Gaza Conflict 2021

by Jonathan Schanzer

The May 2021 conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas generated headlines around the world. However, much of the reporting ignored the history, funding, political dynamics, and other key components of the story. Hamas initiates conflict every few years. But the reporting rarely improves. Social media has only further clouded the picture. Hamas is rarely held responsible for its use of "human shields," blindly firing rockets at civilian areas in Israel, or diverting aid that should benefit the people of Gaza. The Islamic Republic of Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism, has been the primary patron of Hamas since the group's inception in the late 1980s. Hamas has received additional assistance over the years from Qatar, Turkey and Malaysia. These countries are fomenting conflict, while others, such as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have tried to minimize it. Gaza is therefore ground zero in a struggle for the future stability of the Middle East. The Biden administration has important choices to make. Its intent to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal could have significant consequences, given that sanctions relief to Iran will likely yield a financial boon for Hamas, along with other Iranian proxies. The Biden administration must also come to terms with "The Squad," a small but loud faction of the Democratic Party that seeks to undermine the US-Israel relationship.

Genres: Nonfiction, Israel, Middle East

284 pages, Hardcover

Published November 10, 2021

Reviews

[Sleepless Dreamer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was curious to read this book cause hey, this happened last year. Wild. Recent events have made me feel as though we are constantly reliving it (rockets from Gaza aimed at Israeli civilians? yup. Israeli police in Al Aqsa? sure. random street violence and police brutality? you bet).

In theory, this is a book about the May war last year (let’s be honest- the Palestinian name “The Sword of Jerusalem” is so much better than the Israeli “Guardian of the Walls”). However, this book is more of an general overlook of the conflict in recent years, particularly focusing on Gaza. He highlights the context for the recent war, especially regarding Iran and Lebanon.

At times, this book wasn’t quite coherent. He jumps around the history and the present in a way that didn’t make sense to me. It was never quite clear why he had decided to organize his chapters in this way.

Schanzer does highlight some important points which many miss- particularly the importance of the Palestinian inner divide and the role of the Palestinian elections in the war last year. However, I felt that this book was missing many opportunities and misrepresenting several aspects of the conflict. So time to begin criticizing! Here we go. I feel an urge to prove that I am equally as strict towards pro-Israeli books.

Israel’s (Lack of) Strategy

At the end of the book, Schanzer points out that Israel has won the war militarily but lost it strategically. He suggests that this is because the Hamas achieved its objectives of turning the conflict religious by taking upon themselves to be “the protector of Al Aqsa”, pushing the PA out of the picture and rallying up Palestinians in Israel.

It does seem true that there is a religiousization of the conflict, particularly on the Palestinian side. I mean, there was ISIS affiliated terror attack a month ago. The Hamas rhetoric forces every other actor to fit into it- it changes the acceptable language. Certain ideas are a mesh of religion and ethno-national politics which means the religion is a side effect of the ethno-nationalism. Al Aqsa Compound is the classic example of this.

However, what Schanzer doesn’t mention is that Israel is bound to lose every war with Gaza, strategically speaking, because there doesn’t seem to be a strategy. Israel is fantastic at planning short term moves yet lacks clear vision for the future so there can be no winning. For Israel, a victory would be no rockets from Gaza but as long as the blockade is there and we are so entangled, we cannot expect the Hamas to disappear. Hence it’s only a matter of time before the next war and it won’t just be the Palestinian’s fault.

This needs to be spoken about. We need to call out Israel for lacking a main plan. A vision for the conflict. And I get it, Israel needed a decade to get over the Barak's 2 state solution rejection and the second intifada but guys, it’s time to get to work again. What’s the end goal of the conflict for Israelis? It is important to put pressure on both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to fight for conflict solutions, whatever they may be.

Proxies & Israeli Responsibility

Schanzer seems to blame much of the problems on proxies, particularly Iran. I am not a fan of this argument, just as I dislike the “Israel exists solely because of American support”. Ultimately, there are very real reasons for a Palestinian to oppose Israel, even to seek armed resistance. Do Palestinians get aid from Iran? Absolutely and this aid increases their military capabilities but Iran isn’t the problem here. The problem here is the conflict itself, the fight over land and governance. Let’s not get distracted with MENA messes.

