On Monday, January 19, 2009, Professor Michael Oren, Visiting Professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, briefed over 55 SPME subscribers, via conference call, on the situation in Gaza. Professor Oren had just returned from serving in the IDF during the Gaza operations.

Edward S. Beck, Walden University and President-Emeritus, SPME, moderated the call, which included a preliminary briefing by Rafael Harpas, Public Affairs Director of the Israel Embassy. Among those on the call were: Steven Weinberg, a professor at the University of Texas and a Nobel Laureate, and Judea Pearl, a professor at UCLA and Founder of the Daniel Pearl Foundation.

Callers came from such diverse institutions as Columbia, University of Buffalo, Western Theological Center, University of Arkansas, Harvard University, University of Illinois, University of Chicago, Cambridge University, University of Toronto, York University, University of Southern California, University of California-Chico, University of California-Irvine, Yale University and many others.

Mr. Harpaz described the situation in Gaza in terms of Israel’s goals, achievements, and challenges. Israel’s goals were to damage Hamas’s capabilities to smuggle weapons into Gaza and to launch rockets against Israel, and to achieve safety for Israelis that would be durable and sustainable.

The achievements were:

• Successful application of lessons learned from the 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon
• Making it difficult if not impossible to smuggle weapons
• Minimizing civilian casualties; a majority of casualties were terrorists.
• An understanding with Egypt
• An understanding with the United States
• Commitment from European leaders
• Protecting the home front; in the 24 hours preceding the call, there had been no shooting in Israel.

The challenges are:

• To deal with the humanitarian situation in Gaza; for that purpose Israel has opened a field hospital at a crossing.
• To make sure that those in authority in Gaza are moderates not controlled by Iran
• To take appropriate responsibility for the civilian casualties but to make it clear that Hamas is ultimately responsible for them.

He noted that communications technology has been very helpful for that purpose. Photos and videos of firing from schools and hospitals were up on YouTube almost immediately.

Professor Oren also began by listing the topics he would cover: 1) the military, 2) the press, 3) the Arabs, 4) diplomacy.

1. The military. The name of the operation, Cast Lead, comes from a poem by Bialik that is familiar to most Israelis but few others, describing the making of a dreidel or sevivon. An important goal of the military was to correct the errors that resulted in a perceived failure on the part of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in 2006. The errors included inadequate training as well as inadequate supplies and equipment. A change in leadership facilitated this process, which involved extensive retraining of the reserves and the acquisition of better weaponry and other equipment. Making these changes took time, and the IDF was not ready to take on Gaza, even though people were suffering due to the rocket attacks, until very recently. One of the lessons learned from 2006 was that you cannot take out rocket launchers with air power alone. Another was to avoid announcing very specific goals. Of the 10 soldiers who died, 4 were killed by friendly fire, but that is not a high rate under the circumstances. Israel not only redeemed its deterrence power but showed that it could deal with mines and other tools of the enemy. And Hezbollah did not join the war (Israel had feared that it might have to conduct the war on two fronts), but merely performed a couple of symbolic acts.

2. The press. In 2006, Hezbollah manipulated the press effectively. Professor Oren recommended reading a 50-page paper on this subject by Marvin Kalb, published by Harvard’s Kennedy Center. This time, the Israeli government decided to keep the press out of Gaza. The media people were angry and CNN started negative coverage immediately. The Israelis also electrically interfered with Arab broadcasts. As a result, the same images were reused, and people got tired of looking at them. Then the press began focusing more on the Qassams in Israel. Keeping the press out also protected Israeli officers.

3. The Arabs. The war in Gaza uncovered serious splits in the Arab world, between Egypt, Saudia Arabia, and the Gulf States, on the one hand, and Hamas and Iran on the other. Egypt was particularly fearful of Hamas and its Iranian backers and explicitly stated that Hamas must not be allowed to win. Two Arab sumits broke up. Did Hamas gain or lose prestige? Hamas is declaring victory, but when its leaders come out of their holes and witness the devastation it will be hard to portray as other than a setback.

4. Diplomacy. The United States, being between administrations, has hardly played a role. Obama has avoided saying much, as he should. Israel has no international force on her border, and the unilateral ceasefire gives flexibility. NATO is a new player and now has a role in Palestinian peacekeeping. On the domestic front, the Left says the government went too far, and the right says it didn’t go far enough. That is probably a good sign. Israel probably cannot completely uproot Hamas, and Egypt has limited ability to prevent smuggling. But if Hamas should resume rocket fire, Israel is in a better position.

We are learning to redefine victory. No one in Israel wanted the war to go on during Obama’s inauguration. So the timing is good. The rules of engagement have changed. Lessons were learned from Jenin; soldiers are no longer ordered to go house to house to expose themselves to those risks. It is not perfect, but given our constraints, it is pretty successful.

Q & A Session

• Alan Hyman of Columbia University: Why were women and children not allowed to leave Gaza? Israel never had planned to admit large numbers of civilians. The idea was to minimize harm to civilians. Israel was very reluctant to admit large numbers of civilians, some of whom might not be altogether innocent, and Egypt had sealed its border. The IDF, which tracks casualty identities very carefully, estimates 25% of casualties were civilians although Hamas and others quoted higher figures. Even at the higher figures, the civilian casualty rate would be very low by comparison to other wars that involved urban ground fighting.
  

o That never before have civilian casualties been kept so low, due to Israel’s heroic efforts

o That Israel was forced into this war by 7200 rockets

o That Israel levied its blockade because of Hamas’s rockets, and not the other way around

o That the pictures on YouTube show that Hamas was firing from homes, hospitals, and schools

o That prior to the war, Hamas suicide bombers had killed 1000 Israelis. Show your audience photos of an Israeli bus after a suicide bombing.

Based upon the success of this conference call, SPME is considering a program of conference calls in which leading academics will brief academics on current topics relevant to peace in the Middle East. If you are interested in participating in such calls, you must be a current academic year (July 1, 2008- present) contributor to SPME. To participate in the next announced conference call, please make your contribution at www.spme.net/donation.html.