The Gaza blockade mostly empowers Hamas
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 1:23AM 
Some tough-love advice from The Economist to Israel: the Gaza blockade makes you weaker and strengthens Hamas's ability to keep a firm grip on power in Gaza.
As usual, a strategy of disconnecting your enemy from the outside world empowers those ruling elements who prefer a firm grip over the masses to their individual empowerment.
More prosaically, the blockade has failed in all of its goals: the Israeli solder taken hostage is still a hostage, weapons galore still make their way into Gaza via tunnels, Israel is becoming more isolated diplomatically while Hamas is winning sympathy and still overshadowing the far more quiet and more competent West Bank Palestinian leadership. In short, all trends are heading south.
Obama is under fire here for "ruining" the relationship, but it's hard to see how he's guilty of anything more than simply realizing Netanyahu is no friend of the US and has no intention to pursue peace. So Obama cuts his losses and the relationship suffers. To me, that's a sensible choice given all he has on his plate regionally. And if that logic pushes Israel to bomb Iran, then so be it, because that'll just be another regional dynamic that he cannot control--especially when the Saudis collude to make it possible.
All of this is presented as tragedy, because Israel is the best thing about the Middle East in just about every other way. It is a connectivity hub in all relevant forms. It is, putting aside the Palestinian questions, the most admirable nation-state in the region--by far.
Where to go? Obama is encouraged to get Hamas back to the negotiating table. I see that as a useless proposition.
Given the losing hand it holds right now, I can foresee Israel making the logical leap to pounding Iran. Not much to lose and better dynamics to trigger. And I say this believing quite deeply that most of Israel's leadership knows they are heading--unavoidably--to a nuclear standoff with Iran that will soon be joined by others.
Given the situation Israel finds itself in now, I would say that migrating events down that path and establishing its tough profile on that subject would make a lot of sense.
Reader Comments (2)
"Given the losing hand it holds right now, I can foresee Israel making the logical leap to pounding Iran."
And the strength of this economic recovery will be truly revealed. Oil prices will make that certain.
Isn’t the essence of terrorist strategy to be ruthless in making a region ungovernable to enforce separation? To overcome that requires an heroic effort at building connection. The US could do that in Iraq (not easy) or Afghanistan (faltering?) and Israel could do it when it controlled the area. But now that Israel has withdrawn, at our request, from Gaza, Israel has no way of building connection without reconquering and occupying Gaza. Hamas can make any healthy outcome too expensive, e.g. by murdering anyone who is benefiting from a relationship with Israel. Israel cannot protect them. Arafat played this game, too. Murder in the name of “punishing collaboration.”
As far as Palestine goes, Israel has to wait for Fayyad and friends to finish their work (ref your entry below on Friedman). Until then, it is all about buying time. As far as Iran goes, that is a separate and painful calculation, with little real connection to Palestine. If done brilliantly, it can do for Iran what ’67 did for Egypt, i.e. shame an ideology and cut out its legs. If done poorly, then it props up the dictatorship and rallies international acceptance to it.
Can’t the US engage with the Greens, promoting global uncensored internet access within Iran, more easily and with less dangerous fallout? We are in a much stronger position to build connection with the Iranian people, and create a plausible, peaceful alternative, but will we? We seem intent on meeting aggression with passivity and a show of weakness and vacillation. We leave the Israelis thinking they have to be the Free World all my themselves.