Israel has entered into what its war cabinet calls the “second phase” of its operations against Hamas, with increased bombing and ground forces entering Gaza. Still to be decided is what Israel will do next – full scale invasion, hit-and-run raids, long-term siege, or some variation.
Israel will soon need to decide what to do the day after – reoccupy Gaza for an extended period or pull-out, with or without a plan for post-war governance.
As Israel makes these choices, it might look to the advice that many Israelis offered to the United States in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, advice that American policy makers did not take, to the severe detriment of American policy.
I was serving as the U.S. ambassador in Israel at the time. In the summer of 2002, it became clear to many of us that the Bush administration was intent upon invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein. For some of us, that plan made no sense, for Iraq had no hand in the 9/11 terrorism, and more than a decade of UN restrictions had hobbled Iraq’s military capacity. But we understood that the war hawks in Washington had larger motives in mind and would not be swayed by arguments against invading the country.
I called my embassy’s reporting officers together to discuss how we might contribute to and impact the policy discussions in Washington. While we understood that our own views would carry little or no weight among the neocons bent on invading, it struck us that Israeli experts might have some important lessons to share.
After all, Israeli intelligence professionals, diplomats, academics, and think tank analysts had extensive experience focusing on the region generally, as well as some specific experience in dealing with Iraq, including longstanding contacts with some opposition groups in the country. I asked my country team to fan out and gather Israeli perspectives for us to share with Washington.
One of the first issues we looked at was whether Israel was marketing the idea of a U.S. invasion of Iraq as a means of reducing the threat from Israel’s eastern border. Since before the 1967 war, when Israel’s narrow coastline was less than ten miles wide, Israeli military planners feared a military thrust from the east, in particular from Iraq through Jordan, that would try to cut Israel in half. After the 1967 war, this fear lessened, given the strategic depth of the West Bank, but the concern did not disappear entirely.
Thus, some analysts in the United States assessed that the neocons’ interest in Iraq was being stoked by Israel, given the extremely close ties between the neocons in the Administration and the right wing in Israel.
One of the first assessments that my country team and I sent to Washington was that this idea was without significant merit. To be sure, some Israelis on the right wanted the United States to invade and defeat Iraq, and some of those people had close ties to right-wing counterparts in D.C. But, as a general proposition, what we heard from Israeli analysts was that Israel was not pushing for a U.S. invasion, even though defeating Iraq would be helpful to Israeli security.
More significantly, Israelis across the analytical spectrum shared two lessons, drawn from their own experience, that they told us should guide American policy and actions.
First, we heard an almost universal admonition against occupying Iraq for any extended period of time after the invasion. Israeli analysts assumed that the U.S. military would prevail against the Iraqi military; however, they argued strongly that an extended occupation would turn sour and nasty almost immediately.
Indeed, some months later, after hearing then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld opine that Iraqi citizens would welcome Americans as liberators, the Israeli analysts doubled down on their advice: Iraqis, they said, would soon see the Americans as colonial occupiers.
This assessment bore fruit even earlier than Israelis expected, following the ill-fated decision by the Bush administration to disband the Iraqi army and to bar Baathists from serving in government. The United States left Iraq without a functioning government, and created the seeds of opposition by sending home Iraqi soldiers without the prospect of a job.
The Israelis’ second lesson learned was equally prescient, namely: Do not think the invasion and aftermath would lead to democracy. The Israelis were extremely skeptical of the Iraqi wannabe leaders the administration intended to install in power, in particular Ahmed Chalabi.
The Israelis pointed to the complex composition of Iraqi society – Sunni, Shia, Kurds, tribes – and argued that any externally-imposed model of democracy was bound to fail. As demonstrated in the insurgency against the United States that followed shortly after the U.S. invasion, this assessment proved right.
Today, Israeli leaders would be wise to ponder the lessons that Israeli analysts shared with the United States back in 2002-2003. First, do not occupy Gaza militarily for an extended period, and certainly do not entertain any notion of permanently reoccupying and resettling Gaza. This did not work out well the first time and will not succeed a second time.
Second, do not assume that decapitating Hamas will lead to a flowering of democracy in Gaza, especially if the social and economic conditions there remain as dire as they are now and likely to get worse. Israel will need to allow the regional and international community to try to get Gaza back on its feet, without the kind of restrictions that Israel has imposed on Gaza for decades.
And, third, Gaza’s underlying problems are tied directly to the underlying Israel-Palestine dispute. When the war ends, Israelis will turn to a reckoning of what went wrong and will want to resume normal life as soon as possible. This is natural. However, burying one’s head in the sand and claiming that the time is not right to talk seriously about the need for separation and the creation of an independent Palestinian state is a surefire guarantee that this Gaza war will not be the last.
Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt and Israel, is a professor at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. Twitter: @DanKurtzer