Israel was humiliated by the Gazan incursion, which was the result of a major security failure by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). Gazans live, ‘in a prison camp’ designed to prevent just such an event.1 Israel controls the air space, telecoms, utilities and food supply, plus they’ve built a formidable wall. Yet these defenses were breached and mayhem ensued. The incursion, 7th October 2023, recalibrated the political and military scene.2 Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu embraced the Sharon Doctrine3 to meet this challenge. The doctrine’s aim is the annihilation of the enemy. Any negotiations conducted are Realpolitik4 meant to provide benefits to Israel.
Gaza has been obliterated since October 2023.4 Netanyahu’s application of the Sharon Doctrine is whole-hearted. The IDF’s warplanes have razed Gaza’s urban areas to the ground. The air force is supplemented by militarised drones, heavy artillery and missiles. If wars were won on damage inflicted, Israel won long ago. Wars aren’t won by razing buildings: wars are won by ground troops. The IDF’s ground forces are unsuccessful. After 300+ days5 Hamas is still viable. They are providing significant resistance notwithstanding huge losses, which are a multiple of those suffered by the IDF.
The principal Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported IDF losses as being,
On 4 August 2024, ….at least 10,000 Israeli soldiers had been killed or wounded while fighting in Gaza and that about 1,000 new soldiers were physically and mentally wounded every month.6
That Hamas exists at all, is a further humiliation for Israel. The premise of the Sharon Doctrine is that IDF forces are invincible. Their principal ally, the USA, provides them with massive logistical support. This is especially true of the air force but the war in Gaza isn’t helped by $70m fighter bombers. Hamas’s strategy is asymmetrical warfare. They’ve built a parallel military universe underground. IDF ground troops are ill-equipped to deal with this reality.
Ferocious bombing and missile attacks are a constant feature of life for the people of Gaza. Every hospital and university has been razed to the ground or severely damaged. The infrastructure of civilised life, like sewage disposal, clean piped water and safe housing has disappeared. Civilians are routinely imprisoned, without due process, and prison conditions are abysmal.7
The IDF need more ground troops. Israel has a reservoir of suitable people who were protected by their status as religious scholars. That exemption has been deleted,
“In June 2024, Israel’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Haredi Jews were eligible for compulsory service, ending nearly eight decades of exemption. The army began drafting Haredi men the following month.”8
The political significance is that Netanyahu depends on political-religious leaders for his majority. Defending exemption is a touchstone for them and the government could fall. However, the Sharon Doctrine, demands total victory and the IDF have told Netanyahu that the pressures of the campaign demand that every Israeli must be made available.
The principal political-religious leader in Netanyahu’s cabinet is Bezalel Smotrich. He made an astonishing statement, on the 5th August 2024,
“It’s not possible in today’s global reality to manage a war — no one will allow us to starve 2 million people, even though that might be just and moral until they return the hostages,” he said at a conference in support of Jewish settlements.9 (my emphasis)
Smotrich allowed 40 days to pass from the Supreme Court’s judgement before saying this. In the Sharon Doctrine atrocities are an element in the route to victory. Regretting that Israel can’t use war crimes to win shows the collapse of the moral compass of the Netanyahu government.
Conclusion
The current Israel-Gaza war is a further iteration of Forever Wars in the middle-east. The CIA’s assessment is that only regime change in Israel can bring a version of peace.10 The war is however too institutionalised for a quick-step change. All the participants are doubling down on their preemptive positions making political progress impossible. The Sharon Doctrine has failed and the lack of a Clausewitz means that a viable alternative is unlikely to emerge. Israel’s current preference for assassination is a sign of desperation and has zero likely success.
Addendum: The Sharon Doctrine in action, 1982
“An Israeli commission of inquiry found that he [Ariel Sharon] bore “personal responsibility” for the massacre and that he decided Phalangist militias “should be sent in” to the camps from September 16 to 18 [1982], despite the risk that they would massacre the civilian population there. The militias killed between 700 and 800 people, according to Israeli military intelligence estimates; other estimates were much higher. The dead included infants, children, pregnant women, and the elderly, some of whose bodies were found to have been mutilated.
In February 1983, the Kahan Commission, Israel’s official commission of inquiry investigating the events, found that the “serious consideration… that the Phalangists were liable to commit atrocities… did not concern [Sharon] in the least.” Sharon’s “disregard of the danger of a massacre” was “impossible to justify,” the commission found, and recommended his dismissal as defense minister. He remained in the Israeli cabinet as a minister without portfolio and later became prime minister in 2001, serving until his stroke in January 2006.” (my emphasis) Source Israel: Ariel Sharon’s Troubling Legacy | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org)
Notes
1 David Cameron called Gaza a ‘prison camp’ and criticised Israel | The Independent
2 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel – Wikipedia
3 The Sharon Doctrine | Foreign Affairs
4 REALPOLITIK Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
5 As of 8th August 2024 when this was written
6 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip – Wikipedia There are about 400 IDF dead
7 Inside Sde Teiman, the Base Where Israel Detains Gazans – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
8 Exemption from military service in Israel – Wikipedia
9 Western allies condemn Israeli finance minister’s suggestion that starving Gaza might be justified (msn.com) The tone of regret was noted by foreign observers.
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