This guy looks like he needs a navy

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1. 

   Banquo

   October 26, 2023

   Everybody is afraid to state the awful but obvious truth, so I’ll bite the bullet and say it myself. Although it should be minimised as much as possible, the death of non-militant Palestinians is acceptable collateral damage in the cause of a just war. It is acceptable because you cannot win a war against a government without eliminating some of its ordinary citizens in the process. This is especially so in a tiny and densely populated piece of land such as Gaza, where militants and civilians are deeply intertwined and where the Hamas government does not follow the laws of war.

   The European Union is tying itself up in knots trying to show full support for Israel’s war but expecting the results to look neat and pretty. European leaders should remember that around half a million civilians had to die in Nazi Germany for the Allies to win the second world war. In Imperial Japan, the atomic bombs alone indiscriminately killed over 100,000, but the atomic bombs successfully sealed victory against the evil of Nazism. Both Germany and Japan are now peaceful, prosperous and democratic countries.

   Thankfully, the world has become queasier about civilian deaths in the intervening years (which has made us more humanitarian), however, the basics of destroying an evil government that controls land and people have not changed. To eliminate the government, you must bring the land it controls to its knees, and innocent people are going to die in the process. Israel and the United States understand that winning a war can come at a high and ugly price. The EU does not.

   Hamas is hoping that the nausea created by the deaths of innocents will turn the West against Israel. Then, they will use truces and ceasefires to regroup, re-arm and carry out another attack on Israel in a few years’ time. Israel should not stop bombing Hamas (and Gaza by extension) until a new government with a different mindset can be installed in that piece of land. However, it should broadcast its message to Palestinians that its fight is only against Hamas and not ordinary Palestinians. While launching attacks, Israel should start building an international/Arab/Palestinian coalition of peace, prosperity and a second state for Palestinians next to Israel.

   Unfortunately, both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority have bad-faith and inept actors who are more interested in power and grandstanding than long-lasting peace between two peoples and prosperity for all. In these conditions, it is difficult to envision peace even if the war is won. The West should let Israel get on with winning the war but insist on creating the conditions for the peace that should follow. This would be a more coherent position than switching between declaring full support for Israel but then backtracking when the costs of war become clear.

   While we are on the subject, an inability to stomach the cost of war may lead Vladimir Putin’s Russia to win in Ukraine. The obsession with ensuring that no missiles land on Russian soil may be leading to a stalemate, which Putin would consider a win and Ukraine consider a loss, because Russian forces will remain occupying Ukrainian territory. The West should have armed Ukraine to its teeth, put planes in the air and boots on the ground, and, if absolutely necessary, dropped a nuclear bomb or two on Moscow. Sure, that might have led to a third world war, but nobody ever said that victory comes easy or cheap.

   The uncomfortable reality is that, for peace in Europe to prevail, expelling Russian forces from Ukraine is not enough. The mafioso and insane regime in Russia needs to go, replaced by one which can realise the great potential of that benighted country. What counts for Hamas also counts for Putin’s Russia. As Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly said, the Russian state has become a terrorist organisation. The West seems to flip-flop between accepting Zelensky’s assessment one minute and treating Putin’s Russia as a legitimate actor which can build peace after the war the next. This is like trusting Hamas with running Gaza again, despite its vows to eradicate Israel and indifference towards the suffering of its own people.

   While the West has been arming Ukraine only piecemeal and half-heartedly, Putin has been quietly strengthening alliances with the dictators in North Korea, China and Iran, and testing nuclear bombs. Fat lot of good the West’s prevarication has been achieving. If democratic countries forget how to, or become too afraid to, conduct war, autocracies and brutal dictatorships are more than happy to have a monopoly on the enterprise. No chance for widespread peace and human rights, then.

   At least Israel is not confused about what the end goal of fighting Hamas should be and how to achieve it, even if it currently lacks the big vision that would eventually win the peace.

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2. 

   Europe should keep advocating for Palestinians but not for a ceasefire – Mark Camilleri

   October 28, 2023

   […] The Mediterranean Sea is above all a European responsibility because we pay the biggest price for whatever happens in it and this means that Israel has to inevitably abide by our legal framework as well. This should apply to Egypt too. By international law, no one should deny the right for civilians access to food, water, and a safe passage out of a conflict. Europe can easily make our Mediterranean neighbours comply with international law if we actually had the force to enforce the rules. […]

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