2024 –the year following October 7, 2023– was a long year of bewildering violence against civilians defined by systemic destruction of human life on both sides of the border between Israel and Gaza. Nothing coheres its disorientation of political consciousness. Old familiar narratives built upon the moral difference between right and wrong, and the political difference between left and right have all been ground into dust by the enormity of violence. Hemmed in by fear, rage, grief, and disbelief, there is neither an open political horizon nor a status quo ante to which to return.
The parties to the Hamas-Hezbollah-Israel war have crossed these multiple red lines. The scale of death and destruction is unprecedented in the histories of the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. At this moment, after the initial onslaughts of intense military violence, the war is grinding down into what is best described as a “war of attrition.” About this, I am interested in what might be a rough consensus among American Jews and maybe also Jewish citizens of Israel, and what it might take to end a conflict left unresolved by the responsible political parties, Israeli and Palestinian.
Red Lines
What follows below is first my attempt to trace the cascading collapse of political and moral red lines.
–October 7 is part of the larger Israeli-Palestinian conflict including the occupation of the West Bank, the collapse of the Oslo Peace process, and the Second Intifadah. But there is also a larger regional context and shorter time-arc, involving disruption of entire populations and massive loss of life across the Middle East in the wake of the suppression by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah of the Syrian Revolution in 2011. Syria saw over a million dead, some 11 million refugees ethnically cleansed, leaving the indelible impression of destroyed cities and severe human trauma. In the wake of the crushed Syrian Revolution, Iran creates an “axis of resistance,” a “unity of fronts,” a “ring of fire” surrounding Israel with proxy militias in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria.
–Hamas fortifies a massive military infrastructure under civilian populations in Gaza. Hezbollah did the same in Shiite dominated areas of southern Lebanon, the southern district of Beirut, and the Beka???? Valley.
–Netanyahu props up Hamas with cash from Qatar; for years; to contain Hamas in Gaza at the expense of the Palestinian Authority; to thwart the project Palestinian statehood; to secure Jewish settlements and the occupation/annexation of West Bank territories. This was the rightwing and religious rightwing “conception” of the Israeli right driving policy for over a decade, and which collapsed on October 7.
–2018 passage of Jewish Nation State Basic Law by a Likud led government cements into law social inequality on the basis of ethnic-religious identity; throws the commitment to democracy in Israel under serious question.
–Election of November 2022 puts into power a full-on ultra-right religious government. Along with ultra-orthodox, religious nationalists occupy positions of control in practically all key ministries.
— The first full-on religious government in the history of the country leads a full-on assault against Israeli democracy, a takeover of the secular state and civil society, starting with the Supreme Court, by rightwing religious interests. The move ignites massive and ongoing pro-democracy demonstrations in Israel for most of the year 2024 against the Netanyahu-Settler-Haredi government. IDF and intelligence chiefs warn that severe social fissure caused by judicial coup could trigger a multi-front war against the country.
–An upsurge of religious settler violence ignored and/or backed by the IDF, and supported by powerful representatives in the government-coalition and Knesset against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank after November 2022 and up through the holidays in fall of 2023.
–October 7, 2023 attack on south of Israel by Hamas; massacres, sexual assault, and abduction of civilians; a massive loss of life; depopulation of the western Negev. Willing to martyr the lives of their own people, the current assessment is that Hamas had as its goal the triggering of a multi-front war against Israel by drawing in Hezbollah and Iranian forces into the fight.
–War on Hamas and intense civilian suffering in Gaza; catastrophic displacement in the hundreds of thousands and death toll in the tens of thousands. Especially intense and lethal warfare in the first seven weeks of open war are responsible for massive civilian casualties in Gaza. There has been no consistent commitment by the rightwing-religious government of Israel to securing the release of hostages held by Hamas under abusive conditions. From the beginning it was obvious that there were no clear war goals planning for “the day after” except for a vague promise of “total victory.”
–To support Hamas, Hezbollah targets civilian towns and settlements, depopulating the north of Israel, triggering a carefully calibrated low-level war of attrition that escalated over the course of 2024.
–In Europe and North America, pro-Hamas messaging on the streets and at universities and cultural institutions create hostile environments intended to isolate Jews from public life under an anti-Zionist litmus test in liberal-progressive circles. In the United States, the protests and anti-Jewish actions have been led by Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and other activist organizations. This too constitutes the crossing of a red line.
–Israeli government prolongs war in Gaza; sacrificing the release of civilian hostages abducted by Hamas; abuse of hostage families by Ben-Gvir police; more religious-settler violence in the occupied West Bank; more Palestinian civilian death in Gaza and occupied West Bank.
–Israel faces genocide charges at the International Court of Justice
–Netanyahu and Gallant face indictments and arrest warrants at International Criminal Court, accused of war crimes; use of starvation as weapon of war contravenes international law.
–Israel decapitates Hamas leadership and devastates Hamas military forces.
–Israel decapitates Hezbollah leadership and devastates military forces
–Israel hitting Iranian targets in Syria and Hamas targets in Tehran
–Massive Iranian missile barrage from Iranian territory on presumably military sites in Israel.
