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Notes -
I disagree regarding Israel’s options in terms of domestic politics (accommodation with the Palestinians became politically impossible after the early 2000s and ‘mowing the grass’ was politically impossible after October 7th), but you are right as far as political science, certainly.
‘Realism’ is just idealism by another name. The realist has his own ideology, how can he not? To put it another way, realism is really just the purest form of small-l classical liberalism in geopolitics. Everyone is a rational game theory actor responding to incentives, everyone is actions in their own rational self interest. This is no less fictive than the ideology of the ‘rules-based international order’ - in fact it is more fictional, because proponents of the latter typically admit they actually have some kind of ideology. The realist just thinks he is a cool, casual observer, the chopper pilot on the last helicopter out of Saigon, shrugging, “it is what it is” even as he believes in so many grand myths of his own. It’s like that political compass meme, right, the radical centrist, the “grill pill” has no less complex and ideological a philosophy than the ancap or the communist of the fascist.
To go back to the subject at hand, Israel anywhere else would have failed, Israel where it is can probably never succeed. As I said before, its survival this long was improbable at the moment of its founding, it was always skating on thin ice. I don’t believe acquiescing to Palestinian demands, not in the 1970s, nor in the 1990s, not today, would save it. Like the realists, the Arabs see themselves as a martial people; they can smell weakness. Whether Israel does it by choice or at gunpoint, any concessions will only hasten its collapse.
What does politically impossible mean? It always seems to mean something like "restraint was impossible without ending Bibi Netanyahu's political career." Which isn't something that I think we need to value all that highly in terms of impossibility. We wouldn't accept, in a wartime situation, saying "It's impossible to take that position" when what we mean is "it's impossible to take the position without suffering casualties." If Bibi isn't patriotic enough to take one for Israel, history should hold him accountable for that.
In what way is this operation not just another example of mowing the grass? Even accepting the absurd maximalist goal of "eliminating Hamas;" let's imagine that Hamas ceases to be a going concern, does anyone really think we won't see a new terrorist organization form? Israel may not be mowing the grass, but they are fertilizing it.
If a violent response was necessary, it had to be done in three months. Dragging it out over multiple years has been foolish.
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