Crazy Like Foxes

In my previous two posts I asserted that the only way Israel realizes real security is by making an equitable peace with its neighbours and that not doing so and continuing with the never ending cycles of intense violence, followed by relative calms, is insanity.

That assertion assumes that the Israelis want to make peace and achieve that security and that all Palestinians want peace with Israel.

It might seem crazy to believe otherwise but history has proven that there are hawks on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian divide that do not want peace. These hawks believe that there is a military solution to the situation and if given enough time and resources they can achieve it.

It just so happens that Israel is being lead by one of those hawks and the Palestinians in Gaza are being lead by their Palestinian counterpart.

Mr. Netanyahu firmly believes in the military solution and Hamas has as a central tenet of its ideology the destruction of the State of Israel. Both are out to lunch of course. If Israel really could resolve their conflict with the Palestinians by brute military force they would have done so by now, and I will have unicorns fly out of my butt before Hamas destroys Israel.

However, one thing that this situation does for both is provide them with domestic political cover.

Mr. Netanyahu was having some really serious political trouble before last weekend. He was facing indictments and protests over the changes to Israeli institutions that would make it easier for him to undermine Israeli democracy. His counterpart in the Gaza Strip has the problem of not being able to deliver the most basic services to Palestinians in Gaza. In most other jurisdictions that would be a recipe for political defeat.

Then the weekend happened and all of this went away. Hamas will remind Gazans that Israeli actions are to blame for the hardships in Gaza and Mr. Netanyahu will be able to drape himself in the flag and claim that to oppose him would be disloyal to Israel. The fact he will use his sudden popularity to advance his authoritarian agenda, which will also allow him to quash the indictments against him should surprise no one.

In fact, this is not new. Both Hamas and Mr. Netanyahu have benefited greatly from the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians of Gaza for two decades. They have been playing off each other the whole time and both have realized tremendous domestic political benefits. In other words the relationship between Mr. Netanyahu and the leaders of Hamas has been a symbiotic one. That is not to say that they are having secret Zoom meetings to plan this relationship. It just means that both know their roles in this kabuki play and they are quite happy to play them

Which is why, despite all of the grand claims by the Israelis about destroying Hamas, nothing will really be changed by the latest round of violence. Many people are going to die over the next few weeks but in the end there will be no fundamental change to the underlying relationship between the Israeli government and the leadership of Hamas.

The Insanity is not Confined to the Middle East

Today I read that none other than our own PM Trudeau forcefully asserted that Hamas is a terrorist organization and not freedom fighters.

So what is the difference between a terrorist group and freedom fighters? Simple, you agree with the cause of freedom fighters and you disagree with the cause of terrorists. In general, both tend to use terrorism to achieve their political ends so really the only difference is whether you agree with the political ends of a given group.

After all, terrorism is just a political tool, used by a weaker force against a stronger force, in order to effect political change in the terrorists' favour. They use it because to attempt to actually go against the stronger force in a straight up military battle is to invite annihilation. As well, they lack the traditional, peaceful levers of power that can be used to effect political change.

I have heard some argue that terrorism does not work and in many cases they are correct. However the Taliban, the IRA, the Haganah, the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang would take issue with such a sweeping generalization. The first two most would be familiar with. Both the Taliban and the IRA successfully used terror tactics to force a political change. It took time but they achieved their political objectives. They are not the only examples, they are just a couple most would be familiar with.

The other three might not be familiar to everybody. They were three organizations that fought for an independent Jewish state in British Palestine from the 1930s to the departure of the British from Palestine shortly after the Second World War. During that period the three groups carried typical terrorist tactics of bombings, assassinations and sabotage, killing more than 1000 military personnel and civilians between 1945 and 1947 alone. Their tactics worked and the British left Palestine in 1947 and the State of Israel was born.

For Israelis the members of these groups are considered to be freedom fighters. The British government of the day had a different view and the descendants of the people they killed and injured might also have a different point of view.

All of this is to say that things are not nearly as cut and dried as our PM stated today.

I stated in my previous post that Israel will not achieve true security until it makes an equitable peace with its neighbours, including the Palestinians. To make that happen the international community needs to put political pressure on the Israeli government to make the effort for peace. They also need to put the same pressure on the Palestinians to put their own house in order and to choose a credible negotiation team that can speak for all Palestinians in peace negotiations. All involved, Israeli, Palestinian and other interested governments must have the intestinal fortitude to ignore provocations by the hard-liners on both sides that would do every thing in their power to scupper any peace efforts. Both need to negotiate in good faith and create a process that will survive the inevitable bumps in the road. All need to be patient.

Israel will have to make more concessions than the Palestinians because they hold virtually all of the cards. There is not much the Palestinians can really concede that would result in an equitable peace. And an inequitable peace is not sufficient. History is full of examples of how inequitable peace only pushes war down the road and the resulting war is often much worse than the war that was ended by that peace.

Of course, none of that is going to happen for a whole host of reasons. Everybody is doing the same thing they have been doing for decades and expecting different results. The result is going to be the continued tragedy of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Insanity and the Belief it Cannot Happen to You

A common definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

So we are again a witness to the insanity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where the Palestinians attack the Israelis and they massively retaliate for a couple of weeks until they believe they "have taught the Palestinians a lesson", at least until the next time.

Nothing is ever changed by this cycle except for the victims who have to piece their lives back together after losing loved ones and property.

