The Washington Post recently published an opinion piece written by U.S. Representative Keith Ellison (MN-5) supporting the termination of the blockade of Gaza. The piece ranks among the most straightforward rejections of Israeli security policy by a U.S. politician in recent years. Israel and Egypt have cooperated on imposing severe restrictions on the flow of goods and people across the Gazan borders since 2007, largely in response to the assumption of official power by Hamas pursuant to the 2006 parliamentary elections. The blockade has caused immense suffering among the Palestinian population of Gaza, entrenching widespread poverty and sustaining roughly 50% unemployment. According to supporters of the blockade, it is critical to Israeli security. But a critical reading of their strategic logic shows that it likely does more harm than good to both sides.
In my professional circles, supporters give three reasons to maintain the blockade, all of which fail to persuade me. I express my argument mostly in rationalist terms, leaving moral questions aside (for the most part), because that’s my job as I see it, a job I have chosen because it just might make me capable of contributing something other than hopeless expressions of rage or despair. It is probably a dryer and less impassioned expression than many of my friends and colleagues (an overlapping pair of categories) might make. It is a position less favorable to Israel than many of my friends, though fewer of my colleagues, would take. This is an analysis of one small part of a complex problem, not a position on the broader occupation, the viability of the peace process, or what remains of the two-state solution, or the balance of injustice on either side. Nor is it an effort to evaluate whether Israeli strategy actually reflects the logics presented here, but rather a response to a particular set of arguments made by those of its supporters to which I have the most frequent access and exposure. I take in turn each of the three most commonly given explanations for the blockade within my professional community.
Coercion by Punishment
This strategy is based on the premise that punishing Gazans by depriving them of resources and opportunity will make them see that supporting Hamas is more costly than beneficial. Leaving aside (as promised) the moral bankruptcy of coercive punishment, its strategic logic fails on two counts: First, it presumes that Gazans have free choice over their leadership, with alternatives that Israel would prefer. If Gazans cannot escape being used as human shields, as many supporters of Israel’s recent military campaign claim (to the objection of many journalists in Gaza), what power of collective action could they possibly have to topple Hamas and replace them with better leadership?
Strangling the Gazan economy guarantees that Israel’s message will meet a skeptical Palestinian response.
Second, and more generally, in order for coercive punishment to work, it must do more damage to the population’s perception of their own leadership than it does to their perception of the coercer or any alternative the coercer would endorse. Proponents of coercive punishment never seem to account properly for the population’s perception of the coercer — if they have, I’ve missed it, and would be grateful for any suggestions. To offer an analogy, my brother throws a rock at my neighbor, in response to which my neighbor shoots my sister. I’m not about to kick my brother out of the house and welcome my neighbor’s cousin in his place, even if my brother’s a bully. This requires a small extension of pure rationalism that reflects my methodological perspective, which blends behavioral economics and political psychology with more conventional international relations theory. In my own research (not related to Israel and Palestine), I focus on how the identity of the person attempting to persuade a subject interacts with the identity of the subject. “Who” is asking depends as much as “what” they’re asking, often more – even when the “what” has an impact on the subject’s interests. Strangling the Gazan economy guarantees that Israel’s message will meet a skeptical Palestinian response.
Making Room for Coercive Inducement
This coercive strategy is based on the premise that by making the blockade the status quo, the coercer can offer its relaxation as a positive inducement. Inducements, according to some of my colleagues, have a better chance at changing behavior than punishments, and I tend to believe it. But when you have to impose sanctions in order to make room for inducement, you shorten the path to war. The concession sought by the coercer has some value to the target. So long as that value exceeds the difference between the value of peace and the value of war, the target will choose war. The blockade reduces the value of peace, decreasing that difference, increasing the chance of war. Inducements are great, but only when they don’t require that the coercer first makes room for them by punishing the target.
Denial
The last explanation leaves aside coercion altogether. Although some people see denial as a form of coercion, I see it as an alternative. It involves preventing the target developing the capability to project military force, or degrading such capability as already exists. The target’s undesirable behavior changes because they no longer have the means to behave that way. This would be the only argument with any chance of persuading me that the blockade was worth considering, but still it does not. Israel’s military advantage over Hamas is so enormous (its defense budget alone exceeds the budget of the entire Palestinian Authority by a factor of seven), and its patron is better equipped than any of Hamas’ benefactors. The occasional Syrian M-302 rocket does not give Hamas the capability to mount a serious threat to Israeli security. Most of their weapons and tactics (homemade rockets and concrete tunnels) simply cannot be prevented or durably degraded by any means short of occupation, which has already proven disastrous.
There are many other issues at stake in this conflict, and I have only touched upon the three most commonly offered strategic justifications of the blockade. Some of Israel’s staunchest critics argue that the blockade is not intended as coercion, but as a unilateral eradication of Hamas – the “mowing the grass” strategy. Others point out that the blockade makes a mockery of Israeli and US credibility, since it came as a response to a democratic election. I remain neutral with respect to those arguments. Moreover, there are moral issues I have largely ignored. Still, even from a rationalist, strategic perspective, the blockade should come down. Moral or not, it does not work — it does not buy Israel enough security gains to justify the increased likelihood of eternal war.
[Photo by Michael Zahra via Flickr Commons.]
Chad Levinson is a preceptor for the Committee on International Relations and a doctoral candidate in the department of political science at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on the relationship between extra-governmental organizations and the executive in U.S. national security politics, specifically on the role of third-party groups as providers of outsourced propaganda services in support of administration policy.
