In the aftermath of the pogroms of October 6 (the details are so terrible that I can’t bear even to begin to describe them) Israel could have focused on securing its barriers. That’s to say, it could have held an inquiry, dismissed its Prime Minister, reviewed its defences, overhauled its human intelligence in Gaza – and gone after Hamas’ leaders. In sum, “never again”.
Public opinion in Israel is conflicted, just as Hamas’ planners intended. On the one hand, there is the urge to elimate the terrorists. On the other, the impulse to free the hostages. The tension between the two has helped to frame the pauses in Israel’s military response.
But Israeli voters would never have been content with a policy of securing barriers and hunting ringleaders – any more than ours would be had we lost the population of, say, Southwold, which is roughly the equivalent So we are where we are.
Those same people may have responses to opponents of Israel’s military campaign. First, that Hamas has failed to provoke an uprising on the West Bank, war with Hezbollah, the collapse of Jordan – and the regional conflagration on which it may have counted.
Second, that though the aftermath of October 6 has delayed recognition between Israel and Saudi Arabia in the short-term, there is no reason to think that it will prevent it in the long. And the Abraham Accords survive.
Third, that predictions of the Israeli Defence Force sustaining appalling losses in desperate tunnel fighting far underground have not come to pass.
Fourth, therefore, that the IDF is winning – having routed Hamas in Gaza City, it is now closing in on Khan Yunis. Consequently, there will be fewer Palestinian lives lost in future weeks than in recent ones.
And finally, that Joe Biden’s support for Israel will hold up in a presidential election year, and that Donald Trump is scarcely likely if elected to cut Hamas more slack.
Many Israelis will also believe that international opinion generally, and such institutions as UNRWA specifically, are institutionally hostile. So their criticisms, resolutions and protests are best ignored.
Much of this may be so, but the more successful Israel’s military assault is, the bigger a question that follows will become. Namely, having won its campaign in Gaza, what will Israel do with it?
Prospective answers have been floated already, some of which could be implemented now, most of which look like a Saudi plan – and all of which are fantastically unlikely to be realised.
The Gulf Research Centre in Riyadh has proposed that the Hamas leadership in Gaza move to Algiers and that Arab peacekeeping forces take control of Gaza under a UN mandate.
A joint transition council would then bring together the main parties in Gaza to managing it and organise elections. All very consensual – but there’s no reason to think that Hamas leaders would leave Gaza or that Israel will accept its presence in government there.
Or, indeed, that Arab countries are straining at the leash to risk the lives of their troops. Such schemes are rather like the broad American and European consensus for a two state solution, for which David Cameron has been arguing recently with characteristic plausibility.
A state of Israel and a state of Palestine living peacefully alongside each other is the common sense solution to the dispute of which the Gaza conflict is part. But the Middle East is not a congenial neighbourhood, and common sense doesn’t always apply there.
The logic of Israel’s campaign presents it with a choice. Acting in concert with Egypt, it has Gaza sealed off, and already controls airspace and waters.
Extremist Israeli Ministers, such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, and more mainstream ones, such as Avi Dichter, have voiced support for, in the former case, “a solution to encourage the emigration of Gaza’s residents” and, in the latter, “rolling out the Gaza Nakba”.
This would be impractical as well as immoral – for, as Benjamin Netanyahu has conceded recently, there are no countries “willing to absorb an exit”.
That leaves Israel the option of re-occupying all of Gaza fully, as was broadly the case between 1967 and 2005, or partly, or not at all. If partly, who would govern the unoccupied part? And if not at all, who would rule?
This takes one to the heart of the matter. Netanyahu speaks of “total victory” over Hamas. The impulse is understandable. But what does it mean? In the sense that Hamas is an organisation, total victory may be achievable, at least in the sense of eliminating its leadership.
But Hamas – literally, the Islamic Resistance Movement – is also an idea. And while terrorist personnel can be killed by bombs and bullets, terrorist ideas can’t. One can no more bomb terrorist ideas to bits than one can bomb poison gas to bits.
Israel has independent judges, a free press and a democratic culture. Gaza has none of these – so one must be wary of figures that come from Hamas (and mindful that journalism within the strip operates under its watch).
Nonetheless, it’s worth mulling the claimed figure of 22,185 dead. Twenty thousand is roughly the population of Harwich. The IDF, unlike Hamas’ terrorists, operates under a legal code and is formally answerable to courts.
Israel argues that the ratio of civilian dead to terrorists is exemplary under the circumstances. Others claim otherwise. Either way, support for liberal democracy or even the Palestinian Authority is unlikely to well up from the blasted landscape and civilian population of Gaza.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad or something even worse will surely rise from the ashes of Gaza’s terrorist and innocent dead over time – perhaps not before too long.
William Atkinson’s view is that Israel, like the United States after 9/11, is being drawn into deeper war without an endgame plan. It’s certainly hard to see how its divided government will have reached a consensus over what this should be.)
The danger for the western world is that the Gaza war slowburns into a wider conflict, with hostilities between Israel and Iran’s proxies accelerating, especially in Lebanon and the Red Sea, and further settlement expansion on the West Bank.
Yesterday’s assassination by Israel of Salah al-Arouri in Beiruit may be followed in due course by a full-scale IDF incursion into Lebanon. Yoav Gallant, Israel’s Defence Minister, says the country is at war on seven fronts.
The potential impact here runs wider and deeper than the extremism, anti-semitism, closures and disorder seen on the streets of our cities during recent months.
It incudes an inflation premium and Ukraine consequences: for even as mighty a nation as America will find it hard to support two allies at once. An ironclad version of containment might be Israel’s best bet. Though it’s all very well for outsiders to say so. And let’s not pretend that any of this is easy.