Bolen C (Page 46)

Thailand’s scrambled media have been given an unsubtle kick in the pants by a senior official in the Office of the Attorney General. Deputy spokesman Narong Srirasan, taking part in a Thai PBS program on Monday, publicly thanked a team from the global Aljazeera network for flying in to cover a community-banking scandal. 

The scandal melds banking corruption with the growing menace of the overuse of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) legislation. The AG official’s comments followed the two-day trial of acclaimed journalist and whistleblower Chutima Sidasathian on three of nine potential charges of criminal defamation, brought by a subdistrict mayor in the province of Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat) over Facebook posts. 

Also read: Is a Thai national bank covering up robbery of its own money?

One of the Facebook posts concerned the activities of another local politician and the prime minister in 2012, before the mayor was elected. But the mayor told the court that he thought the post was really about him.

The Korat public prosecutor shared the mayor’s fanciful imagination. If local subdistrict mayors are now going to decide en masse to silence legitimate criticism with SLAPP criminal-defamation suits, Thailand’s pseudo-democracy is in even greater trouble than first thought. 

The trial of Chutima Sidasathian, the woman who first brought the abuse of boat people in Thailand to the world’s attention more than a decade ago, was preceded by a Special Commission of Investigation into the community banking scandal that she uncovered. 

The commission brought together senior investigating officers from the Village Fund, the Government Savings Bank, the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Special Investigation and the Office of the Attorney General. 

Despite the significance of the trial and the rare investigation by so many organizations, not a single word was carried in any media, with the notable exception of Asia Times.

The only TV outfits to provide coverage were Thai PBS and Aljazeera, which went to great lengths by flying in journalists and crew from London and Melbourne, viewing the story as significant. 

Clearly, a win for the subdistrict mayor over the ace reporter (she helped reveal the saga of human trafficking in Thailand, then single-handedly exposed the shocking community-banking scandal) would lead to many more low-level local politicians slapping down even minor criticism with criminal-defamation suits. 

The suffering endured during the years of the community-banking scam was widespread among impoverished village farmers. It triggered several unnatural deaths. 

If Thailand really wants a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, as seems to be the case, then the savage criminal-defamation laws that empower the misuse of police and state prosecutors by irate individuals have to be repealed first. 

People in Thailand and the rest of the world can expect to be informed of the damage caused by criminal defamation not by the scrambled Thai media, but by global outlet Aljazeera, when its documentary special on SLAPP goes to air any day now. 

No date has been set for the revelations of the special commission, but it is expected that they will be sensational. 

Meanwhile, Chutima Sidasathian will learn her fate when a Korat judge delivers a verdict on March 6. Just don’t expect to read about it in the Thai media. 

Journalists Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian fought charges of criminal defamation and computer crimes brought by the Royal Thai Navy in 2013. Two years later, a Phuket judge found the journalists not guilty.

Continue Reading

Pakistan’s heavily anticipated general election took place on February 8, 2024, with citizens of the South Asian country hoping that it might prove a step toward ending the nation’s political uncertainty.

But several days later, it remains unclear what the result of the vote will yield. Both of the leading contenders have claimed victory, amid allegations of vote rigging and disputed ballots.

The Conversation spoke with Ayesha Jalal, an expert on Pakistan’s political history who teaches at Tufts University, about what the results of the election mean and what could happen next.

Is it clear who will govern Pakistan next?

The results as they stand mean that no party is in a position to form a government on its own. So a coalition government at the federal level is unavoidable.

And this is where things get tricky. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI – headed by jailed former prime minister and Pakistani cricket hero Imran Khan – has emerged as the largest party in the national assembly, with around 93 candidates winning seats as “independents.”

They had to run as independents because the party was barred from using its electoral symbol, a cricket bat, after a three-member bench of the Supreme Court ruled that PTI had failed to hold intraparty elections in line with its constitution.

But with a total of 265 seats in parliament, that means the PTI is still well short of the number needed to form a government on its own.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or PMLN, came in second with 78 seats, a tally that is likely to be boosted by the addition of PMLN-aligned independent members of parliament.

The party – headed by Shahbaz Sharif, who took over from Khan as prime minister in 2022, and his brother, former three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif – is thought to have the backing of the powerful Pakistani army, but it did not perform as well as expected in the election.