To shine a light on Iran’s importance does several things. It takes away Palestinian agency. It sounds good to an American ear like cool, Israel in the Middle East, battling the evil Iranians. But most importantly, it shields Israel’s role. If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be framed as Israel against Iran, Israel looks pretty good. It legitimizes violence against Palestinians as a tool to fight Iran.

This is problematic because yes, we have an obligation to face the impact of our actions on Palestinians, even if they’re caught in the middle in a regional war. And it sucks. It sucks that the Palestinian cause has gotten so entangled in MENA politics, that Egyptians uphold the blockade (even more brutally than Israel), that everyone is willing to let the Hamas rule Gaza cause no one wants ISIS there instead, that Arab countries pay lip service to the Palestinian cause while they continue to abuse Palestinian refugees, as if it matters that Arab athletes refuse to compete against Israel when their countries are signing weapon deals with Israel. Even though all of this is true, Israel needs to be able to see Palestinians for themselves, not as proxies, not as representatives of the axis of evil.

This particularly bothered me when it came to Palestinian/Arab Israelis. Jewish Israelis do not wish to face the identity crisis of Israeli Arabs. We don’t want it to exist. But it exists. Not because of Turkey or Iran but simply because they hold an Israeli citizenship but Palestinian culture, family, and identity as well as decades of marginalization, polarization and racism from Israel. Israel has simultaneously avoided taking care of these civilians (cause they never sat in the coalition) but also essentially told them to be grateful we don’t expel them.

We need to face this. There’s a trust crisis, an Arab municipality crisis, a poverty and crime pandemic, a clan system that clashes with the state, etc. These are real. I believe that in part, these push some people to identify so staunchly with the Palestinian cause. Schanzer doesn't speak of this.

Israel has an obligation to make sure the streets of Uhm ElFahm look just as good as Ramat HaSharon. To end the gun violence of Rahat. To make sure the schools are equal, to push for more budgets, to make sure everyone has the basics of electricity and road access. We cannot be a first world country that still has people using wells, shame on us.

And if after this people still identify with the Palestinian cause? We need to stop fighting it. I mean, we should fight armed resistance, certainly, but someone saying, “I’m an Israeli citizen and a Palestinian ethnically and culturally”? We should institutionalize this. This terrifies Israelis cause they think it’s the beginning of a one state solution but it’s not- we need to see Palestinians as a minority group in Israel with cultural rights. Want national rights? Excellent, build your state, Israel remains the Jewish state with a Palestinian minority.

To say outright, we are not scared of you. We are not intimidated by Palestinians. Celebrate your dabke and olive trees, we do not view you as a threat. It takes courage, it takes confidence, it takes a sense of self contentment that isn’t found in the Middle East often but Israel needs to realize that the oppression of identity is what creates the antagonism. Palestinian is not necessarily synonymous with a desire to dismantle Israel.

By owning it, we also take away a pretty big Palestinian weapon. The Hamas are trying to rally all Palestinians, to push the narrative that Gaza, Jerusalem, Jenin and Nazareth are all the same, all Palestinian. The best way to fight this is to show them that we’re not worried about Palestinians in Israel. To take ownership of Palestinian culture but still insist on a Jewish state, just like Druze culture is not against Israel. We dismantle their threat by proving that Israel opposes Palestinian nationalism that seeks to replace it, not Palestinian peoplehood and culture. This would be effective in cutting the Hamas because it would show that the real fight isn’t Israelis vs Palestinians. It’s Israelis (who are Jewish and Palestinian) vs the violence Palestine promises.

if Israel were to allow, for example, identifying as Palestinian on an ID, that wouldn’t hurt us. It wouldn’t matter. If Israel were to speak of Palestinian culture, particularly things that are solely Palestinian and not Mizrahi, it wouldn’t hurt us. We grow stronger by proving that it is the end of the Jewish state that we fear, not Palestinians themselves. Cultural rights, not national.

So basically, by blaming foreign countries, Schanzer doesn’t see the interpersonal and inner-political issues. This blocks us from seeing a solution. I wish we could blame Turkey, Iran, or Qatar but to do so would be to remove our own responsibility.

In this argument, I do not mean to minimize regional stability. I often suspect that Israel gets criticized by Western governance and international organizations but never more than that because they realize that any form of Israeli retreat is a genuine regional risk. If Israel was a weaker state, things would be worse. So yes, Israel has a responsibility to be a stable state but stability is not the only goal. We must look at the region but also at ourselves.

