Three Strikes and?

The policies of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have come under scrutiny since the horrible attack of Hamas terrorists on Israeli citizens on October 7 2023. At least “three strikes” against Netanyahu have been the subject of news commentary. Is it now time to call him out of this conflict?

Calling Netanyahu Out

Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, a weekly columnist for The National (UAE) and Now Media, and a monthly contributing writer for The International New York Times in an interview with Matt Galloway on CBC The Current defines Hamas in this way.

this is a religiously millenarian group, that it is apocalyptic and that it believes that it's doing the will of God. And so all of this is divinely mandated and there's a kind of religious imperative here. So I think there is also an irrational belief on the part of Hamas that in the end, if they are sufficiently fervent that there will be some kind of divine aid as well. (Monday October 16, 2023 Full Transcript, 2023)

Ravi Nessman, Associated Press, and  Amy Teibel, Associated Press, reporting for PBS comment that many Israelis are furious at their government’s chaotic recovery efforts after the Hamas attack. STRIKE ONE!

“It has to be clear. The government is completely incompetent,” said Ruvi Dar, a clinical psychologist and Tel Aviv University professor who has been counseling survivors evacuated from their homes.

Critics have accused Netanyahu of recklessly ignoring a raft of issues. The police force is understaffed, and the military was caught off guard on Israel’s southern flank as forces were more heavily stationed in the occupied West Bank, home to half a million settlers. The government did little to address the spiraling cost of living and rampant killings in Israel’s own Arab communities, while ultra-Orthodox Jewish and pro-settlement coalition partners have received billions of dollars for pet projects. (Chehayeb & Teibel, 2023)

Evan Dyer of CBC News reports notes Netanyahu's Hamas policy came back to haunt him — and Israel. STRIKE TWO!

A symbiotic relationship between Netanyahu and Hamas has been remarked on for years, by both friends and enemies, hawks and doves.

Yuval Diskin, former head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, told the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth in 2013 that "if we look at it over the years, one of the main people contributing to Hamas's strengthening has been Bibi Netanyahu, since his first term as prime minister."

In August 2019, former prime minister Ehud Barak told Israeli Army Radio that Netanyahu's "strategy is to keep Hamas alive and kicking … even at the price of abandoning the citizens [of the south] … in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah."

The logic underlying this strategy, Barak said, is that "it's easier with Hamas to explain to Israelis that there is no one to sit with and no one to talk to." (Dyer, 2023)

Matt Galloway on the CBC program, the Current, discussed the Israel-Hamas conflict and its deadly impact on civilians inside Gaza on Nov. 2, 2023  with Rami Khouri, a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut.

Rami Khouri observes that the situation has been disastrous. He focuses on the Palestinian territories, Middle East geopolitics and American foreign policy in the region.

But, you know, part of it is the Palestinian leadership's fault, and part of it is by design of Israel to divide and conquer the Palestinians. And they've worked that very well, including by helping entrench Hamas in the Gaza Strip. I mean, this is the plan from Netanyahu as well. I mean, it's been leaked and reported in the Israeli press that he found Hamas's governance of Gaza Strip useful to him and useful to the Israelis. (The Current With Matt Galloway | Live Radio, n.d.)

The lessons from past wars on terror indicate that Netanyahu’s policy to obliterate Hamas is unrealistic. STRIKE THREE!

policy to obliterate Hamas is unrealistic

The Economist International article on Fighting Hamas comments that Hamas is at the same time a religious idea, a social movement, a political party, a government and a hybrid militia wedded to terrorism. Whatever happens in Gaza, Hamas remains a powerful political force in the West Bank.

“We will obliterate Hamas. We will triumph. It might take time, but we will end this war stronger than ever.” The words of Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, are intended not only to convey resolve, but also to signal that his war in Gaza is different. No longer is Israel aiming to punish and deter Hamas. Now it wants to destroy it altogether.

