Category: Gaza

Will Israel Invade?

Gaza_Israel

Goldblog makes the case against a ground war:

The air campaign against Hamas rocket sites is understandable and defensible. A ground invasion will lead to misery and woe; to a total rupture with Egypt; to a further loss of legitimacy, and thus, deterrent capability — and, at the end of the day, does anyone actually believe that Israel would be able to fully neutralize the Hamas/Islamic Jihad threat? These groups might need time to rebuild, but they would be rebuilt. And then what? Another ground invasion?

Eli Lake's reporting suggests that a ground invasion by Israel isn't likely:

[U.S. officials briefed on Netanyahu's call with Obama] say Netanyahu said Israel would not consider a full-scale ground invasion unless there was escalation from Hamas or a strike that caused significant casualties. There has not been, for example, a date set for such an invasion—nor are the other kinds of contingency plans Israel would need in such a circumstance in place, according to these U.S. officials, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the conversations.

Sarah Topol and Dan Ephron add:

An opinion poll published in the newspaper Haaretz today showed that some 84 percent of Israelis back the offensive against Gaza. But it also suggested Netanyahu’s approval rating could drop if he orders a ground invasion, which only 30 percent of Israelis support. Netanyahu faces a national election in two months.

(Photo: Israeli soldiers prepare an artillery emplacement overlooking Gaza on November 19, 2012 on Israel's border with the Gaza Strip. The death toll has risen to at least 85 killed in the air strikes, according to hospital officials, on day six since the launch of operation 'Pillar of Defence.' By Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

The Psychological War

Karl Vick examines the horrifying head games at play in the Israel-Gaza conflict:

The daily Ma’ariv wrote that by reaching Tel Aviv from Gaza, the militants “put another 1.5 million civilians into siren anxiety.” That no one was killed, or even hurt, did not seem to matter. In military terms, the conflict is so lopsided that the most meaningful competition is for perception and psychology. 

And from the other side:

Israeli forces play an intimidation game as well. On Thursday, according to a report in the Hebrew press, an Israeli gunboat fired a salvo near enough to the refugee camp home of Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh to make a point. The Israel Defense Forces also continued to publicize its preparation of ground forces, even naming the units that would participate: the Givanti Brigade, paratroopers, and an elite tank unit.

Losing The Twitter War, Ctd

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Goldblog agrees with Koplow, calling the IDF’s social media campaign the “hamasization” of Israeli PR. In a post we cited earlier, Goldblog adds:

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.

Jeffrey also points to Jon Mitchell’s reporting on another troubling element of IDF’s online campaign:

The IDF Blog now has atrocious gamification badges with points and rewards for sharing the content to social media. For example, if you visit the site 10 times, you get the “Consistent” badge. If you search the blog multiple times, you’re promoted to “Research Officer.” Yes, Israel has gamified war. This is absolutely horrendous. … Gamification is offensive when coupon companies do it. This is a WAR.

The IDF insists that the gamification has been around for months and that Mitchell is incorrect to assume it arose for this conflict. Mitchell doesn’t buy it. Meanwhile, Lauren Bohn has details on the team of 30 soldiers who handle the writing and graphic design for the IDF’s “Interactive Media” branch. One of those soldiers called the Internet an “additional war zone”. Laura Goldman spoke with IDF spokesperson Captain Eytan Buchman about such reasoning:

[Buchman:] “We learned from Operation Cast Lead in 2008 and 2009 that there were potential new audiences that we could target rather than the traditional media,” he said. “There is so much misinformation coming out of Gaza. Videos show a man be carried into an ambulance, but don’t show the same man walking out of the ambulance a few minutes later. Hamas falsely claimed to have hit an Israeli naval vessel. Social media allows everyone to see for themselves what is happening and make their own decisions.” As for the controversial decision to show the video of the assassination of senior Hamas leader Ahmed Jabari, Buchman defends it. “The video shows that we hit him when he was in the middle of the intersection to minimize collateral damage,” he said. 

In a new front in the social media war, IDF soldiers have been sharing their war readiness on Instagram (one such image is seen above). Stepping back, Arwa Mahdawi points out that marketing is something the Israelis have always been good at:

Ever since it officially came into existence in 1948, Israel has gone methodically about the creation of a “Brand Israel”.