The Morality of War
An additional issue with this book is that Schanzer seems to avoid asking the hard questions. This, to me, highlights that this is an American and not Israeli author as Israelis are obsessed with these questions.

If you’re a soldier and a 15 year old child is shooting at you, can you shoot them back? If there’s a rocket factory in the midst of a civilian area, how many civilians are you morally able to kill before it is wrong? Put in another way, international law allows killing civilians if there’s proportionality to the military target so what’s proportional? 2 dead civilians for a military target? Zero dead civilians? And what if the people of Gaza have nowhere to go when bombed? What is a civilian population allowed to do in order to fight a foreign occupier? When do civilians become combatants? How does a state fight a non-state actor, morally and legally speaking?

These are the questions we must grapple with. This is what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict looks like. This is what asymmetry looks like. The solution isn’t to create symmetry or blame Israel for its strength (*coughs* random foreigners who speak of death counts as the sole tool for justice). But it is also not to minimize the complexity of this situation. As people who believe Israel is (often) acting correctly, we need to express this reality. We don’t need to rely on presenting Palestinians as violent terrorists- we do have an obligation to justify or criticize the actions taken in the war.

This is a conversation. We might not agree on the limits of war ethics. But not talking about it is a mistake. The conversation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rarely goes here. In Israel, this is what we talk about but somehow, it doesn’t get translated abroad and it should.

The issue is that people have made up their mind on whether Israel is acting justly or not. This isn’t based on particulars. Schanzer is sure Israel is right in its ways so he never takes the time to fully explain what’s the idea or whether it is okay. This isn't convincing and frankly, it's disappointing.

And hey, the IDF command has recently said that destroying the media building was a mistake. It did have military targets but it also damaged the Israeli cause and hurt the relations with the media even more. This seems to suggest that someone high up isn't considering that strategy is beyond military goals.

Civilian Pain

I felt that this book didn’t manage to express civilian pain. Civilians are suffering. Particularly Gazan civilians but also Israelis of the South (who are underprivileged in an Israeli context too). This needs to be at the center of our activism. We can’t look away. Pro-Palestinian activists need to know their rhetoric can cause Israeli children to be bombed. Pro-Israeli activists need to know their rhetoric can cause Palestinian children to be bombed.

There is an obligation to see it and be careful. Most of us do not want to hurt civilians yet when we emphasize the state behavior of their governments without mentioning a word about the civilian suffering, we are creating a false image.

To clarify, yes. Let's talk about the Hamas builds tunnels into Israeli civilian areas. Let's talk about how the Hamas uses civilian infrastructure which ends up occasionally hurting their civilians. Let's talk about the PA pays money to people who commit terror attacks.

However, we also need to talk about the occupation and the blockade. And not just as "this is a response to the terrorism" but in a way that sees civilian suffering. There are kids in Gaza who have never set foot outside of it. We need to speak about trauma and injuries and deaths and the sheer damage of this conflict. Palestinians are impacted e v e r y d a y by the occupation. When do we speak of this? Looking at other people’s pain is hard when you are also in pain but it is an obligation.

To conclude, this is an interesting book. There are some issues with the book and I did like Schanzer's other book more as this felt rushed but if you're looking for recent Israeli-Palestinian context for wars, this provides some insight, although it is not without flaws.

What I'm Taking With Me
- I haven't written a long IP review in a while, I feel rusty. I wonder if I am outgrowing my IP books phrase.
- the Israeli trick with the fake announcement of a Gaza land invasion was even more clever than painted here because in Hebrew, there isn’t quite a distinction between “in Gaza” and “around Gaza” so it seems like just an English mistake. And of course, in classic Israeli spirit, it’s a brilliant short term move but a terrible long term move because it hurts the trust of the media in the army.
- Also this book just has American energy, I don't know how to explain it.


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I thought nothing could be more sci-fi than the Iron Dome but it seems Israel will be using lasers to take down rockets in the next war. That's wild.

I usually criticize pro-Palestinian books so I am very excited to criticize this pro-Israeli book. Review to come!

[George P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gaza Conflict 2021 charts the causes, conflicts, and consequences of the May 10–21, 2021 war between Israel and Hamas, the de facto sovereign of the Gaza Strip. Its author, Jonathan Schanzer, is senior vice president at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, “a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute focusing on foreign policy and national security, as well as a veteran analyst of the Middle East.