As usual official world opinion condemns the Palestinians for starting the latest cycle and that Hamas has again resorted to terrorism but it is never really that simple. They have been living under an occupation for decades, denied basic rights such as freedom of movement, a secure source of fresh water, food security, health care and having their land forcibly taken away from them. I would bet my house that not a single westerner would accept such a situation if they were in the same position. Hell, a bunch of yahoos took downtown Ottawa hostage in 2022 because the government had the temerity to suggest people get vaccinated and wear a mask during a global pandemic. Could you imagine how they would react if they had to live under the same conditions the Palestinians have to live under? And if the people forcing them to live under those condition enjoyed an overwhelming military advantage would they not resort to acts that would be considered terrorism? I will add my car to the bet and say it is a resounding yes.

This is not to excuse what Hamas has done and continues to do but it does explain it a great deal. If you would not live under the conditions the Palestinians are currently living under do not claim any moral high ground if they refuse to do so as well.

The funny thing is the Israelis have been both short sighted and insane during all of this. I cannot think of a single instance of one people forcibly occupying the territory of another people where the occupier wins in the end. In every case I looked up the people being occupied find a way to end the occupation and always by making it too expensive in lives and treasure for the occupier. It amazes me that the Israelis believe they will experience a different fate.

As well, the ambition, audacity and somewhat sophisticated nature of the latest Hamas attacks should give the Israelis pause along with the intelligence failure of the Israeli security forces in detecting and stopping the attacks before they started. If Hamas can do it once they will probably be able to do it again and maybe the next time will be even more ambitious. 

The simple fact is Israel will only know true security once it makes an equitable peace with its neighbours and that includes the Palestinians. Until it does that they will never be truly secure, no matter how capable their military and intelligence services. Europe saw centuries of warfare, culminating in two very large and destructive wars in the 20th Century and the European states only realized true internal security once they made real peace with each other and began to work together for a common cause.

However, successive Israeli governments believed and they continue to believe that there is a military solution to the Palestinian problem and as long as they believe that they will only feed the narrative Hamas has been pushing for decades denying both Israelis and Palestinians a chance a true peace.

So the latest round of violence is not the last round. The Israelis will claim victory in a few weeks, a relative calm will settle over Israel and the occupied territories once again, until the next round, rinse and repeat. Insanity.

A Practical Lesson to Demonstrate Why You Should Ignore the Polls

Last weekend I found myself in a conversation with a colleague of mine who asked how almost 30% of respondents to polls could still say they supported the Liberals. He seemed quite pleased with the Conservative lead but was still disappointed in Liberal supporters.

Being the political animal that I am I then piped up and stated that if an election was held on the following Monday the Liberals would probably win, possibly a slim majority.

Of course he was skeptical because he believed the polls but of course he only looked at the one part of those polls that was reported by our media.

So I explained it to him.

Anybody that has read this blog before knows my opinion of the public polls. However, I still used them for the first part of my argument. Although, the party support question shows a clear lead for the Conservatives the underlying numbers tell a different story. The PM still comes out on top as the best PM, the gap between his approval and disapproval ratings has grown but his approval rating is still above 35%. Those pollsters that ask about the appetite for change still show that only around 60-65% of respondents want change. If that 35% were to translate into actual votes then the Liberals would win a majority government. I also pointed out that the PM's underlying numbers are better than both Stephen Harper's and Jean Chretien's at the eight year marks of their governments.

Of course, we really cannot depend on the polls to provide us with much useful information. I just used it to demonstrate to him that the polls are not as reliable as he believes in telling us what is the actual political situation in this country.

I then asked him whether there was any speculation out there about a Fall election? The polls seem to be indicating that all of the Opposition Parties would feast on the Liberals in an election so there would be an incentive for them to bring down the Liberal minority government and forcing an election. However, such speculation is not evident. The Opposition will have at least eight opportunities to vote non-confidence in the government and so far this Fall no one is suggesting they will. Everybody and their dog is suggesting the PM resign personally but no one is saying he should resign his government and call an election. That should be a bigger indicator of what the real political situation is at the Federal level than the polls.

As well, I pointed out that political parties in great shape do not have their leader make a sudden and jarring change in their appearance and demeanour. Heck, Mr. Poilievre did not only change his appearance it would also seem that he hired a vocal coach to change his voice. They also do not spend millions of dollars on an advertizement campaign during the dog days of summer if their political situation is a good one.

I pointed out that both the Conservatives and the Liberals have developed rather sophisticated data science capabilities, where data professional collect data from a variety of more reliable sources than the public polls and then crunch the numbers to give their respective leaders an idea of the support for their party at the riding level. If those analyses matched what the public polls were telling us all of the political parties would be gearing up for a Fall election.

Finally, I pointed out that the Bloc seems to be fading a bit in Quebec. As the Bloc only cares about Quebec and they essentially have all of the seats they can really win there the incentive for Mr. Blanchet to tour Quebec during the summer is quite low. However, he did just that this summer, much more than last year. 

In both 2019 and 2021 the Liberals were denied a majority government because of the Bloc. If the Liberals can win just 10 seats from them in a future election and assuming they are able to win the same number of seats as they now hold in the ROC the Liberals would win a slim majority government. Yes there are alot of assumptions there but based on what we are currently seeing those assumptions are not unreasonable.

If you look at just one part of the public polls, without looking at other parts of them and how the political parties are going into the Fall, it looks gruesome for the Liberals. However, if you look at the bigger picture it is telling us a different story.