Within days, Israeli officials are threatening a major escalation of airstrikes on Gaza.
That was the starting point for a much bigger argument between me, Ana Kasparian and Israeli analyst Joseph Cohen.
Joseph’s position is that the kite story cannot be separated from Hamas’ history of using kites as weapons. Israel has spent years trying to minimise civilian casualties, he argues, including evacuations, warnings and moving civilians out of combat zones.
Ana’s response: none of that explains why unarmed kites flown by children should become a justification for bombing Gaza again.
But the concern is no longer just Gaza. Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Qatar, the West Bank.
At what point does “self-defence” become a permanent foreign-policy doctrine?
Joseph’s answer was blunt: Israel is not fighting Turkey, Syria, Lebanon or Qatar. It is fighting jihadist movements and the states and proxies that support them.
But that is exactly the problem.
Because once every regional government becomes an extension of a jihadist network, Israel can justify confrontation with almost anyone.
The argument eventually reached the question neither side could really escape: what happens when a population has been displaced, territory destroyed and sovereignty progressively eroded, even if nobody formally announces an annexation?
Joseph says the numbers matter: Gaza’s population has not been wiped out, Israel has facilitated enormous amounts of aid, and civilian displacement is preferable to civilian death.
The counterargument is that you do not need to kill everyone to remove them from their land.
You can make the land unlivable. You can destroy homes. You can wait for the world to get bored. And then you can call the result something else.
The debate ultimately came down to two radically different fears:
Joseph fears Jews losing their homeland again.
But what about Israel becoming so determined never to lose it that it destroys everything around it?
@AnaKasparian @israel_advocacy
