Facing mounting deaths, injuries, and exhaustion among its troops in its ongoing war in Gaza, while desiring to escalate the war in Lebanon and beyond, the Israel government began in July to expand conscription to include “ultra-orthodox” men who were previously exempt. That plan, in its first month of implementation, seems not to be going well for the government.
The Israel government won’t stop its decimating of Gaza. Plus, it keeps lashing out at other nations in the region. Doesn’t it worry that it will end up defeated by engaging in war too broadly? The worry may be small because the Israel government has a couple big weapons in its back pocket.
First, the Israel government has reason to expect that the full force of the United States military and wallet of American taxpayers will come to Israel’s aid if Israel puts itself into a bind through its military adventurism. This is an example of what economists call a moral hazard.
In the first few weeks after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, Max Blumenthal was alerting people via his writing at The Grayzone that a significant portion of the killing the Israel government was blaming on Hamas appeared to have actually been done by the Israel government itself. Apparently contributing to this outcome, wrote Blumenthal, was an Israel government policy called the Hannibal Directive.
Blumenthal explained:
In December I wrote about how “the biggest contributor to inflicting death in Gaza will likely be the Israel government causing the loss of necessities for health, including nutrition, sanitation, shelter, and medical aid.” Sad confirmation of this prediction continues to appear.
The Israel government is directly causing thousands of deaths in Gaza. But, the biggest contributor to inflicting death in Gaza will likely be the Israel government causing the loss of necessities for health, including nutrition, sanitation, shelter, and medical aid. The deaths total could reach within a year up to a quarter of the Gaza population. That is around half a million people, the vast majority of whom are noncombatants.