ANSWERS TO SOME QUESTIONS

 Buried in the blizzard of comments that have been posted on this blog concerning the Israeli/Hamas situation there have actually been several comments addressed to me, and I am going to try to answer them now.

 

First of all, I do not yet know whether my study group on Marx next semester will be recorded or whether it can be shared with others. I will find out and let you know later. 

Second, someone back there aways responded to my remark that I knew next to nothing about the Israeli situation by asking what I knew about South African apartheid or Afro-American studies when I demonstrated at Harvard and joined the Afro-Am department at UMass.  When I joined the anti-apartheid demonstration, I had already spent six weeks teaching in South Africa and had traveled around the country. I was hardly an expert but I felt comfortable enough with what I had learned to take a position. As for Afro-American studies, as I explained in the book I wrote about my experiences in that department, I knew less about the subject in an undergraduate major when I joined the department. I was invited to join by people who knew that I was ignorant of the subject but who thought I could help with the creation of the PhD program, which I did. At various times, I invoked the experience of Eastern European Orthodox Jewish communities at which I little Christian boy would come on the Sabbath and do things that the Jewish community was forbidden by their religion to do, such as lighting the candles. I referred to myself in a self-mocking way as the Shabbos goy of the Afro-American studies department. Only after I had spent more than 10 years in the department and read dozens upon dozens of books and learned a great deal from my colleagues did I feel comfortable about presenting my own views in a book. My total experience of Israel was a three day visit with my wife on our way to Paris one year about 20 years ago.

 

Despite by level of ignorance, I will try to answer the question that was posed by somebody (I do not remember now who asked the question), namely what I would propose that the Israeli government have done in response to the Hamas attacks.

 

Let me say, to begin, that I do not think the attacks constituted anything remotely like a threat to the existence of Israel. Israel is the most powerful nation in the Middle East, the only nuclear power. The attacks on October 7 were fully as terrible as everyone has said but they no more constituted a threat to the existence of Israel then the 9/11 attacks in the United States constituted a threat to the existence of the United States.

 

Leaving aside what Israel should have done 50 years ago or 30 years ago or even 10 years ago or one year ago, what could it have done on October 8 in response to the attacks? I do not think there was ever the slightest possibility that Israel would do any of these things, but it could have and here is what I say.

 

First, they could have mobilized their military and paid attention to their intelligence services to make sure that such attacks did not happen again. Second, they could have worked as hard as they could to carry out a hostage swap, releasing as many of their prisoners as they needed to to get back the hostages. Third, Israel could have stopped supporting Hamas by green lighting transfers of funds to the Hamas operatives in Gaza from Qatar and elsewhere. Fourth, Israel could have launched a full-scale effort to support the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Fifth, Israel could have ordered its legendary security forces to start carrying out targeted assassinations of Hamas leaders, in Iran, Qatar, and anywhere else they could be found. They could make it clear that this was not a knee-jerk response to the attack but a full-scale assault on Hamas from the top down that would continue so long as there was anywhere in the world a Hamas leader who was still alive. Sixth, Israel could have launched constant Secret Service attacks on Hamas leaders in Gaza, after the hostages had been returned. Seventh, Israel could have pulled some of the settlements in the West Bank back into Israel and created the genuine possibility of a real Palestinian state. Finally, as part of this effort, Netanyahu could have kicked the extreme right wing parties out of his government and struck a deal with the centrist parties which included keeping him out of jail, this being his price for all of the above.

 

As I say, there was never the slightest possibility that the Israeli government would doing any of these things but they could have and it would have saved 20,000 or more Palestinian lives, gained them the immediate and undying support of the world community, and actually strengthened Israel and made it more secure.

 

Well, you asked and that is what I have to say.