It is simply daft to facilitate the continuation of Hamas rule. ~Efraim Inbar

It certainly is if your stated objective is to bring about the end of Hamas rule, and it is even more so when you believe that you will bring about the end of Hamas rule by doing exactly those things that are guaranteed to keep it in power, such as laying waste to the enclave’s agricultural infrastructure and creating conditions that will either create a humanitarian disaster or lead to even deeper dependence on foreign aid. If the infrastructure is not repaired and Gazans do not receive food to make up for the shortfalls caused by the damage to their agricultural infrastructure, do you suppose that they will become embittered against Hamas for bringing this upon them (which, as we know, is itself a somewhat oversimplified explanation of how things have reached this point)? Or will they instead reasonably hold responsible those who refuse to send aid after their existing means of providing for themselves were badly damaged or destroyed by the governments of the very people who now concoct reasons to deny them aid? Haven’t Gazans already learned that Hamas rule carries dire consequences? Has it brought Hamas crashing down, or had the opposite effect? Besides the siege and the damage from the recent strikes, Hamas’ political killings have also made clear what Hamas rule offers. Who believes that making life in Gaza more miserable and making its people even less self-sufficient will make Gazans less inclined to support Hamas?

Of course, the former policies of siege and attack distract anger against Hamas, while Hamas’ willingness to eliminate vocal opponents ensures that mounting resistance against Hamas is very difficult and dangerous, and at the same time the siege makes opposition to Hamas seem like the act of a collaborator and makes material conditions more difficult in such a way that perversely makes the population more dependent on whatever social services Hamas can provide. Obviously, if you want to encourage people to rise up against thuggish rulers, the key is to eliminate their ability to raise an independent food supply, and you absolutely want them suffering from malnutrition and disease. This is clearly how you create the most effective insurgent political force. Professional strategists have told us so.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that Inbar’s assessment of the blame is entirely correct–what then? In the end, more people will come away remembering that Hamas was attempting to provide them help–for self-serving reasons, of course–than will think through an elaborate chain of causality to determine that Hamas is actually to blame. At the same time, the pressure not to break ranks when under siege and attack is very strong, and it is even stronger in societies steeped in nationalist ideology, so even if Hamas did not kill its enemies there would be strong self-censoring and conformism in Gaza to avoid being seen as unduly sympathetic to the Israeli side. Even if Inbar is right about who deserves the blame, it does not follow that this group will receive the blame, nor does it follow that it is the proponents of aid who are most engaged in serious strategic folly.

The recent fighting in Gaza has provided the opportunity for critics of developmentalism and foreign aid to note that Palestinians in Gaza are heavily dependent on foreign aid and that this is ultimately not good for Palestinians in Gaza. As a critic of the ideology of development and a skeptic of the effectiveness of foreign aid, I think these critics are right on one part of the question and they are horribly wrong on another part when they make arguments like those Inbar puts forward. Inbar’s basic mistake is to assume that inflicting collective punishment on Gazans will make them more likely to turn against Hamas, when we have seen time and time again that this is not how populations under siege and attack behave. Inbar’s argument is not merely one that says that cultivating economic dependence on international donors is self-defeating for helping the Palestinians’ well-being, but that their well-being should be deliberately kept poor to continue the failed political experiment of the siege of the last two years. It seems to me that this particularly grim experiment has been run and the results are conclusive: starving and battering people does not elicit their cooperation, but causes them to grow in resentment and anger. It is simply daft to facilitate the continuation of Hamas rule. So why do most of the supposedly hard-headed hawks and self-styled friends of Israel insist on doing it?

Inbar warns that sending reconstruction aid to Gaza will send the wrong signal, as if withholding it and being seen as the ones withholding much-needed humanitarian aid will encouage the kind of political behavior outsiders demand. Leave aside for now the assumptions that go into the idea that another people’s political behavior should be for someone else to manage or dictate, and consider simply whether these hard-line policies ever achieve what their proponents say that they will achieve.