This originally began with an emphasis of the religious significance of a state for the Jewish people. Then, in 2005, when it was time for a rebrand, the Israeli government consulted with American marketing executives to develop a positioning that would appeal to a new generation: an Israel that was “relevant and modern” rather than a place of “fighting and religion”. So Israel did some pinkwashing, and suddenly became a vocal champion of gay rights. It fought to retain cultural ownership of falafel, hummus, and Kafka. It poured millions of dollars into tourism campaigns that sought to replace imagery of wartorn landscapes with sun-kissed seascapes.

When it comes to winning modern wars, a robust marketing campaign is as important as a military campaign. But while Israel has long been aware of this, the Palestinians have never been quite so PR-savvy. Back in 2005, the Economist quoted a Palestinian official who said that Israelis “spend a lot of time in marketing, and they succeed, whereas the Palestinians have a really good product, but invest nothing in selling it”. Several years on, nothing has changed. The Palestinian messaging currently being most amplified by the media consists of Hamas’s crazed proclamations about “gates of hell“. …

While Palestine should certainly not be looking at emulating the IDF’s feverous Twitter-tactics, it should be following Israel’s lead in a more sophisticated approach towards nation-branding. Because, in today’s world, if there is ever to be a Palestine there needs to first be a “Brand Palestine”.

Case in point: here is how the Gaza militant group Al Qassam Brigades tweeted the rockets they shot at Jerusalem today:

What Is Israel’s Plan?

Goldblog asks:

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? 

Janine Zacharia adds:

To be sure, Israel will once again achieve many of its short-term tactical goals, assassinating a handful of Hamas leaders, leveling militant safe houses, and eliminating scores of Hamas military installations or weapon depots. And, in the end, Israel will be no safer, although it will surely be more alone in the world and living in a neighborhood that is less tolerant of its aggressive countermeasures. It’s time to declare Israel’s policy toward Gaza and Hamas a failure. This is not an anti-Israel statement. Rather, it is an honest acknowledgment of the facts, which are simply too numerous to avoid.

Losing The Twitter War

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Michael Koplow criticizes Israel's aggressive social media campaign:

The IDF in this case is trumpeting the killing of an unapologetic terrorist leader, and nobody should shed a tear for Jabari for even a moment, but the fact remains that many people, particularly among the crowd that Israel needs to be courting, are deeply skeptical of Israeli intentions generally and tend not to give Israel the benefit of the doubt. They cast a wary eye on Israeli militarism and martial behavior, and crowing about killing anyone or glorifying Israeli operations in Gaza is a bad public relations strategy insofar as it feeds directly into the fear of Israel run amok with no regard for the collateral damage being caused. Rather than convey a sense that Israel is doing a job that it did not want to have to do as quickly and efficiently as possible, the IDF's Twitter outreach conveys a sense of braggadocio that is going to lead to a host of problems afterward.

The Texts Of War

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Above is a mass text apparently being sent to those living in Gaza:

Meanwhile, here is the mass text that Israelis receive:

(Photo from RanaGaza)

The Arab Spring Factor

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Marc Lynch worries that further escalation between Gaza and Israel will have unpredictable results in Arab Spring nations. On Egypt:

Morsi has demonstrated his preference to pursue a pragmatic foreign policy here, offering some sympathetic rhetoric and a visit from his relatively anonymous Prime Minister but thus far avoiding dramatic gestures such as opening the border with Gaza or throwing Camp David on the table. But as much as Morsi values solidifying relations with the U.S. and the international community, and is constrained by the status quo orientation of the Egyptian military and foreign policy apparatus, he may also see real opportunities to gain domestic popularity and assert Egyptian regional leadership.  Morsi's conversations with Erdogan may be implictly focused as much on coordinating to avoid a bidding war over Gaza which pushes both countries towards overly risky moves.  But it is not clear that such a stance can be maintained if the tempo of protests and the human toll of the war escalates.  

(Photo: Egyptians shout anti-Israeli slogans during a demonstration in front of Al-Azhar mosque after the weekly Friday prayer in Cairo on November 16, 2012. Several thousand people demonstrated outside the Al-Azhar mosque to protest against the Israeli campaign.  Arabic writing on placard reads 'Hamas is the symbol of heroism'. By AFP/Getty Images)