In private conversations, Israeli military officials are defining the objective more narrowly: to seize the main urban centre, Gaza City; wipe out Hamas’s top political and military leadership in the territory; and destroy as much of its military capacity as possible. (Israel Needs to Resist Irrational Retaliation, 2023)

Yossi Melman, in Tel Aviv, is a defense and security analyst for Haaretz. Dan Raviv, in Washington, is a former CBS News correspondent. They write that Israel’s vow to ‘eliminate Hamas’ is unrealistic. 

Among the clearest voices saying the hostages’ welfare must come first is that of Tamir Pardo, a former head of the Mossad who was himself an IDF commando soldier. Known for thinking outside the box, he expressed to us that military rescues—even with the well-practiced expertise of Israel’s most elite fighters—would be impossible, with hostages divided into many groups in perhaps unreachable underground lairs. Pardo, and now many others in the security establishment, have reached the conclusion that negotiations are the best route to save hostages’ lives. Using Egypt and especially Qatar as mediators, four women were set free in the first releases.

While Netanyahu and the army promise to “eliminate Hamas,” that is not realistic. Hamas is an extreme Islamic ideology, a set of ideas—including total refusal to accept a Jewish state right alongside—that cannot be wiped out. But their quasi-government in Gaza can be shut down. Of course, there will then be the challenge of finding someone to govern that poverty-stricken areas needing reconstruction and a new, hopefully more positive, beginning. (Melman & Raviv, 2023)

Three strikes and you are out. The track record of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu should make the insistence on policies of Gaza occupation and continuous conflict instead of negotiations toward cessation of war very likely to fail and should not be supported by the community of nations, including the United States, NATO, and the EU.

References

Chehayeb, K., & Teibel, A. (2023, October 26). Many Israelis are furious at their government's chaotic recovery efforts after Hamas attack. PBS. Retrieved November 13, 2023, from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/many-israelis-are-furious-at-their-governments-chaotic-recovery-efforts-after-hamas-attack 

The Current with Matt Galloway | Live Radio. (n.d.). CBC. Retrieved November 4, 2023, from https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-63-the-current 

Dyer, E. (2023, October 28). How Netanyahu's Hamas policy came back to haunt him — and Israel. CBC. Retrieved November 1, 2023, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/netanyahu-israel-gaza-hamas-1.7010035 

Israel needs to resist irrational retaliation. (2023, October 16). The Economist. Retrieved November 10, 2023, from https://www.economist.com/international/2023/10/16/israel-needs-to-resist-irrational-retaliation 

Melman, Y., & Raviv, D. (2023, October 28). Column: Israel's Vow to 'Eliminate Hamas' Is Unrealistic. Time. Retrieved November 13, 2023, from https://time.com/6329637/israel-hamas-war-netanyahu-strategy/ 

Policy, Cost and Morality in Climate Crisis

Policy, paying for Climate Change and cutting down opponents are part of a short post halfway through the federal election campaign.

The climate crisis positions

Andrew Coyne contrasts bad policy versus no policy for the National Post. He comments on the real difference between Conservatives and Liberals.

Worse yet is the Conservatives’ “Green Home Renovation Tax Credit,” part of the party’s “real plan” for dealing with climate change. The credit is supposed to give families an incentive to make their houses more energy efficient. But families already have an incentive to do that: to save on their heating and electricity bills. Why do they also need a cookie from the government?...Whole sections of the Liberal platform appear to have been drafted between flights, without the barest draft of a hint of an inkling of how they would be put into effect... And thus: the party promises, not merely to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 — a target it is nowhere near, and not likely to achieve — but to reduce them to “net zero” by 2050. How would it succeed in such a remote and exalted ambition, when it has failed so signally in the present?
I’ll let the environment minister, Catherine McKenna, answer: “The point is right now, we need to get elected… If we are re-elected we will look at how best to do this.” Oh.1 

Election direction for GHG reduction

Global News reports an Ipsos poll that shows Canadians want to stop climate change, but half don’t want to pay an extra cent:

