Is Raf OK? -- Installment #98

2024-04-04 -- Tel Aviv

Apr 04, 2024

Tags: 3 Min Read; Relief

The weather continues to be pleasant. The news continues to be shitty. Military tensions are running high: The IDF just paused leaves for combat soldiers; Some air defense reservists have been called up). GPS is blocked off and on. Here is what my phone said this morning when I went to rent a scooter:

Yes. My phone thought I was in Beirut. (And I can get a Lime scooter there! For shekels! Cool! Can I ride it back to Tel Aviv?)

To the gym, I walked.

World Food Kitchen Disaster

Everyone knows what happened: The IDF rocketed three vehicles belonging to the World Central Kitchen (WCK), an NGO that was handling food distribution to hundreds of thousands in Gaza. Seven aid workers were killed. WCF paused their critical work.

I won't go over the details, because the press is doing that. What I will do is point out: Calling this an operational/tactical error is a political act.

I (and others) have discussed: Israel went into Gaza without a strategic vision. Other than eliminating Hamas, there isn't a mission. Part of the strategic failure was considering things like... food distribution. The political wing (read: Bibi) never said, "Gaza will be fed during the war." Without an explicit top line political value, the operational side (read: the army) didn't make an effort to deliver "nutritional logistics." Given the PR liability incurred by this deficit—already for months now—the fiasco has been visible to all.

The political aspect is glaring: The Army said "This was a grave mistake...We are sorry...We share in the grief." (The Chief of Staff himself said it, in English.) The political wing (read: Bibi) said, "These things happen."

Result: The army is setting up a coordination office to coordinate with NGO's. (Because the government [read: Bibi] never has and isn't expected to. Israelis have long said, “The only thing that works well here is the army.” A sad truth.)

It boils down to: The price of the politics of division. Or, to state it directly: This is a reasonable and logical consequence of Israeli society choosing Bibi over and over for many years.

Just as October 7 itself came after a year of an Israeli society riven by issues forced down its throat by the Prime Minister's office, the WCK fiasco comes after a month of fighting over equal treatment being extended to the Ultra Orthodox (e.g. compulsory military or national service). Fights are draining. Distracting. Enfeebling.

They take finite energy and attention from everyone, especially those in leadership.

It is in this context, with leaders spending countless hours fighting each other that energy and attention is not available to support more of the right things in Gaza.

In a war landscape as complex and fraught as Gaza's, tragic things will occur. It is war. But when they occur in the context of political leadership locked in elective conflicts, they become unforced errors. Blunders. Blame sits at the feet of the politicians, not the generals.

The buck stops somewhere. With or without the desk plaque.

[See note 1 below]

Antisemitism

Somehow it came across my radar that "antisemitism awareness training" is starting to be a thing in American communities (this example from Seattle). (PDF here.)

I read an interview with Arafat’s widow from five or ten years ago. She talked about how the Palestinian society she knew was secular. The current Muslim emphasis is both new and, to her, uncomfortable. (Note, she has lived in France for decades, and reportedly has hundreds of millions of dollars [stolen from donations and international funding for Palestinians].) Today, the Palestinian movement has been hijacked by Hamas and Islamic Jihad—fundamentalists in the vein of the Muslim Brotherhood.

I note this to say: The need for antisemitism awareness is clear, but antisemitism that is surfacing today seems to be a sideshow for a larger battle: The rise of populism & illiberalism. These movements, packaged in a number of forms (religious extremism, autocracy) is the larger problem. An aspect that stands out in the U.S. and Europe is antisemitism.

In other words, one can miss the forest for the trees: The antisemitism visible in the West isn’t in a vacuum. It isn’t “old fashioned” antisemitism—a Christian creation that serves a Christian community. What is visible today in the West, it seems, is a tentacle of the religious extremism most visible in the Middle East.

In the U.S. Bret Stephens wrote (PDF here):

[The behavior of Pro Palestinian activists in the U.S.] reveals the bullying mentality at the heart of the pro-Hamas movement. It isn’t enough for them to speak out; they must shut other voices down. It isn’t enough for them to make a strong or clear argument; they also aim to instill a palpable sense of fear in their opponents.

The same goal, I believe, as terrorism with guns and bombs.

Former Prime Minister of France, Manuel Valls writes: Western Liberalism is at war. Zionism is at most one front in that battle. Possibly less.

Rivy Poupko Kletenik's Essay: Shani Louk, we ask your permission

My dear friend Rivy posted the above, and I wish I could engage it. From this side of the water, the dignity of photos, of victims, is dear and also a little abstract.