Foreign Correspondence, Vol 93
Why getting rid of Netanyahu is unlikely to shift Israel’s approach to Gaza
Hello, and happy Friday!
By the time you receive our next correspondence, Israel’s war in Gaza will have passed the six-month mark. I’ve spent much of that time reporting on the various statistics coming out of the Strip, from the more than 32,000-person death toll to the 1.7 million people who have been displaced to the entire 2.3 million population of Gaza facing crisis levels of hunger.
I can understand why these figures don’t necessarily move people. To borrow a phrase widely attributed (albeit without evidence) to Josef Stalin, “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” To wit, it can be difficult for people to comprehend the scale of what they’re reading about, let alone understand how it applies to their own lives. It’s for this reason that I found this piece of visual journalism from the Washington Post to be so powerful. It brings the humanitarian tragedy of recent months to a much more relatable scale, allowing readers to better comprehend the death, hunger, and displacement as though it were happening in their own community.
Yasmeen
What I’ve written
When Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor to call for Israelis to elect a new government, he articulated a point that I’ve heard repeated countless times since Israel’s war in Gaza began: that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace and that his ouster is the ultimate solution to the crises unfolding in the region.
I’m pretty skeptical of this argument, at least insofar as Israel’s approach to Gaza and the wider Palestinian question is concerned. In my latest for TIME, I wrote about why getting rid of Netanyahu isn’t the panacea many make it out to be:
If elections in Israel were held today, Gantz’s centrist National Unity party would be in pole position to form the next government. But a Gantz administration wouldn’t necessarily bring a new approach to the war. On Gaza, “there isn’t much difference between Netanyahu and Gantz,” says Mairav Zonszein, a Senior Israel Analyst at the International Crisis Group, noting that both men have voiced their support for the Rafah incursion. Nor is there much daylight between them and Israeli public opinion, a majority of which continue to oppose a political agreement to end the war, according to a recent poll. (The same survey found that a majority also consider the prospects of Israel achieving an “absolute victory” to be unlikely.)
“Israelis who have been polled have supported the war effort,” Zonszein says. “There hasn’t been any pushback to the way Gaza has been treated in the war. And so certainly, I don’t think Gantz would change it on that level.”
Keep reading: Why Getting Rid of Netanyahu Is Unlikely to Shift Israel’s Approach to Gaza
Last week, the U.S. Congress passed a $1.2 trillion spending package that, in addition to keeping the federal lights on in advance of a looming shutdown, imposed a year-long ban on funding for UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. I wrote about what this means for the agency—which since its founding in 1949 has grown into a quasi-state for millions of stateless Palestinians across the region—and for Palestinians in Gaza.
Providing between $300 million and $400 million annually, Washington was the largest donor to UNRWA—at least until January, when the U.S. and more than a dozen other countries froze their funding amid Israeli allegations that 12 of the agency’s 13,000 employees participated in the Oct. 7 attack. Israel has yet to supply evidence to back its claims, according to the U.N., investigations into which remain ongoing. While several countries—including Canada, Australia, and Sweden—have since resumed funding, the U.S. is the only one that has moved to make its suspension of aid more permanent. The Congressional spending bill stipulates that a ban on U.S. funding for UNRWA will last “until March 25, 2025,” meaning the Biden administration will be unable to reverse the pause until that time.
Keep reading: ‘It’s Not Just Misguided—It’s Unconscionable:’ Congress’ Spending Bill Could Ban Funding to U.N. Gaza Aid
Plus:
What I’ve read
Israel's Hasbara Is Failing. That's Good News • By Anshel Pfeffer in Haaretz
Even now, when most Israelis have finally woken up to the self-serving moral void which has always been the Netanyahu project, they still believe in hasbara. It may be fake, but it is comforting. Because hasbara means that you don't have to ask yourself hard questions, just try to explain better what you already believe in. Hasbara means being too busy with coming up for excuses for Israel instead of asking why it's been getting so many things wrong.
The Earthquake That Could Shatter Netanyahu’s Coalition • By Yair Rosenberg in The Atlantic
Much has been written about Netanyahu’s dependence on the Israeli far right to remain in power. But the backbone of his coalition for many years has actually been the ultra-Orthodox political parties. They stuck with the premier after he was indicted on corruption charges, and they refused to defect to the opposition even after Netanyahu failed to form a government following successive stalemate elections. Today, the far right provides 14 of Netanyahu’s 64 coalition seats; the Haredi parties provide 18. The Israeli leader has richly rewarded this loyalty by ensuring an ever-growing flow of public subsidies to ultra-Orthodox voters and their religious institutions. Because Haredi men can maintain their military exemption only by remaining in seminaries until age 26, they rarely enter the workforce until late in life and lack the secular education to succeed in it. As a result, nearly half of the ultra-Orthodox community lives in poverty and relies on government welfare—an unsustainable economic course that is another perennial source of Israeli angst.
How Biden Boxed Himself In on Gaza • By Jonathan Guyer in The American Prospect
Can Biden climb out of the box? The self-made trap preceded the war, says Yousef Munayyer, a researcher with the Arab Center Washington DC. “U.S. policy toward this issue was fundamentally flawed on October 6,” he told me. “And that really put the U.S. in a horrible position in terms of responding to this crisis once it started.”
The driving force behind Biden’s Middle East policy, before the war, was that “Palestine is just not that important anymore,” Munayyer explained. “That turned out to be catastrophically flawed.”
What I’m thinking about
This delightful compilation of French President Emmanuel Macron being photographed with other world leaders.
Until next time,
Yasmeen