The Pakistan People’s Party, or PPP, secured 54 seats, placing it third. This puts it in a position to help another party form a coalition at the federal level.

With the most seats, is the PTI the front-runner to lead a coalition?

The PTI has made it clear that it wants to form a government on its own and believes that its mandate was stolen.

Even before the final election results became known, the PTI claimed it had won 170 or so seats – enough for it to be able to form a government. But that appears to be without evidence.

This suggests the PTI isn’t ready to accept that it did not get enough votes to form a government outright. The party instead is challenging the results, claiming that its vote was suppressed illegally, and the PTI has already formally registered complaints in 18 constituencies.

I believe it is more likely that a coalition will emerge between the other parties, led by the PMLN. But the question is whether that will satisfy an electorate that voted the PTI as the largest party in parliament.

That doesn’t sound very stable. Is it?

It isn’t. Pakistan is now entering an uncertain scenario, which is, in effect, a post-election political crisis.

Coalitions are not uncommon in Pakistan’s politics, but they are not easy to manage. They can become unwieldy, weak and prone to manipulation.

It also makes it far harder for any government to push through the kind of bold economic packages needed for the country to move forward and escape the deep structural problems that are ailing the economy, such as a limited tax base and reliance on handouts from other countries. Tackling that requires hard, potentially unpopular decisions, which are more difficult when a government is split and has a limited popular mandate.

The country may need another national vote before too long to secure a more stable and workable government.

The election has been called flawed in the West. Is that fair?

By Pakistan’s standards, the actual polling went off relatively peacefully. There was a terrible attack in the restive province of Baluchistan on the eve of the election that killed 28 people. But fears of widespread violence on the day of the election did not materialize.

And while there were undue curbs on political activity in the run-up to the elections, the election itself appears to be largely credible by Pakistani standards, as the country’s foreign ministry has been quick to attest.

The fact that the PTI, a party that is out of favor with Pakistan’s current senior military leadership, has done so well suggests there was no straightforward rigging across the board. There was harassment of PTI voters in some places, but it clearly wasn’t sufficient to make huge inroads into their overall vote.

One can’t compare Pakistan’s democracy with that of the US or any other country. The problem with many outside observers of Pakistan’s politics is that they talk normatively – that is, they see Pakistan’s elections through the eyes of what is generally seen as the norm elsewhere.

But Pakistani politics are unique. The country is a military-dominated state, with generals who have long been involved in the country’s politics – and elections.

But the alternative to managed elections, no matter how messy, is martial law. And a flawed democracy is better than the military jackboot.

More than that, the election itself took place relatively peacefully. There has been a great deal of criticism in the West about cellphones and mobile internet services being blocked on election day. That may seem like unacceptable interference in the electoral process to outside observers. But in Pakistan, there was real concern about cellphones being used to detonate explosive devices.

Will anyone be pleased with the election result?

Ironically, while the PTI’s strong showing represents an anti-establishment vote – and, more specifically, an anti-army vote – the divided national mandate means the army high command has reason to be satisfied with the outcome.

A split national assembly and weak government plays into the military’s hands. Should the PMLN govern as the major party in a coalition, it will be in a position of relative weakness and will need the army’s support, especially if the PTI engages in widespread protests against the election results.

Are there any positives from the election?

Yes, insofar as the process of seeking the peoples’ support has been allowed to continue. But the negatives are seen by most to outweigh the positives and the 2024 elections are being viewed as equally – if not more – manipulated and controlled than the 2018 exercise.

The turnout this time around is estimated to be around 48%, which is lower than in 2018 when it was 51%. The demographic breakdown is encouraging. The youth played a crucial role; 44% of voters were under the age of 35. And women, too, played a larger role in the vote – more women contested and also won seats.

And party politics aside, the result suggests that old tactics to intimidate and suppress voters largely didn’t work. The expectation was that the spate of legal verdicts against Khan just weeks before the election and his continued imprisonment might curb his popularity and mean PTI supporters would stay home. That clearly didn’t happen.

But what they helped deliver may only help continue Pakistan’s political malaise as it heads into a new, uncertain period.

