Hamas and Israel, War and Peace - The Price of Bad Leadership
Eventually the guns fell silent finally this morning over the graveyard that Gaza has become. But no one really believes that is the end of the affair. This is not a Ceasefire, but a Truce - it is anyone’s guess whether it will last two weeks, two months or two years. The one thing that is depressingly certain is that, without significant change, at some point in the future, the sniping and murder will start and the bombs will fall again. The real victims in this never-ending tragedy are the Palestinian and Israeli civilians, condemned to endlessly suffer the curse of appallingly awful leaders.
But let’s start with this Truce. At least we have that, don’t we? Even if they have no shelter, at least Palestinian children will be able to sleep tonight without the terror of the screaming warplanes and the whistling of mutilation in the shape of not-so-smart bombs tearing through the skies to rip limb from limb. At least Israeli families torn from their loved-ones will get news – the return of the living (albeit heavily traumatised) hostages and the closure of receiving the remains of those who have perished, murdered by the cowardice of Hamas.
The news on Friday was so twisted. Smotrich and Ben Gvir resigning (or threatening to) from the Cabinet. But not bringing down the Government by voting against the deal – holding back that threat to deploy it if Israel did not go ‘back to war’ at the end of Phase 1 of the Deal. The Israeli Far-Right actually want war – not to eradicate the abomination that is Hamas, so that Israel can live free from the threat of terrorist atrocity, but to remove all Palestinians from Gaza to re-settle it. They also want the West Bank (which I begin to wonder may be the actual prize in all of this).
The Palestinian leadership is no better. Mahmoud Abbas, the ineffectual leader of the Palestinian Authority claims the PA is ‘ready to assume full responsibility in post-war Gaza’. That is a naked piece of political opportunism. A power-grab, to grasp the opportunity the PA was too weak, and ill-disciplined to retain in 2005. The PA may be the future. But in its current form, lacking capacity, funding, training and capability it would be unable to run Gaza effectively – any attempt to install the PA in Gaza would guarantee a return to civil war.
Hizballah welcomed the peace deal as vindication of Hamas’ ‘persistence of resistance’. A ‘persistence’ that has delivered nothing but the almost total destruction of every piece of infrastructure in Gaza, the deaths of thousands of civilians. Another bloody stalemate that ensures hatred for a further generation at least. That, of course, was part of Hamas’ calculation: put the Palestinian Cause back on the regional map (the Abraham Accords and the slow slide towards normalisation of relations had threatened to make it the Forgotten Cause). Recruit more foot soldiers. Get ready for the next war - plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Just as the logic of the Israeli far-right is warped, so too is there an equally misshapen logic to Hamas’ position, according to which what forced Israel to the negotiating table and enabled Hamas to ‘take what they wanted, while Israel was not able to take what it sought’ (to quote Naim Qassem) were the hostages. What Hamas fears (and perhaps desires) is that once it has given up the hostages and lost its leverage, nothing constrains Israel from completing its war-aims - whether the (unattainable) total destruction of Hamas or the re-settling of Gaza.
Which sort of brings us to the question why now? The Deal which has just been signed is substantially the same Deal as that which was on the table in May. Nothing has progressed since then. The criminal failure of leadership on both sides not to take the May Deal has led only to more deaths of civilians and further crippling of civilian infrastructure. We may never know whether Hamas agreed the Deal in May. But we know that Netanyahu only pretended to do so as he added condition after condition, until the Deal collapsed under the weight of its own amendments.
What has changed for Hamas since May is the regional geopolitics. Back then, Hamas could continue to fool itself that the Region was coming together in its support. Hizballah was lobbing bombs across Israel’s Northern border. The Houthis were shooting missiles across Israel’s Southern border. Syria threatened the North Eastern frontier and Iran was rattling its sabres in Iraq. All of that has changed. Hamas suddenly found itself standing alone. And no help is coming.
And for Israel? Even though the IDF is tired and has suffered battlefield losses, Hamas was on the ropes. When you have the upper hand, why sue for peace? What changed was Trump. Biden was predictable in his inability (or refusal) to put pressure on Netanyahu. Israel crossed one US ‘Red Line’ after another with impunity. Biden’s support was unconditional. The weapons kept flowing, even as his rhetoric hardened. Trump#1 may have moved the US moved Embassy to Jerusalem. He may have forced through the Abraham Accords. Many of Trump#2’s key appointments are pro-Israeli. But Trump is unpredictable and needs continuous appeasement. Netanyahu takes Trump much more seriously than Biden and fears him more than Smotrich et al.
Trump had made it very clear he did not want war in the Middle East overshadowing his first day as President. He wanted (and will have) his Reagan moment. Although the war continued right up to the very eve of his investiture with Israeli bombers continuing to pound the already pulverised Gaza Strip, Trump has his wish. The first hostages have been released and the sudden silence of the guns in Gaza will only serve to accentuate his crowd’s raucous cheering in Washington.
