Concepts

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

So it seems so is victory. Talking with Arab friends I was amazed to hear that not only had Hamas ‘won’ the last war. It was, in their eyes, considerably stronger. So we have a war that was not declared as a war but was considered to be one. And this not war was neither won nor lost. Victory is not a result. It is a concept. And as such is defined by very fuzzy logic.
Seemingly there is no clear conceptualisation of what is victory.
That is hardly surprising. This war was managed under two conceptual canopies There were two opposing concepts. One for each side: The Hamas’s concept was: it was possible to kill Israelis and gain concessions. This failed. The Israeli concept was it was possible to ‘not kill’ Gazans and get them to stop. This was also wrong. One side wished to kill and couldn’t. One side wished to avoid killing and didn’t.
The Hamas’s basic concept is to represent the social need of Gaza, to build a society and then fight a war. It fought a war and ignored the social needs of Gaza and destroyed the infrastructure.
Israel has a long history of blinkering itself with flawed concepts.
Its whole dealing with Gaza is characterised by profound superficiality. The withdrawal was supposed to spare Israel from further international pressure. It did not.
The embargo was supposed to do three things: Isolate the Hamas; make Hamas unpopular amongst the Gazans and to prevent arms entering Gaza. All three aims were markedly not met.
Israel then fought in a ‘war’ in which its two major aims were: Avoiding recrimination for killing civilians; saving soldiers lives. Neither were achieved. The ‘war’ aims with regard to Hamas were never defined.On the one hand Hamas should not be beaten militarily as this would cause a vacuum to be filled by ISIS ‘compatibles’. The Hamas were to be replaced by a populace that would emerge unscathed yet angry from the rubble. What the difference is was never explained. They were irreconcilable. The fact that bombed populations tend to unite was also ignored. Simply looking at Hanoi and London would have illustrated this point.
Hamas’s basic concept was to end the embargo. It expected world opinion to facilitate the achieving of this goal.  Yet the Israeli embargo is a puny one compared to the Egyptian one. Gaza’s umbilical cord is Rafiah. The Egyptians closed the crossing. Fighting and shaming Israel has no bearing. Another flawed concept.
Israel, like Hamas distorted the significance of Egypt. Instead he Israelis created  a new concept A concept that was hastily cobbled together on the fly. The new concept states that the world consists of militant and non militant Sunni. Who is on which side of the divide is defined by the needs of the concept and not reality. Hence Hamas and the PLO are on two different sides of the divide. The PLO can now be declared ‘good guys’ and will somehow rule Gaza benignly. The PLO has no intention of being ‘crowned’ by neither Israel nor Egypt. The ‘war’ has made, in Palestinian eyes, Hamas very popular and the PLO unpopular. The PLO has no intention of taking on the thankless job of rebuilding Gaza.
Israel believes that Egypt is now firmly in her camp. Another flawed concept. Egypt loathes the the Muslim brotherhood. That encompasses the Hamas and the dissidents in Libya. Israel is of no importance and probably an embarrassment. If Egypt overcomes her existential problems it probably will demand Israel make peace with the PLO on Egypt’s terms. That would cause an immediate collapse of the Nethanyahu  government. The very government so vigorously courting the present Egyptian regime.
Israel’s concept about peace making is now flawed. A basic concept of Israeli politics is that only the Likud will  fight decisively at a time of war. This concept has been found to be flawed. One more major casualty of this ‘war’. Another basic concept has is about to suffer a similar fate.  Only the Likud can make peace will become flawed with the first Egyptian overture. The Likud government will collapse.
The claim that peace can be made only after the demise of the Hamas is deeply flawed. Any agreement can only be made by someone who can keep that agreement. That is most certainly not the PLO. Only he Hamas can guarantee an agreement. And thy will only offer a long term ‘Hudna ‘  (Armistice).
The fact that Jerusalem can never be redivided is a misconception. It should be and can be functionally shared. It should not be and there is no need to divide Jerusalem.
The concept that two states can exist independently is flawed.The economies of the two are one. So is the defence. And this is a point for ‘give and take’. But at some point there must be shared commonalty in defence and economies. As independent as the two sister states may be in certain respects they are Siamese twins.
Finally the concept that the ‘right of return’ makes any agreement impossible is also flawed. Israel has only to stipulate that no one can buy a house in Israel with any money apart from his own. All subsidised and assisted immigration will be done in the future Palestine. The entry into Israel of the ‘rich’ Palestinians will only come after the initial processes have finished. In at least ten years time. In exchange for a Jewish numerus clausus in Palestine there should be a similar Palestinian one in Israel.
It is incredible when we consider that such a major issue is so encompassed with so many flaws.
There is one iron cast concept. When any agenda is ridden with concepts then disaster is never far away.