Every interpretation of any major event in the eight-decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict is hotly contested, so it is unlikely that Schanzer’s interpretation will be the last word. I found it to be a reasonable, well-sourced analysis, which is why I recommend it to interested readers. It situates those “eleven days of war” in longer historical and broader regional contexts than daily news stories typically allow.

Several points stood out to me in particular:

First, as Chapter One’s title puts it, there is “No Single Spark” to the most recent war. Media often cited a tenancy dispute in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah as the cause, or a major cause, of the conflict. However, this is simplistic. The Sheikh Jarrah dispute was one factor among many. It was a rallying point for Palestinians, but not the sole cause of the dispute.

Second, the conflict cannot be limited to Israelis and Palestinians. Hamas exists because of the largesse of Iran, especially, which provides training, funds, materiel, and technical assistance to Hamas’ fighters. It also receives support from other Arab nations and Sunni regimes. On the Israeli side, of course, the U.S. provides significant military and financial aid.

In a sense, the Gaza conflict was a war between Israel and Iran, with Hamas serving as Iran’s proxy. Given that the Biden administration was actively trying to re-engage Iran through the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—an action Israel vigorously opposed—it would be inaccurate to say that Israel was America’s proxy, despite the significant aid the former received from the latter.

Third, the conflict must be interpreted in terms of intra-Palestinian and intra-Middle Eastern struggles, too, not just as a conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. In the 1990s, the U.S., Israel, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) entered into an agreement to begin the process of forming a two-state solution to the conflict. The PA’s authority extended over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Within years of Yasir Arafat’s death, however, the Palestinian territories became politically divided between a PA-controlled West Bank and a Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The PA is formally, if coolly, committed to the two-state solution and security cooperation with Israel. Hamas, however is explicitly committed to the destruction of the Jewish state. Hamas control of both the West Bank and Gaza Strip would end both the PA’s rule and the roadmap to the two-state solution.

It’s obvious that Israel doesn’t want Hamas in charge of the territories. It’s also true that the PA doesn’t want that end either, nor do moderate Arab nations, such as Egypt, for whom Hamas’ politics represent a threat to their own politics.

Moreover, while Arab nations have traditionally been Palestinian defenders and are still quite vocal critics of Israel, those majority Sunni Muslim Arabs view see Iran’s majority Shia Muslim Persians as a threat in the region. This explains why Arab critics of Israel during the Gaza conflict were muted and why one could even hear them voice a contrary word about Iran-backed Hamas.

Fourth, there’s an old journalism adage that says, “If it bleeds, it leads.” That explains why casualties and property destruction led the news each night during the conflict. Given Israel’s technological superiority—both defensively and offensively—far fewer Israelis than Gazans died, and far more damage was done to Gazan buildings than Israeli ones. Schanzer makes a persuasive case that this happens because Hamas houses its offices, stores its weapons, and builds tunnels under civilian areas. Any discussion of Israeli “war crimes” in such a context must also recognize that intentionally using civilians as “human shields” also is a war crime.

The upshot of these points—and others that Schanzer makes—is that interpreting Hamas’ conflict with Israel in David-Goliath terms is too simple. Yes, Israel is the technologically superior Goliath compared to Hamas. But Hamas is a proxy for Iran, which is technologically advanced and is funding both Hamas on Israel’s southern border and Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border. Given that reality, who’s David, and who’s Goliath?

Schanzer argues that 2021 conflict was a tactical victory for Israel, though a strategic one for Hamas. With each major conflict, Hamas has improved and extended the scale of its capabilities. The scariest words in the entire book are the final two sentences of the Introduction: “The 2021 conflict was the fourth Gaza war. There will be a fifth.”

Book Reviewed
Jonathan Schanzer, Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War (Washington DC: Foundation for Defense of Democracies Press, 2021).

P.S. If you liked my review, please click “Helpful” on my Amazon review page.

[David Litman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-balanced book. An informative, easy read for the everyday person who wants to learn more about what happened in May 2021, while also offering some fascinating insights for even the seasoned Israel/Hamas watchers.

[Jenni · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m disappointed. I had heard this was a respectable, moderately pro-Israel book. Instead, it reads to those in the know as laughable propaganda.