Ayesha Jalal is Professor of History, Tufts University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Continue Reading

Japan aims to bolster its underwater warfare capabilities around the strategic Nansei Islands vis-a-vis China through the acquisition of new unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) and partnering with Australia for such technologies.

This month, the Asian Military Review reported that the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) plans to enhance its ocean observation capabilities with new UUVs and long-range underwater acoustic communication systems.

The report mentions that the JMSDF has signed contracts for Type I and Type II underwater gliders to perform oceanographic surveys on water temperature, salinity and currents.

It also states that the JMSDF has contracted with local electronics company NEC to develop the Long Distance Underwater Acoustic Communication Module for UUV control, positional awareness and underwater ship communication.

Asian Military Review says that performance tests of the system will start in 2025. NEC demonstrated stable two-way, long-distance communication using an experimental UUV equipped with an early example of the acoustic communication module.

The JMSDF uses the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries OZZ-5 UUV, fitted with a dual-imaging sonar suite, to detect buried objects at low frequencies and perform high-resolution scans of exposed objects on the seabed.

Alongside the OZZ-5 UUV, the Asia Military Review report says the JMSDF also operates the Hydroid REMUS 600 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) for use in Mine Countermeasures (MCM) operations.

Meanwhile, Janes reported last month that Japan and Australia have signed a bilateral agreement to co-develop robotics and autonomous systems (RAS) for undersea warfare. Janes says the deal aims to enhance the two nations’ underwater communication technologies and interoperability.

Australia’s Defense Science and Technology Group (DSTG) and Japan’s Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) will establish evaluation indices for underwater acoustic communications using test and evaluation simulators and simulations.

The Janes report says that the results of this project are expected to be used for the future interoperability of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) between Japan and Australia.

It says that the first joint research project on underwater communication technologies is expected to be completed by the end of 2027, with research and development activities taking place in Japan and Australia at ATLA and DSTG facilities.

Japan may use its UUVs for mine warfare and anti-submarine operations around the Nansei Islands, which straddle the Miyako Strait, a critical maritime chokepoint for China in the event of an invasion of Taiwan and its submarine-based nuclear arsenal.

The Miyako Strait has seen repeated incursions by People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) warships attempting to break out from the First Island Chain consisting of Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines into the Pacific Ocean, ostensibly to perform a flanking maneuver against Taiwan and cut the self-governing island from US reinforcements.

China’s nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) armed with the older JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) may have to reach open waters of the Pacific to bring Guam, Hawaii and the mainland US within strike range, with the Miyako Strait alongside the Bashi Channel being potential submarine routes.

In a paper presented during the 2019 IEEE International Conference on Unmanned Systems, Zhiyun Zhao and other writers detail how UUVs can be used in anti-submarine operations.

Zhao and others describe UUVs’ unique operational characteristics including low acoustic, magnetic, electrical and other signatures. They note that UUVs feature better concealability than manned submarines, enabling them to replace the latter in performing operations in hard-to-reach zones or areas too dangerous for manned craft.

They note that UUVs combine high endurance and autonomy, enabling them to patrol independently predetermined sea areas and guide or coordinate with manned platforms to carry out offensive anti-submarine operations.

They also state that UUVs can fill in anti-submarine warfare capability gaps such as poor sensor performance in shallow waters and limited detection range of fixed underwater sonar systems.

However, Zhao and other writers point out the limitations of UUVs in anti-submarine warfare, stating that the vast areas involved and the duration of such operations mean that UUVs must often be used in clusters. They note the relatively short sensor ranges and low speed of individual UUVs require coordinated and centralized employment.

They also point out the complexity of command and control (C2) systems needed to employ UUVs effectively, stating that multiple communication means with UUVs, such as satellite and data links, are required to attack sensitive targets such as nuclear submarines.

For UUV anti-submarine operations, Zhao and others mention that UUVs can be forward-deployed near enemy naval bases or ports to monitor their submarines, bottle up vessels in port, blockade critical maritime chokepoints, ambush or search and destroy enemy submarines and serve as decoys for submarine attacks.

UUVs may soon become a focal point of practical cooperation between Japan and the AUKUS trilateral security partnership comprised of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Seth Robson notes in a March 2023 Stars and Stripes article that Japan still wants to join AUKUS as the partnership reaches beyond controversial nuclear submarines and comes to encompass emerging technologies such as quantum computing, artificial intelligence, machine autonomy, hypersonics, counter-hypersonics, electronic warfare, undersea warfare and cyberwarfare.