–Massive Israeli air attacks devastate military targets in Iran and leave exposed its nuclear program.
–Collapse of Assad led dictatorship in Syria completes the severe battering of the Iranian led Axis of Resistance
–A forever war with no political horizon; the State of Israel continues to abandon its citizens held hostage by Hamas; more missile attacks on Israel from Yemen, and more Palestinian death.
War of Attrition
Israel and Hamas are in a war of attrition. Wars of attrition are dumb and violent: These negative outcomes of unsuccessfully prosecuted wars of attrition, directly quoted below, are listed at https://fs.blog/attrition-warfare/
—High death tolls — This is the primary issue. Although all wars involve casualties, attrition warfare increases the number of combatants and civilians who are killed.
—High costs — Attrition warfare requires a lot of resources. Adjusting for inflation, the Vietnam war cost $770 billion, plus $1 trillion for subsequent veterans benefits. Those figures do not even take into account the impact on industries and economies.
—The potential for abuse — When maximum damage is the goal, there is more potential for war crimes to occur and for people to abuse their power.
—Long durations — A war of attrition may be lengthy and slow moving. As Sun Tzu wrote, “there is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.”
—The potential for an unstable outcome — The outcome of attrition warfare is not always clear. A nation which is battered into submission may rebel in the future, and tensions are exacerbated. The unstable outcome of World War I is in part responsible for the outbreak of World War II.
—Long-term impact on a nation — Attrition warfare can cause serious long-term problems for both sides. The deaths of large numbers of young, mostly male combatants can lead to a dramatic drop in birth rates for years to come. It is estimated that World War I led to 3.2 million fewer births than would have been expected in Germany alone. Fewer people to work during and after a war means a decrease in productivity and a change in the structure of economies. Money spent on fighting a war of attrition cannot be used for other areas, such as healthcare. Educational institutions often suffer, as young people are less able to attend. Large areas of land are destroyed, damaging farmland, homes, and infrastructure. It can take decades for a nation to recover from the impact of attrition warfare.
Consensus among American and Israeli [?] Jews:
Analysts talk about fissures in Israeli society and in the American Jewish community opened up by the war and ongoing political crisis in Israel. I’m not sure that’s entirely true. Although most major American Jewish institutions sit uncomfortably on the fences, there seems to be large areas of common understanding across the entire Jewish world regarding the war and the government in Israel.
–The vast majority of American Jews voted for Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party. This after a year of intense preoccupation with the resurgence of anti-Semitism in American Jewish life, especially on campus, by forces on the radical/progressive left.
–American Jews on both the right and the left, for as much as they follow news from Israel, often fail to grasp that criticism of Israel and of a government in Israel is not “anti-Zionism.” At the same time, Israel remains a primary object of affection and critical concern across the entire political spectrum of the American Jewish community; even the minority of Jews on the Jewish Anti-Zionist left puts Israel at the center of its political consciousness, which only proves that Israel is a major center of gravity in Jewish life.
–Government of Israel under Netanyahu and the Settler Kahanist Haredi full-on right is broadly if not universally recognized by most Israelis as a hideous failure. Most Jewish leaders understand this as well despite their own reluctance to go on public record. (This recognition is not shared by modern orthodox and Haredi Jews, and others among the minority of Jewish supporters of Trump)
–There is a broad but not universal consensus in Israel that the return of hostages is a sacred obligation and that to meet this obligation the war in Gaza has to end (This recognition is not shared by modern orthodox and Haredi Jews in the United States and others among the minority of Jewish supporters of Trump).
–Consensus that there’s no consensus re: what happens next. There is widespread and justifiable sourness regarding a 2ss but what’s the alternative solution?
Day After Forever War
The war is basically over but no total victory: hostages in Gaza, Hamas in southern Gaza, depopulated north and south of Israel; frayed social bonds in Jewish body politic in Israel and Diaspora; death and suffering in Gaza; drip-drop of dead Israeli soldiers; Israelis leaving the country, not because of the Arab-Iranian-Palestinian threat but because of their own religious-right government and assault on democratic social norms
Who rules in Gaza? What happens next? The choices for Israel going forward are basic. [1] Israeli military rule/occupation of the entire Gaza Strip, which the State of Israel cannot afford to do, economically or militarily [2] PA rule in Gaza under international-regional umbrella including Saudi normalization with Israel, which the Israeli right and religious right reject [3] Status Quo which means Israeli ethnic cleansing and annexation of northern Gaza with Hamas in control of southern Gaza locked into a hellish forever war that serves only the interests of the religious national right in Israel. Just death and destruction in Gaza. It’s hard to see a viable way forward for Israel without an end to the war that sidelines Hamas and opens a genuine pathway to Palestinian statehood and modus-vivendi (“don’t call it peace”). It’s hard to see an end to the war without massive civil society protests and the collapse of the Netanyahu-Settler-Haredi ultra-rightwing government.
The collapse of the Iranian axis is a potentially encouraging inflection point. Incoming President Trump will decide what happens next.
