The Immeasurable Stakes for Israel

The charge of selfishness might be — after that of hypocrisy — the cheapest form of criticism. Journalists are masters of it. Of course the government of Benjamin Netanyahu stands to gain from thrashing Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, or Hamas. So what? I’m counting on it. Would you rather that the interests of the sovereign did not coincide with those of his polity?

Much obliged to the journalists and literary lights who have pointed out that they do. Joshua Leifer in the New York Times goes on about Netanyahu’s coalitional calculations. Pankaj Mishra, in a tastelessly titled cover story for the London Review of Books, turns academic-grade artillery on the influence that domestic politicking and national soul-searching have had on Israel’s foreign conduct. Their stuff is mostly plausible. It’s also predictable, easy, tired, obvious, boring, and irrelevant. Whether the obliteration of Hamas is good policy is independent of and prior to any adjunct benefit Israeli statesmen might derive from it.