Robson also points out caveats in Japan’s plans to play a part in AUKUS. For one, he says that AUKUS already has its hands full in its efforts to provide Australia with nuclear submarines and may have little else to spare for greater commitments.

He also says that information security with Japan may also be a concern, mentioning that Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US have a high level of mutual trust with their membership in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance with its well-established security clearance systems. In contrast, he says Japan may have work to do in that regard.

Continue Reading

In what may be the first of its kind, Chinese scientists have unveiled a new Stirling engine-powered high-power microwave (HPM) weapon, marking a significant leap in directed-energy warfare technology with possible applications in future urban warfare scenarios.

This month, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that Chinese scientists have claimed to develop an HPM weapon driven by four compact and efficient Stirling closed-cycle heat engines.

SCMP notes that Stirling engines in China’s new HPM design efficiently convert thermal energy into mechanical energy, working together as a reverse heat pump.

The report mentions that the superconducting coil generates a magnetic field with a strength of up to four teslas harnessed to drive HPM waves powerful enough to suppress drones, military aircraft and even satellites.

China claims that it is the world’s first openly reported HPM weapon based on Stirling engine technology.

SCMP states that the intensity of its continuous, steady-state magnetic field reaches 68,000 times that of the Earth’s magnetic field, or close to half the magnetic field strength of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe.

It says that the weapon system, which can easily fit into a truck, boasts a significant reduction in energy consumption for generating a strong magnetic field compared with existing technologies. According to preliminary tests, China claims it consumes only one-fifth of the energy required by current methods and can operate continuously for four hours.

The development of low-energy, compact, superconducting magnet systems is essential for large-scale production and use of microwave weapons. The report claims that the Chinese scientists involved in the project achieved the breakthrough partly due to sanctions initiated by former US president Donald Trump.

Since the US government issued an export ban on rare-earth barium copper oxide (ReBCO) and other cutting-edge superconducting materials to China in 2018, Chinese suppliers including Shanghai Superconductor Technology have faced a surge in local demand.

Asia Times noted last month that while directed-energy weapons (DEW) such as lasers and HPMs are touted as the future of counter-drone and anti-satellite weapons, HPMs are known to suffer from low efficiency, high losses in the air and limited range at atmospheric levels.

Those disadvantages have restricted the development of ground-based systems while size and power consumption hinder their use on space-based platforms.

However, recent advances in miniaturization and beam control can offset some of those disadvantages, potentially turning HPMs into practical battlefield weapons.

In March 2023, Chinese scientists from the College of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies at the National University of Defense Technology invented a compact power source that can significantly decrease the size of HPM weapons, SCMP reported.

The report says that the device can generate electricity up to 10 gigawatts at ten pulses per second, making HPMs powerful enough to fry sensitive electronics in planes, drones and satellites.

SCMP describes the device as an electron accelerator that speeds up electrons in an unusual design sporting two spiral tubes similar to DNA. It says that the spiral tubes were submerged in glycerin, a low-cost liquid that provides excellent insulation, requires no maintenance on the battlefield and eliminates short circuits once air bubbles are removed.

As with the Stirling engine-based design, SCMP mentions that the electron accelerator is small enough to fit on a bookshelf and can be mounted on rooftops or trucks for surprise HPM attacks against overhead targets.

Compact HPM weapons may be strategically deployed on future battlefields characterized by the intensive use of drones, as seen in Ukraine and Israel.

In a May 2023 article for Military + Aerospace Electronics, Jim Romeo mentions that HPMs can destroy computers, electronics and sensors without harming human life, a capability well-suited for urban warfare scenarios that require low collateral damage.

Romeo notes that HPM weapons can neutralize enemy capabilities and combatants nonlethally, offering advantages such as deep magazine capacity, simplified logistics, negligible cost per shot, instantaneous engagement and extreme accuracy.

Along those lines, China may need such capabilities should it decide to invade Taiwan. In a January 2024 article for the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR), David Sacks mentions that if the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were to enter Taipei, it would face costly urban warfare, having to fight street-by-street in a city of seven million inhabitants.

