Although it is considered a “country of strategy,” Israel is, in fact, a country which often suffers from “eclipses of reason” and prefers short-term zero-sum games to long-term win-win solutions. The reason for this is that Israel prefers open diplomacy to secret diplomacy and diplomatic ethics to public diplomacy. Israel probably made its most strategic decision by withdrawing from Gaza in 2005 because it was an unnecessary burden and Israel’s win-win strategy required it to grant Gaza the opportunity to normalize in the post-occupation period. However, Israel had made plans to threaten at Gaza during the first days of its withdrawal or even before withdrawing from Gaza. According to Israel’s zero sum game, Israel would withdraw from Gaza, thus achieving “moral superiority,” it would get a positive response in international public opinion and it would enjoy the right to destroy Gaza on the slightest threat. But things did not go as planned and political and diplomatic failures came one after another.
STRATEGIC SHALLOWNESS
First of all, Israel rejected the result of one of the most transparent elections in the Middle East and instead based its plans on Fatah, the loser of the elections. Realizing that Fatah would lose in a Hamas-Fatah conflict, Israel supposed that it could compensate for this political failure through military operations. But the first Gaza attack brought about a more powerful Hamas, an irrelevant Fatah and anti-Israel international public sentiment. Then Israel tried to economically destroy Gaza through the blockade and to create an “anti-Gaza” out of the West Bank controlled by Israel and Fatah. Although the blockade devastated Gaza, Hamas got stronger and the Arab Spring and the perseverance of Turkey and the Palestinian people put an end to Israeli plans.
Carrying out the second attack on Gaza, Israel made plans to neutralize Hamas and measured its degree of success by the number of the missile batteries it hit. Things did not go as planned once again. While Gaza people gave the message through missiles in Tel Aviv and Hamas that militarily nothing is like before; that Israel wanted the ceasefire in the end and many other developments proved the strategic failure of Israel such as efforts of Turkey, Egypt and Qatar, the visits of the ministers of foreign affairs of Turkey and Arab League to Gaza which was under attack. The Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared that he will retire from politics “for now” for fear that “he will not be elected” and Israeli public opinion heavily criticized the government’s ceasefire decision, emphasizing that Hamas increased its deterrent power and international legitimacy in the post-attack period.
“MORAL MAJORITY” VOTED YES
The last example of this “eclipse of reason” was the UN vote on Palestine. That the UN elevated Palestine’s status from “non-member observer” to “non-member observer state” just after the second Gaza attack indicates that Israel lacks strategy. European anger is growing over continuing Israeli settlements; the dust has not settled in Gaza and Israel has just killed civilians in another attack. In such an environment it was difficult for Israel to win in a UN vote. Lobbyist activities carried out by the “non-moral minority” rather than the “moral majority” and their threats weren’t sufficient. Israel has to bear the brunt of its years of miscalculations. The upgrade of Palestinian status doesn’t necessarily mean that a Palestinian state will be established tomorrow but it is significant and historical in that such a case gained international legitimacy and Palestine will now have the capacity to apply for state membership in significant agencies, such as the International Criminal Court. Israel threatens Palestin
