Israel/Palestine

Israel/Palestine is truly the most cursed conflict of our era. It's not the worst — more people have died in Sudan, Syria, and Ukraine. But it has an eternal quality all of these lack, and partly as a result, it generates far more interest than any other conflict. Within the Western world, two very polarized camps have emerged: those viewing the Palestinians as violent aggressors in the latest round of fighting, and those viewing the Israelis as aggressors in the larger conflict. Both views are in some sense right, which is part of what makes the conflict so captivating.

The obsession with arguing about the moral dimension of the conflict (which is complex) leads people to ignore the practical dynamics, which are relatively straightforward and which set the stage for what outcomes are even possible.

Israel/Palestine in Practice

In short, Israel has all the power — they have an advanced economy, modern military, and thermonuclear weapons. There is no world where the Palestinians win a military conflict. The entire Arab world could unite and would still lose (although likely through mutual destruction), but even this is a remote possibility because most Arab governments are tacitly aligned with Israel, viewing Iran's Shia Islam axis as a more pressing threat to their power than a comparatively contained Israel. In light of this, there are only a few possible outcomes to the conflict:

1. An independent Palestine within roughly the 1948-1967 borders, which eschews conflict with Israel and is able to limit non-state attacks (the "two-state solution")
2. An occupied, heavily oppressed Palestine ("occupation")
3. The genocide/forced migration of Palestinians and full annexation of former Palestinian territories ("destruction")

Regardless of what ought to happen, these are the only options Israel might plausible acquiesce to. Which one happens is also largely up to Israel, although option #1 does require significant Palestinian cooperation (which hitherto has been inconsistent and largely absent in recent years, but might return if Israel makes an honest effort). At this point it is clear that a majority of Israelis are either not interested in^[0] or will never agree with pro-Palestinian moral arguments. Rather they take a cold cost-benefit analysis, with the safety of their citizens as a primary but not exclusive concern^[1]. The considerations in this analysis are:

The extent that any non-Israeli actor (including Palestinians) can influence the outcome of the conflict is by increasing or decreasing these cons. Palestinians have very little leverage here — their only option is to try to change expectations of terrorist attacks conditional on the outcome. Most importantly, they need to convince Israelis that a two-state solution would in fact result in fewer terrorist attacks and no formal armed conflict, which is the main incentive that Israel has to agree to it (the others being economic sanctions and Arab relations). October 7th was a major setback on this front, as it is exactly the kind of attack that becomes easier under a two-state solution (which Gaza was closer to than the West Bank, albeit with significant border restrictions that against an independent state would be treated as an act of war). But any hope of a two-state solution requires Palestinians collectively to persuade Israel that they have rejected such attacks.

American leverage here is more limited than people imagine. Currently, we provide financial aid and sell them weapons, along with occasional defensive military intervention (e.g. helping shoot down Iranian missiles). If we stopped these entirely, there would be a modest impact to their economy and a modest decrease to their ability to wage war against Hamas, while their ability to occupy would be mostly undiminished. However, the largest impact would probably be in terms of their long-term ability to maintain their "Iron Dome" system that intercepts rockets/missiles and their diminished ability to respond to large-scale Iranian missile strikes.

Many activists correctly point out that these systems and American's direct missile defense intervention significantly change Israel's strategic calculus. By mitigating the downside of the more frequent terrorist attacks that come from occupation, they make a two-state solution less appealing relative to continued occupation. However, they also make both outcomes more appealing relative to total destruction. Activists who have thought this through might contend that without America's support, Israel would be unable to carry out such destruction (or would even lose the resulting war), but this is wishful thinking. Furthermore, the implication of making Israel less resistant to Iranian attacks would likely be direct war with Iran as Israeli politicians feel compelled to respond at least proportionally to Iranian attacks, and if Iranian missiles kill thousands of Israelis the only proportional response would be war.

In short, the US can probably make a two-state solution marginally more likely by withholding offensive weapons and by withholding or making conditional financial aid. However, withholding defensive weapons or defensive military support would immediately endanger Palestinian lives and risk broader regional war even more than it would endanger Israel. Making defensive weapons/support conditional on positive steps toward a two-state solution could theoretically work but would likely be an obvious bluff from any American president, who would balk at the consequences of following through.

The remaining levers to push Israel towards a two-state solution are economic sanctions and the prospect of improved Arab relations, but since these have limited security implications they can only be marginally effective. The non-Shia Arab countries have broadly aligned on warming relations conditional on steps towards a two-state solution, and while this has been interrupted by the Gaza war most reporting on the issue indicates that they are open to rapprochement. Economic sanctions have largely been rejected by the Western world, as most countries have been at least relatively sympathetic to Israel. There is certainly potential here, but it would have to be used wisely — sanctions become less effective over time as economies adapt, and the aforementioned considerations make it impossible that Israel would acquiesce to a two-state solution in the near future. Thus these sanctions could only be effective if they are imposed in response to specific Israeli actions that undermine a two-state solution or at least lifted in response to small actions towards one.

In conclusion, a two-state solution is the best Palestinians can realistically hope for, the path to it is long and narrow, and the influence the international community has is limited.