Furthermore, Sale Lily, in an October 2022 RAND report, describes the PLA’s approach toward urban warfare as “killing rats in a porcelain shop,” indicating the need to avoid collateral damage in trying to wrest Taiwan from urban defenders.

Woon Wei Jong, in an October 2023 Think China article, says that Taiwan’s military is preparing for urban warfare and enhancing its asymmetric warfare capabilities, including acquiring  “mobile, small, portable, and AI-enabled” weapons, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and counter-UAV systems.

Jong mentions that the Taiwanese military will use geography, terrain features, urban environments, buildings and critical infrastructure protection measures within tactical defensive areas for layered counter-offensive capabilities and defense-in-depth.

As such, HPM weapons may play an essential role in a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in terms of tackling resistance and avoiding collateral damage that could harden Taiwanese resolve to repel invading forces.

However, HPMs may not be the game-changers some are touting them to be.

Timothy Heath and other writers stress that in a 2023 RAND report, strong political leadership, a largely unified and cohesive public, and strong public support for a compelling national cause or ideology is the most durable foundation for a resolute defense.

The Rand report writers state that Taiwan’s ability to resist China in the first 90 days between an invasion and US intervention will hinge on the strength of its political leadership and social cohesion above other variables, such as military effectiveness, durability and firepower.

Continue Reading

There is much talk about “de-radicalization” in Gaza, de-militarization and not allowing Hamas, the Palestinian Authority (PA) or UNRWA to be in charge. 

The PA has forgone elections since January 25, 2006, and lost elections in Gaza. UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, in its present shape perpetuates and aggravates the conflict rather than being an institution to mitigate it.  

All three objectives – de-radicalization, de-militarization and preventing dictatorial regimes from gaining power – have been pursued around the world, at times successfully, at times not. The failures offer better lessons than the successes.  

Germany and Japan went through successful de-radicalization after World War II. However, this experience cannot be replicated and bring about transitions from dictatorial and deistic mindsets toward decentralized, meritocratic ones. Yes, Germany abandoned Nazism. However, that ideology did not have centuries-old roots, as the combination of centralization and an Islamic conception of society have had in the Middle East.  

Japan abandoned both a warmongering political leadership and the concept of emperor’s divinity, when in an Imperial Rescript on January 1, 1946, Emperor Hirohito declared that he was not a living god.

These acknowledgments were not so drastic as they appear at first sight, since the 1889 Constitution of the Empire had already separated state and religion and distinguished Shintō from other religions. The latter’s rituals became just part of Japan’s program of national ethics.  

These cases of “de-radicalization” in a relatively short time are thus not applicable to either Gaza, the West Bank, or the more populous Muslim states in the Middle East, expectations of “Arab Springs” having been hallucinations, really. Moreover, Germany and Japan were demilitarized, and the US stayed put in them during the years of transition. 

Societies in the Middle East, based on deistic/dictatorial conceptions, never had the institutions to disperse power – financial power in particular. 

Such conceptions, assumed to last forever, are not discarded quickly in favor of voter-made laws and institutions, though occasionally mutated from theocracies to pan-Arab, nationalistic principles – the kind of transitions that Europe had gone through centuries before, and which have been typical of societies whose populations and mobility were growing rapidly.

The transitions brought about new dictatorships, masked occasionally by democratic jargon, and accompanied by corruption and violence, as seen now in the Middle East, Asia, Africa or Latin America – and centuries before in Europe too.

And, as noted, the German and Japanese de-radicalization and de-militarization happened while the Allies stayed in these countries after winning in World War II, and reshaped the countries’ institutions. However, these days, if a coalition of countries were to remain in Gaza, replacing Hamas and UNRWA, that would be labeled “occupation,” “colonialism,” “imperialism” – and as of now this option does not appear to be in the cards.  

How much military would be needed to stay in place to disarm various Islamist cells and put in place a decent administration, paving the path toward a civil society – whose essence is dispersion of powers?

Recent events in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans offer guidance of both what not to do and a range of goals that a coalition’s administration/military staff would have to commit to.