Pros: contemporary (published in 2022) and filled to the brim with up-to-date info on Israel’s military capabilities and its shadow war with Iran. Plus, as someone that leans more left on this, it’s good to make sure I’m exposed to all the best pro-Israel arguments. This was a decent book for that, I guess. It would have been far more persuasive if it had actually engaged with the other side’s analyses and supporting facts, but I suppose it’s still also helpful to be familiar with the basic pro-Israel talking points.

Cons: offensively and intentionally misleading. Entirely devoid of critical analysis that weighs competing viewpoints. He would rather paint Israel in a positive light even if that means purposefully obscuring opportunities for successful compromise. Though, to be fair, that mostly seems to be the Israeli govt’s strategy — avoiding a compromise that it does not want to achieve — for quite some time now. Also, bizarrely, the author views the Gaza wars solely as proxy battles for Israel and Iran’s respective quests for hegemony as opposed to also viewing the wars in the context of the search for Palestinian nationalism. That’s probably a function of his antiterrorism background, but it made for a lopsided and ineffective analysis.

I need some better contemporary pro-Israel books that aren’t laughable trash. Genuinely — this was laughable trash. It would be funny if it weren’t so frustrating. It sometimes feels like my life’s biggest project is to bridge the gap between opposing viewpoints by equalizing access to moderate and balanced information. This book actively works against that goal. It’s draining and exhausting and only benefits extremists on both sides.

[Adam Glantz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any Middle East observer who tries to be fair won't be surprised that Israel is both misunderstood and maligned when it tries to defend itself against indiscriminate attacks while minimizing civilian casualties on both sides. But Schanzer drills down further into the fundamentals of the 2021 (and earlier) Gaza conflicts and I believe there are two take-aways, neither of which is regularly acknowledged in more routine analyses of wars between Israel and Hamas:

Hamas fights Israel because its whole reason for being is to fight Israel. It's very rare that anything Israel does starts a conflict. Rather, Hamas chooses to act upon its raison d'etre at any particular time based upon its own political calculations and the state of its capabilities.

Hamas has a variety of enablers, but first and foremost is the Islamic Republic of Iran, which also seeks Israel's destruction. A major reason for Hamas' longevity and the steady increase in its capabilities is the generous support from this quarter. Hence, anything that helps Iran, including Western financial incentives to negotiate a nuclear deal, translates into a strengthening of Hamas and other Gazan militant groups.

[Joseph S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An antidote to wishful thinking

This book is a nuanced, comprehensive, informed description of the conflict between Isael and Hamas. Hamasaki is an Iranian proxy and part of Iran's plan to encircle and destroy Israel. Israel does not want to be at war with Gaza, but Iran and Hamas want to be at war with it. Western journalists and politicians too often ignore this context while condemning Israel for defending itself when attacked.

[Bald · Rating 5 out of 5]

The state of play in Israel and the has changed significantly over the the past 20 years. This ain't your father's Arab-Israeli conflict. With Arab states realigning with Israel against Iran, Shiite Iran supplying Sunni Hamas with ever-more-powerful weapons to use against Israel, and the US alternately pumping billions into Iran under Obama, cutting off subsidies under Trump, and resuming them under Biden, you need a guide. Jonathan Schanzer is that guide. Schanzer used to work at the Treasury department to investigate and disrupt terror financing, so he's a card-carrying member of the Good Guys Club and an ideal guide to the changing battlefields of the Middle East. He knows the networks, the funding relationships, the ideological affinities and the ever-evolving Israeli response to the flux.

Five-out-of-five stars. Bravo!

[John Thurman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clarity Amidst Media Confusion

I ran across this book on Jack Carrs podcast as they discussed the curry conflict between Israel-Hamas. His research gave me fresh understanding of the intricacies of the nature the conflict. I highly recommend this resource as a means to understand the significance of the current conflict and its outcome. Well researched and highly readable.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prescient for today's horror.
p. 194
Gaza is now ground zero in a proxy conflict. It is part of a bigger battle between Israel and Iran, along with other determined foes. The wars in Gaza are far more complex than the false binary of Israelis vs. Palestinians.

[Lily Pytel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first time I picked up this book was before bed. I thought it wouldn't affect me as much because I had lived this stuff. It was a mistake. I laid awake all night, choking. Since then I listened to it away from bed but the pain remains. My heart is broken.