The Latest…

Some stuff to chew on:

• It’s definitely worth worrying about horizontal escalation (I’m not sure that the situation could get more vertical than it already is).
• Prospects for the hostages are not great; Hamas may have gone to that well once too often.
• Not looking great for Americans in Gaza, either.
• Much remains to be written about Israel’s intel failures, but it looks as if the problem was primarily one of incomplete and incorrect framing, rather than data collection.
• Hamas conducted recon and planning (at the tactical and operational levels, anyway) with extraordinary professionalism. My guess is that the big issue here will be that Israeli soldiers did not maintain best practices with respect to using social media on military posts.
• On the complexity of some of the jus in bello legal restrictions on Israeli military action… as far as I’m concerned the claim “Hamas followed international humanitarian law in its initial attack” ought to be laughed out of the courtroom.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of local media on the Gaza War. I usually try to avoid talking overmuch in public about Israel-Palestine questions (it’s not healthy from a personal or professional standpoint to become too publicly identified with the conflict) but it’s a responsibility that my department has taken on and consequently it’s something I have to do. Here’s a radio appearance that’s been turned into a podcast which begins with the question “could you briefly explain the Israel-Palestine dispute? Start at the beginning.”

Let this serve as an open thread for continuing discussion of the war between Israel and Hamas.