The Iraq experience

In Iraq, the US was set on dissolving the Baath military and administration, assuming this would prevent Saddam Hussein’s followers from restoring dictatorship and also prevent conflicts among the country’s Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

A memo signed by then-US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld titled “Principles for Iraq – Policy Guidelines” stated that the coalition would “actively oppose Saddam Hussein’s old enforcers – the Baath Party, Fedayeen Saddam, the Special Republican Guard, etc – and make it clear that the coalition will eliminate the remnants of Saddam’s regime.”

But the consequence was that 400,000 previous military personnel became unemployed – together with 750,000 Baathists in the administration, from policemen to museum curators and ordinary civil servants – all now, with their families, facing uncertain prospects.  

The discarded officers and soldiers abandoned their bases – with weapons. The police force was drastically reduced, and security of property was much diminished. It took long years to replace the political administration.  

This could have been mitigated by recognizing that the mere fact of being Baathists did not imply eternal loyalty to Saddam, but – as was the case of many Communist Party members in Russia – to make a living. There are few Solzhenitsyns in this word, and the old Latin adage applies: “Primum vivere, deinde philosophari” – meaning “first live, philosophize later.” 

As to the country’s military: According to the US Marine Corps’s Robert Weiler, it took two years to form just 40,000 Iraqi “soldiers assumed loyal enough to be enough to replace the departing coalition forces.” As events showed, this was not enough.

During the prewar planning, the US military estimated that 386,000 troops would be needed for a while to replace the discarded Iraqi military and also fulfill security tasks such as protecting border, military and other infrastructure, and maintaining law and order. Only 150,000 were deployed. 

Applications for Gaza

What do these events and numbers imply about a potential administrative solution for Gaza?

A RAND study concluded that after wars where the army and administration are decimated, in order to sustain law and order, a country would need one soldier for every 50 citizens (the numbers used for Kosovo). For Iraq’s roughly 25 million people this would have meant 500,000 troops. 

For Gaza’s 2 million, this would mean 40,000 troops to be able to de-militarize, de-radicalize the place, sustain law and order, and also supervise the creation of institutions that eventually could assure that future transitions of political powers would happen without resorting to violence.  

After all, this feature defines a civil society and what democracies are assumed to be about, not just voting, which can easily create mobs. As to a proposed “ceasefire” – it would be signed and enforced by which entity? 

The above experiences imply that without long-term commitment and the required dedicated personnel and resources, Gaza would face problems Iraq and Afghanistan have been facing after premature departure of coalition forces, and without leaving behind enough competent administrative personnel. In particular, the successful de-radicalizations of Germany and Japan are inapplicable for the Middle East. 

A serious obstacle to such long-term commitment in both the US and Western Europe, more serious than the fads dominating political discussions, is the fragile state of government finances. Although the US House of Representatives approved a stopgap bill to fund the federal government a few weeks ago, that ends in early March – an in-depth discussion about re-allocating funds has hardly started.

Since it is unlikely that either the US or Europe would commit adequate funding for significant military and reliable administrative personnel to watch over Gaza, and with Muslim and Arab countries unwilling or unable to commit supervising de-militarization and de-radicalization, it appears that the solution would be for a coalition to prevent re-armament by watching imports.

That would entail closing the land borders hermetically – Israel emulating on the northern and eastern borders what Egypt has done on Gaza’s southern border. Then letting the Gazan population manage without any trade relations with, or going through, Israel.   

The area’s situation would not differ from Israel’s in 1948, when the country’s only opening for trade was toward the Mediterranean and firmly closed on the north, east and south (Eilat came later) – as it would be for Gaza.

The vast tunnel network shows that the local population has the technical capacity to build a decent infrastructure, manufacturing, water supplies – above the ground. 

Israel managed to prosper with some 800,000 people, surrounded by neighbors who promised daily to kill them. Gaza’s population of some 2 million would not have to worry about that, and even a tiny fraction of them would not be at risk – if they focused on building better lives for themselves, rather than amassing infrastructure to attack Israel, and destabilize Sinai and Egypt. So they could eventually prosper too. 

Perhaps it is time for Gaza’s population not to count on the kindness of strangers, or even their cousins.

This article draws on Reuven Brenner’s book The Force of Finance (2001) and his articles “Unsettled Civilizations: How the US Can Handle Iraq,” (2004), “How to Relink 7 billion People” (2017), and “Demography Is Not Destiny” (2024).    

Continue Reading