Israel and US are at odds over conflicting visions for postwar Gaza
Israel and US are at odds over conflicting visions for postwar Gaza
The United States strongly supports Israel in its war against Hamas, but is increasingly at odds with its Middle East ally over what will happen to the Gaza Strip once the war winds down.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, this week announced that Israel would retain an open-ended security presence in Gaza. Israeli officials talk of imposing a buffer zone to keep Palestinians away from the Israeli border. They rule out any role for the Palestinian Authority, which was ousted from Gaza by Hamas in 2007 but governs semi-autonomous areas of the occupied West Bank.
The United States has laid out a much different vision. Top officials have said they will not allow Israel to reoccupy Gaza or further shrink its already small territory. They have repeatedly called for a return of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority and the resumption of peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
These conflicting visions have set the stage for difficult discussions between Israel and the U.S.
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Crazed strongman Netanyahu wants to kill all of the Palestinians, while the US wants him to kill less than that.
The US could end this quickly if they wanted to by just threatening to take away support. Where would Israel be without the iron dome?
Welcome to Israel. Where beggars CAN be choosers!
No, they couldn't.
That would lead Israel to realign to either China or to another NATO power.
Then maybe share their US tech with them.
Well...without a reliable way to stop the rockets shooting into Israel, I guess they'd have to make sure the rockets aren't launched in the first place.
So yeah, they'd probably step up the war, only now with the explicit objective of wiping out all of Gaza since it's the only way they can prevent attacks.
Israel is VERY aware that support might disappear for them someday. That's the entire point of the nation, so that Jews, who have been persecuted for over two thousand years, do not need to rely on the benevolence of others to defend them. They have their own munitions stockpiles and factories and are themselves an advanced technological nation, not dependent on the US to fight Hamas. They are perfectly capable of wiping out the Gaza strip without outside assistance.
Plus, your question is based on a false premise anyway. Iron Dome is a system invented, developed, designed, and built in Israel. The US did put some money into it, but not an amount Israel could not have. So without US aid, Israel would be somewhat worse off, but overall totally fine.
I think this is pretty close to the truth. However, Netanyahu is pragmatic and knows he can't actually kill them all. Rather, his goal is to make conditions in Gaza so unliveable that the Palestinians will have to leave.
What will the US do? It will keep pushing the 2-state solution. Since neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are ready for that yet, it effectively means that the killing will continue until the Gazan Palestinians leave or are so beaten down that they'll agree to almost anything, or until average Israelis cool down and push the conservative coalition government out of power. Getting to those conditions will still take months.
I don't think that most of the rest of the world gives a shit. Sure, some people will protest Israel's actions, but all the big countries, East and West, have more pressing problems. Putin is already at war with Ukraine. Xi frets about Taiwan and the South China Sea, slowing economic growth, and is busy with another round of internal purges. Europe is far more worried about Ukraine than Gaza. They have to spend billions ramping up their militaries again, and Germany's economic engine is sputtering. The US is too embroiled in its own domestic political problems. The US is also, rightly, much more concerned about the serious geostrategic competition coming from China. Even the surrounding Arab countries don't care all that much. They aren't going to go to war against Israel again, that's for sure.
The hard truth is that Gaza just doesn't matter that much geo-strategically.