Trump is the Dealmaker. So what has he promised to Netanyahu in return for the latter accepting this deal now? Perhaps he has A Grand Plan for Peace in the Middle East - first peace between Israel and Palestine; then normalisation of political, economic and diplomatic relations between Israel and the Arab States (perhaps in return for an Israeli commitment to a Two-State Solution); then Iran (is that the real prize he has promised Netanyahu?)
And what of the future? One of the statistics that stuck out for me amongst the torrent of numbers of dead and cost of reconstruction, was the US assessment that Hamas has recruited almost as many new recruits as have been killed by Israeli military action. So, far from achieving the ‘total victory’ the Israeli Far-Right craved, they have spun the cycle back to the start. Yes: Hamas is weakened; its weaponry depleted; Gaza destroyed. But if anything, the ‘Legend of Hamas’ has been strengthened. ‘Standing alone. The Heroic resistance. Bloodied, but unbowed, despite the onslaught’. And unrepentant. It takes time to re-arm. It takes time to retrain. But Hamas is already planning for the next opportunity to put its hatred into abominable bloody, merciless destructive action.
And the seeds of that next conflict are being sown now. The Israeli Far-Right has at least been honest that it wants a return to war after Phase 1 is complete. And Hamas? Its smouldering poisonous hatred for Israel will have a new outlet at some point. The Truce relies on enormous conditionality – a continuous release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. 600 aid trucks a day. Return of Palestinians to their ruined homes. All built on a foundation rotted by mutual loathing and absence of trust. There is no plan apparent for tomorrow. How will the violent gangs who seek to disrupt and steal the aid behave? Who will control them? How will the Palestinians returning ‘home’ get there? And when they arrive to their smithereens, how will they be sheltered? Israel has banned UNWRA, the only international relief agency capable of managing and distributing the 600 trucks. There is, apparently, no Plan B. So, in 10 days, when the ban comes into effect, what then? Will Hamas cry foul? And what will happen at Day 15, when the two sides have to begin negotiations for Phase 2? With trust so low and both sides seeking an excuse to blame the other for breaching the agreement, no one really believes we will get past the end of Phase One in peace.
And that is the thing that really depresses me about this Truce. In the absence of any alternative, any hope of a better future, all that’s left is the ‘persistence of resistance.’ No one seems prepared to accept the blunt fact that there is no military solution to this endless conflict. Each round of blood-letting ensures we will have another – Hamas’ next generation is already preparing its next war.
The apparently unutterable truth is that the only durable solution is political. Hamas, Hizballah and the Israeli Occupation of Palestine are symbiotic. Hamas remains relevant because of the Occupation. A peaceful future for Palestine and Israel requires that Hamas is rendered utterly irrelevant an outcome achieved by ending the Occupation which also removes Hamas’ recruitment slogan. So, the only future which offers the traumatised civilian populations of both countries a chance for stability and peace, is the one which offers Palestinians an alternative future without Hamas, where two viable States live and work side-by-side in safety and security.
For decades that future has danced like a mirage always tantalising just out of reach. Yet, astoundingly, the ‘new Middle East’, re-made in large part by the force of Israeli arms, suddenly offers a genuine chance for a lasting, political peace in the form of a Regional Peace Plan. If only the Israeli and Palestinian leaders had the foresight, bravery and political courage to see and seize it.
Since they do not, if that mirage is to become a reality, the rest of the world will have to step up to the plate. Standing back and ignoring the problem is not an option: it only guarantees a return to violence. No one pretends that a Regional Peace Plan will be easy. There are literally thousands of moving parts. For it to work, every country in the Region must be fully invested in it – by providing security guarantees. By helping with and funding the reconstruction of Gaza. If necessary, by providing troops for a multinational peacekeeping force. Such investment offers the chance to normalise relations with Israel (which is what most States in the Region want, though dare not now say aloud), binding themselves and Israel into a commercial and political alliance so strong that there is no possible interest in allowing violent extremists anywhere near power again.
And, given the scale of the destruction of civilian infrastructure, the West must play its full part too. Failure to do so will exacerbate already highly damaging perceptions of western double-standards (cf the West’s collective response to and condemnation of Russian destruction of Ukrainian civil infrastructure), which would be catastrophic for The West’s relationships with the Global South. So, the West must recognise the State of Palestine. Offer ‘iron-clad’ security guarantees to the State of Israel. Prevent trouble-making interference by Russia and China. Make an ‘unbreakable commitment’ to sustained funding to build the capacity of the PA so that it can become the Authority the Palestinian people need and deserve.
From a moral, human, political and security perspective, the world cannot let the Palestinian and Israeli peoples continue to suffer from the wretched abjectness of their respective leaderships. We have an obligation to step into that leadership void. Hamas is reeling. Israel is grieving. There is a narrow window of opportunity whilst the world’s attention is focused on the conflict. Failure to seize it would be a historic error and one which would guarantee we will be back here again, in the future, mourning dead on both sides of the Border, asking when it will ever end. The time to finally grasp that mirage is now.