short-term, I understand: No state 
can agree to have its civilians rocketed. But long-term, do Israeli 
leaders believe that they possess a military solution to their political 
problem in Gaza? There is no way out of this militarily. Israel is not 
Russia, Gaza is not Chechnya and Netanyahu isn't Putin. Even if Israel 
were morally capable of acting like Russia, the world would not allow 
it. So: Is the goal to empower Hamas? Some right-wingers in Israel would 
prefer Hamas's empowerment, because they want to kill the idea of a 
two-state solution. But to those leaders who are at least verbally 
committed to the idea of partition, what is the plan? How do you 
marginalize Hamas, which seeks the destruction of Jews and the Jewish 
state, and empower the more moderate forces that govern the West Bank?
 
Here's one idea: Give Palestinians hope that Israel is serious about the 
two-state solution. And how do you do that? By reversing the settlement 
project on the West Bank. It is not unreasonable for Palestinians to 
doubt the sincerity of Netanyahu on the subject of the two-state 
solution, when settlements grow ever-thicker. There's no way around 
this: The idea of a two-state solution will die if Israel continues to 
treat the West Bank as a suburb of Jerusalem and Kfar Sava, and not as 
the future location of the state of Palestine.
 
UPDATE:
 
7. Hamas also lacks coherent thinking. Here is David Makovsky of the 
Washington Institute for Near East Policy on where Hamas went wrong in 
this latest round of violence:
Hamas seems to have miscalculated on several fronts. First, it may have 
believed that Israel would avoid major action for fear of antagonizing 
the new government in Cairo, given Gaza's proximity to Egypt and Hamas's 
close ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. It may also have believed that 
recent shows of regional solidarity (including the Qatari emir's visit 
to Gaza last month and ongoing support from Turkey) would raise the 
diplomatic cost of Israeli action to prohibitive levels.
 
In addition, Hamas may not have expected an attack against a 
high-profile target like Jabari, which was a change from Israel's 
pattern of sporadic retaliation to rocket fire. Indeed, Israel 
considered him a leading terrorist -- he was responsible for overseeing 
at least one suicide bombing in the late 1990s and was key in Hamas 
operations during the second intifada, when the group carried out 
numerous suicide attacks. And when Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, he 
organized its fighters into a military force with companies, battalions, 
and brigades. Jabari is also believed to have overseen the detention of 
kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, allowing himself to be 
photographed when Shalit was swapped for Palestinian prisoners last year.
 
* 
http://readwrite.com/2012/11/15/unbelievable-the-idf-has-gamified-its-war-blog?&_suid=13530989264410714473401196301
 
-- 
Namib
--
I have examined maps of the city with the greatest care, yet have never 
again found the Rue d'Auseil (HPL)

 
 
Hanno fatto benissimo. Prima delle elezioni. LOL
 
Am.
 
PS Prossimo appuntamento all'Assemblea ONU tra venti giorni. Quando si 
vota sulla Palestina.

 down missiles.
 
Che sia tutta una campagna pubblicitaria per il mercato egiziano? 
 
 

 state, and empower the more moderate forces that govern the West Bank?
 
 
Come scrivevo ieri, sembra che la strategia israeliana sia quella di
perpetuare lo status quo, anche se questo significa un conflitto a bassa
intensità a tempo indeterminato, magari cercando di cambiare un po' la
situazione sul campo con tanti piccoli fatti compiuti. Può darsi che la
strategia israeliana sia un'altra, in questo caso però spiegatecela
possibilmente con esempi.
 
Comunque, più che passa il tempo più che la situazione generale
peggiora. In America c'era Bush, ora c'è Obama. In Egitto c'era Mubarak,
un altro pezzo di merda, ma almeno affidabile entro certi limiti.
Vattelapesca quelli che ci sono adesso. In Siria c'era Assad, vedremo
fra un anno come va a finire. I palestinesi hanno avuto Arafat,
personaggio inaffidabile quanto si vuole, ma non se Hamas adesso sia
preferibile (soprattutto se non si lascia spazio ad Abbas). E già si
prepara un dopo Hamas, che ormai anche Hamas viene considerata troppo
moderata. Tanti auguri per la strategia di rimandare a domani (forse)
quello che non si è voluto fare ieri e non si vuole fare oggi. Il futuro
ci dirà se è stata una buona strategia. 
 
 
 

 verrï¿½ dopo di lui gli israeliani diranno che si stava meglio prima
 
 
Ricordo che qualche tempo fa qualche idiota accusava Israele di 
appoggiare silenziosamente Assad, a discapito della gloriosa primavera 
siriana.
 
Pare che non si possa fare a meno si sparare cazzate su Israele, 
qualunque cosa faccia o non faccia.
 
Resta il fatto che i 300 morti ammazzati a weekend siriani, finchï¿½ non 
vengono ammazzati da ebrei, continueranno a suscitare poco scandalo, 
perlomeno in certe aree, diciamo cosï¿½, politiche.
 
 
-- 
ï¿½Until the wolf shall lay with lamb, weï¿½d better be the wolves.ï¿½
ï¿½Ehud Barak