What Political “Realism” Says About The Gaza War

-Analysis-

CAIRO — The Oct. 7, 2023 assault on southern Israel was effectively a “prison break” carried out by Hamas.

That’s the characterization of John Mearsheimer, a prominent U.S. political scientist. Here’s how he expressed it in an interview seven months ago with TRT World, a Turkish public broadcaster: “What happened was that the Israelis, in effect, locked the Palestinians up in Gaza in a giant open-air prison,” he said. “And they treated them horribly, and what happened on October 7 is you had a prison break and the Israelis reacted to that by invading Gaza.”

The University of Chicago professor is not alone in condemning Israel for its 15-month war on Gaza, joined by a group of theorists of the so-called “realist” school of international political relations, including Stephen Walt, professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

Through the lens of political realism, Mearsheimer and Walt are opposed to the American foreign policy of providing unconditional support to Israel, and have criticized the activity of the Israeli lobby in the U.S. to influence its policy toward Israel.

The realists believe that this support for Israel does not serve the U.S. interests. They also believe that Israel’s violations against the Palestinians are not in Israel’s interests either.

Offensive realism

Realism provides an explanation for the behavior of states based on their desire to maximize their power. It considers the international system to be anarchic in nature, with no central authority. That means that each state seeks to secure itself independently by gaining more power and maximizing its material capabilities, especially military and economic capabilities.

States seek to maximize their power whenever they can, and will dominate others if they are able.

This school encompasses a number of theories, including Mearsheimer’s Structural Offensive Realism. It says that states seek to maximize their power whenever they can, and that if they are able to dominate others, they will do so, and will not stop attempting to maximize their power and expansion.

There is also the theory of defensive realism, which believes that the excessive expansion of the state or its continued unlimited expansion weakens it, and leads to its demise, as happened with Nazi Germany.

Executing the genocide

There is a common belief about realism that it does not give importance to morality in its vision of the world, and focuses only on the material interests of states, in a world ruled by power.

Mearsheimer, however, adopts a moral position towards Gaza and against Israel. He criticizes the United States’ unconditional support for Israel.

In an interview with the Oxford Student newspaper in November, Mearsheimer said Israel is in “deep trouble” and faces a worsening situation due to three competing conflicts: Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and a direct conflict with Iran. He describes Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank as amounting to “apartheid,.”

“What the Israelis ultimately want to do is they want to cleanse Gaza, and they want to cleanse the West Bank.,” he said, adding that was “no question” in his view that “Israel is now in the process of executing the genocide.”

He also criticized the Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon, and argued that Israel was exacerbating its crisis and engaging in more conflicts. He argued that Israel aims “to drag Iran and the United States into a war” to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, and change the regime in Iran.

He described Israel’s overarching goal to “create a new Middle East that is much more friendly to Israel and much more friendly to the United States” as “delusional.”

​Realism and morality

Walt, who has co-authored two books with Mearsheimer, joins his colleague in refuting the popular idea that realism does not care about morality. He says that anyone who believes this does not really know realism.

Realists were the first to offer explanations that the world is not governed by a central government, and that states will not hesitate to resort to what serves their interests and increases their power, especially military and material force, as long as there is no one to stop them.

However, Walt and Mearsheimer rejected Israel’s war on Gaza and the unconditional U.S. support.

They argued that Israel’s invasion of Gaza in order to achieve the goal of eliminating Hamas to be doomed to failure. It is clear that Hamas will be able to survive, and if it does not, new resistance movements will emerge, as long as the Palestinians live under occupation and are deprived of their basic rights.

​Rejecting American collusion

Realists oppose American collusion with Israel because it could undermine the United States’ global standing. The war in Gaza has made it clear that U.S. commitment to a “rules-based order” is meaningless, Walt said.

The most prominent example is the United States’ longstanding veto of UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire. Polls from the Washington-based Institute for Near East Policy show that the United States’ popularity has fallen sharply in the Middle East, and its popularity has also suffered in Europe, while China, Russia, and Iran have gained in support.

The Cold War is over.

Realists also object because American support for Israel costs the country billions of dollars that Israel is using to destroy Gaza. Although this aid is small compared to the U.S. economy, it was better to be spent to help American people than help Israel kill Palestinians.

The war also consumes a great deal of senior officials’ time, and their time could be spent visiting other allies, developing effective strategies to counter rivals in Asia, supporting Ukraine, or addressing global crises such as climate change.

The U.S also loses from its support for Israel, while Russia and China gain. The massacres in Gaza lend credence to the statements of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping that U.S. global leadership is spreading suffering and conflict, and that the world would be better off in a multipolar system.

Realists, on the other hand, argue that Israel offers no strategic benefits to the U.S., although some argue that it was useful during the Cold War, serving as a counterweight to Soviet influence in the Middle East.

But the Cold War is over, and the claim that Israel is a counterweight to Iran and terrorism ignores the fact that Israel’s relationship with the U.S. was one of the reasons for the deterioration of the former’s relations with Iran, and one of the reasons that al-Qaeda attacked the U.S.

​The Zionist lobby

There is also the role of the Israeli lobby, which promotes the idea in Washington that Israel is the only democratic state in the Middle East that shares Americans’ values, and that supporting it serves their interests.

Destroying Gaza is both immoral — and undermines the U.S. interests

For Mearsheimer, the real reason for the U.S.’ support for Israel is the Israeli lobby, not the existence of common strategic or moral interests between them.

Realism can include supporting countries adopting policies that may sometimes be immoral if they ensure the achievement of their interests. But Mearsheimer and Walt conclude that the U.S. support for Israel in killing civilians and destroying Gaza is both immoral — and undermines the U.S. interests in the region, and the world.