“There’s a big difference here between intent and behaviour,” said Sean Simpson, vice president of Ipsos...Ipsos also looked at how much all average voters who identify with one of the main parties are willing to pay, and it was voters who identify as Green supporters who were willing to pay the most with an average of $701. NDP voters on average said they would be willing to pay $375, while Liberal supporters said they would be willing to pay an extra $326. Bloc Quebecois and Conservative voters had the lowest averages of $254 and $206, respectively.2 

The Star reporter Judith Timson suggests that demonizing an opponent is not going to win the election. The prevailing ethos today is “I don’t like that man, I must savage him as thoroughly as possible and deny everything he/she says has any merit or humanity at all.” We seem to have reached a point where many of us have no interest in even hearing an argument for — or from — anyone who doesn’t fully agree with us. That’s a dangerous and disheartening proposition as we head into a federal election and the federal leader debates. A strategy that demonizes an opponent may be a distraction in hopes the public does not detect a weak policy.

Credit the rise of populism, the death of truth or the decline of civility. Or the very real evidence that a virulent strain of racism and other forms of bigotry is on the rise.
It may be behavioural extremes that have brought us here — but behavioural extremes won’t fix us.When you want to be a leader in a country as wonderful and as diverse as Canada, you don’t have the luxury of walking away from those you disagree with, especially if you want to change their hearts and minds.
The goal is not to be nice, or so anodyne as to never give offence or to be afraid to be sharply critical of a policy or a point of view.
Nor is it to give racism or other forms of bigotry a platform. Informed criticism is the best.3 

Distractions from policy

Shawn McCarthy, an independent journalist and senior counsel with Sussex Strategy Group, reminds us that in confronting the global challenge, we need to focus on two critical factors: responsibility and leadership and remember a basic tenet of being moral human beings is that we don’t evade our responsibility because other people are not living up to theirs.

And it is true that Canada is a small player and global success in the battle against climate change depends to a great degree on three countries: China, the United States and India.
But that doesn’t absolve Canada. We’ve made commitments under a global agreement that only works if the parties meet their obligations. While other countries may not be on track, that’s a poor excuse for Canada to toss over the international deal that represents the best hope for the world to avert complete disaster.
(It is too late to avoid serious impacts from climate change – now we’re talking the pace of warming and the difference between ‘horrible for the most vulnerable people in the world’ and ‘catastrophic for all people’.)
In confronting the global challenge, we need to focus on two critical factors: responsibility and leadership.
A basic tenet of being moral human beings is that we don’t evade our responsibility because other people are not living up to theirs.
While Canada accounts for only 1.6 per cent of the world’s GHG emissions, this country is in the top 10 in total emissions. It’s also near the top of the charts in emissions per person, one of the world’s largest exporters of oil and gas, and among the wealthiest countries on earth.
So if Canada can’t show leadership on climate change, who will? The domestic actions won’t be easy, and they won’t be cost-free. But we can’t urge the largest emitters to make the swift and necessary transition if we don’t do so ourselves.
Political leaders, business executives and citizens need to take our collective responsibility to heart. Elections are a time for voters to reflect on those hard choices and take a stand.4 

The crisis is not voted away

The cost of failing to mitigate climate change effects will be much higher than the cost of acting now to achieve net zero emissions.

References

1	(2019, September 25). Andrew Coyne: Bad policy versus no policy — the real .... Retrieved September 27, 2019, from https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/election-2019/andrew-coyne-bad-policy-versus-no-policy-the-real-difference-between-the-conservatives-and-liberals
2	(2019, September 26). Canadians want to stop climate change - Global News. Retrieved September 27, 2019, from https://globalnews.ca/news/5948758/canadians-climate-change-ipsos-poll/
3	(n.d.). Demonizing an opponent is not going to win the election | The .... Retrieved September 27, 2019, from https://www.thestar.com/life/opinion/2019/09/09/demonizing-an-opponent-is-not-going-to-win-the-election.html
4	(2019, September 30). In confronting climate change, Canada needs responsibility .... Retrieved October 1, 2019, from https://ipolitics.ca/2019/09/30/in-confronting-climate-change-canada-needs-responsibility-and-leadership/