The Moral Dimension

Okay, nobody actually wants to read about what can happen or what will happen — they want to argue about what should happen. So what's my moral view on the conflict in general and the war in Gaza in particular?

Many people treat believe this question is rooted in the history of the formation of the state of Israel, dissecting events that occurred eighty, a hundred, or even thousands of years ago. As a moral matter I am uninterested in such questions. This is not a standard most people apply to any other state, most of which have similar stories in their genesis or their evolution^[2]. Israel is the most recent example — after WWII the international community has mostly frozen states within their current borders — but only slightly. The obvious contemporary parallel of the partition of India and Pakistan, which displaced at least 10,000,000, does not see a fraction of the same attention.

Instead I view moral questions about states as questions about the past and present behavior of the people alive today.

Even so, a moral analysis this conflict requires disentangling a few different points:

1. More Gazan civilians have and will continue to die under the war than Israeli civilians have or probably ever will from Hamas attacks, so from a utilitarian point of view it is unjustifiable.
2. However, this is not the same standard we normally apply to states responding to attacks. We generally recognize a right for states to defend themselves and their people even if the harm is disproportional, so long as the war goals are oriented towards self-defense and civilian casualties are minimized to the extent practical.
3. Israel definitely isn't doing everything possible to minimize civilian casualties. Are they doing as much as practical? It is very hard to tell, but given the attitude in Israel towards Gazans^[3], I doubt it.
4. Nobody knows whether Israel's war goals are oriented towards self-defense since they refuse to state what their goals are, instead falling back on vague ambitions like destroying Hamas that neither specify when the war actually ends nor what comes next.

These are the questions one normally asks to answer whether a war is justified under international conventions (although many people consider these conventions immoral). Israel has not met these thresholds, but they might — if they articulate a clear war goal and vision for post-war Gaza, they could at least be in the realm of what's generally accepted by the international community.

But since the Gaza war is embedded in a much longer-running conflict, a moral analysis — even one that accepts the international conventions around war — requires looking at the broader conflict. And since at least 2008, Israel has consistently acted to prevent a peaceful resolution to the broader conflict in line with international law, choosing instead to slowly try to annex the West Bank by expanding settlements.

When I've confronted pro-war Israelis about this, their answer is that:

1. The Palestinians have not made good-faith efforts either
2. Any Israeli peace effort is doomed to fail anyways, so Israel should instead prioritize its own interests

Even granting the first point, this doesn't make Israel's moral position any stronger — it's completely possible (and I would argue is the case) that both sides are in the wrong.

The second point is the key moral question at issue. Could a sustained Israeli peace effort succeed? It's true that Israel made a real peace offer in 2000 (although not a particularly generous one) and the result was terrorist attacks — which I don't think can be blamed on Palestinians collectively, but from a negotiation point of view are the fault of the Palestinian side. Their fairer 2008 offer was a dead letter, and so there was no reason for anyone on the Palestinian side to expend their own political capital trying to build support for it.

These two (really one) rejected offers are not enough to conclude that the Palestinians will never make peace. Israel had the moral obligation to continue trying, and still does — although it will be much harder in large part due to their own actions in the intervening years. Simply concluding that the Palestinians as a people are too angry to ever make peace is a carte blanche that would effectively justify genocide.

So where does this leave the narrower moral question of the Gaza war? Beyond Israel's failure to articulate clear war goals and sufficiently protect civilians is immoral, it seems impossible to analyze it without understanding it in the broader context, much of which is yet to come.

As a judgment this is unsatisfying, but as a cause of action it makes the same point as the practical analysis did — that Israel should work towards a two-state solution, and choose war goals and conduct in Gaza that are compatible with that.

0. ^

   When I say someone is "not interested in" the moral arguments, I am including the (many) people who probably think they are morally in the right, but whose chosen course of action is not actually influenced by this belief — it is a motivated belief that is downstream of their chosen course of action rather than upstream. A good example of this logic on the other side can be found in this New Yorker interview with a Palestinian author who observes the frustrating circles he often argues in:

   I’ve entered into many conversations with Palestinians and Lebanese[...] where there’s this bizarre sequence of pushback from them. They say, “Do you really believe civilians were killed?” And I’d explain why I did believe it. And then the question will be, “Well, so you really believe those were the numbers?” And I’d explain why I believe those were the numbers. And then you get the final response, which is, “Well, they were all settlers anyway.” And it’s, like, well, if that’s what you believe, then why get into a discussion about whether civilians were killed or not[?]

1. ^

   There are also religious considerations on the Israeli side, which as a lifelong Atheist I'm ill-equipped to understand. These present yet another roadblock to accepting a two-state solution. For the purposes of this post I'm assuming they can be overcome, but I may be wrong.

2. ^

   A full rebuttal of the "decolonization" viewpoint is outside the scope of this article, but I reject the framework entirely. On the narrower subject relevant here of ethnic rights to land, I would endorse Noah Smith's critique.

3. ^

   To quote a pro-war Israeli in another New Yorker Chotiner interview, "In Israel, the conversation often assumes that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza—they’re all Hamas."