Zakaria cites the statistics that proves Israel is the dominant military power in the region. True enough, but there's more to it than that simple recitation of statistics.
He then says that because Israel is so dominant militarily, that peace will only come when Israel decides to take risks to make peace:
These are the realities of the Middle East today. Israel’s astonishing economic growth, its technological prowess, its military preparedness and its tight relationship with the United States have set it a league apart from its Arab adversaries. Peace between the Palestinians and Israelis will come only when Israel decides that it wants to make peace.
And here I thought evacuating the Gaza Strip was "taking a risk for peace," as Zakaria urges Israel to do.
The short Gaza fight came close to demonstrating why air power--the apex of technological arms--alone is insufficient: Israel was short of Iron Dome air defense missiles.
Yes, the technology of Iron Dome is amazing. Yet if Hamas had kept firing the rockets that Palestinians put together in their garages and the World War II-descended longer-ranged rockets that Iran supplied, that amazing technology just wouldn't have mattered.
The same applies to the Israeli military as a whole. The reality is that Israel relies on reservists for their military superiority. Israel is fine without the reservists as long as a war is restricted to an air campaign--or cyber-war, I suppose.
When Israel mobilizes their ground power, their astonishing economic growth comes to a grinding halt as people who do all the things that make their economy "astonishing" to Zakaria put on a uniform.
Israel is then on the clock. They must win a short and decisive ground campaign--and then demobilize. If they can't do that, their military can't remain in the field for long.
Zakaria thinks that because Israel can win any short conventional war, they can take a risk for peace. The problem is, their enemies won't fight a short conventional war with Israel. And Israel doesn't escalate every armed provocation to the level of a short, conventional campaign.
How does Zakaria's confidence in Israeli conventional power affect Hamas thinking? Despite Israel's overwhelming military power, Hamas struck Israel's cities, confident that Israel would not use their military to crush Gaza and arrest every Hamas leader they could grab to put them on trial and hang them by the neck after a fair trial.
If the Palestinians weren't so eager to continue to kill Jews, the reality of Israel's astonishing economic growth, technological prowess, military preparedness, and relationship with America might make Hamas think perhaps provoking Israel by trying to kill Jews isn't the best idea.
But rather than try to build a real state in the land they hold (which Israel took a risk to evacuate), Hamas and the other (God help us) more radical factions continue to rejoice in the ability to take shots at Jewish civilians. Oh, and if any Arab citizens of Israel are in the way where the rockets land? Oh well.
Or does Zakaria's deep plan assume Hamas be allowed to build a conventional military that Israel can destroy and therefore make Hamas less interested in killing Jews?
Good God, he's an effing idiot. I actually weep when I contemplate the possibility that the Obama administration looks to Zakaria for insights on foreign policy.
