GAZA UPDATE: With Netanyahu boxed in by far-right partners and Hamas unlikely to comply, the war grinds on
Israel is now demanding the full disarmament of Hamas as a condition for ending the war in Gaza. This demand is not surprising: most Israelis, and probably most informed people anywhere, would like to see Hamas both removed from power and stripped of its military capacity.
But it’s here that a fundamental paradox emerges. Even as large majorities of Israelis support the idea of demilitarizing (and eliminating) Hamas, a similar majority also supports ending the war in exchange for a hostage deal — even if that means Hamas survives. This contradiction reflects a deeper disillusionment within the Israeli public: the belief that the war, as it is being conducted, will not and perhaps cannot achieve its stated objectives.
At the heart of the matter is the growing perception that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is prolonging the war not for strategic benefit, but to protect his fragile political position. This was reflected in a series of letters and petitions in recent days from various sectors of Israeli society, including pilots and military veterans, intelligence officials, and medical professionals, and others calling for an immediate ceasefire and the prioritization of recovering the remaining hostages.
Of the 59 hostages still believed to be held in Gaza, about half are presumed dead. With each passing day, the chances of rescuing any of them alive diminish. Israelis are increasingly aware of this — and furious.
So Netanyahu is caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. On one hand, his far-right coalition partners credibly threaten tol topple the government if the war ends without the total defeat of Hamas — and they basically want Israel to occupy Gaza, settle it with Jews and encourage the departure of as many Palestinians as possible. On the other hand, Netanyahu’s popularity has plummeted, and polls suggest he would decisively lose the next election, which must take place by late 2026.
Yet the Netanyahu government remains largely unresponsive to public sentiment. It has rejected previous deals that might have secured the hostages’ release. It has refused to establish an official commission to investigate the intelligence and operational failures that allowed the October 7th Hamas attack to occur — an inquiry that would likely implicate Netanyahu himself. And it continues to tolerate and try to formalize draft evasion among ultra-Orthodox coalition members, further eroding its moral legitimacy.
In a better world, of course, Hamas would indeed disarm and the Palestinians would be fearlessly demanding it. While some reports suggest that Hamas might be willing to hand over administrative control of Gaza to another authority, its insistence on maintaining its army is a tragedy for the Palestinians and reflects a great problem in the Arab world. Militias like Hamas — as well as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, and Iran-backed groups in Iraq — undermine sovereignty and stability throughout the region.
The demand for disarmament begs the question: Have any of the Middle East’s myriad militias ever disarmed? Let’s take a look.
While armed groups have long been central to the region’s power dynamics, very few have laid down their weapons — and even then, usually under exceptional circumstances involving war, multi-power diplomacy, or both. The most notable example is the Lebanese Forces (LF), a Christian militia that disarmed after Lebanon’s civil war ended in 1990, complying with the Taif Agreement and transitioning into a political party. But Hezbollah — the most powerful militia in Lebanon — refused to do the same and remains armed to this day. If Lebanon has a future as an independent country, and the militias insanity be reined in, this is the main disarmament that needs to happen.
Elsewhere, Iraq’s Mahdi Army, led by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, declared a freeze in 2007 and was formally disbanded in 2008 under U.S. pressure. Yet it later resurfaced as Saraya al-Salam, still active and influential. In the West Bank, factions affiliated with the PLO were partially disarmed as part of the Oslo Accords, with Fatah fighters incorporated into the Palestinian Authority’s security forces.
Notably, the PLO was also forced to leave Lebanon (which it has dominated part of) entirely in 1982 after Israel’s invasion. Some had believed that Hamas might follow a similar path: exile from Gaza, abandonment of arms, and eventual political moderation. For a time, it even seemed Israel might accept such an outcome, seeing it as a way to end the war without full-scale occupation. But Hamas has shown little interest in it: Despite the devastation caused by the war it started on Oct. 7, 2023 it mulishly sticks to its guns.
It’s true that some of the region’s most extreme Islamist groups have been mostly destroyed — but only by overwhelming military force. Al-Qaeda was decimated after 9/11, and while its affiliates survive in places like Yemen and parts of Africa, the core leadership has been crippled. ISIS, too, was defeated territorially by 2019 and now exists as a scattered insurgency, no longer holding land. But these groups didn’t disarm — they were crushed by Arab and Western forces (by the way, at huge cost to the civilians they had trapped in their grip, which US campus protestors seem not to know or care about).
Internationally the picture is only marginally better. A few high-profile militias have disarmed, but almost always under very specific conditions: political inclusion, international mediation, economic incentives, and security guarantees. The IRA in Northern Ireland laid down arms after the Good Friday Agreement, backed by a strong political process and international oversight. In Colombia, the FARC mostly disarmed in 2016, though many dissidents later rearmed. Nepal’s Maoist rebels joined the government after their civil war ended, but that too relied on a major structural shift — the end of the monarchy. These are the exceptions, not the rule.
More often, disarmament is fragile, partial, or reversed. In South Sudan and Congo, efforts to disarm rival militias have largely failed, with groups either rearming or splintering into new ones. Even in successful cases, the transition takes years and requires sustained support. The pattern is clear: armed groups only disarm when they believe their goals are better served through peace — and when they trust the process. In the Middle East, where ideology, deep mistrust, and regional power games dominate, those conditions rarely exist.
So the notion that Hamas might disarm without military defeat or transformative diplomacy remains, at best, deeply unlikely: No Islamist militia in the region has voluntarily disarmed. Without a credible political settlement, or on the other hand physical obliteration, the precedent for disarmament by such fanatical groups is virtually nonexistent.
So the conflict grinds on. Caught in the middle are ordinary Palestinians, devastated by bombardment and blockade, and Israeli families watching their loved ones waste away in captivity.
Interview on Al Jazeera:
Nick Clark (Al Jazeera): I’m pleased to say we can speak to Dan Perry, who’s an Israeli affairs analyst and the former regional editor of the Associated Press in the Middle East. … So what are your thoughts about this new proposal? Do you think it’s a case of Israel proposing something that Netanyahu knows will not fly — because he knows that Hamas won’t agree to disarm under the current framing — or what’s the calculation?
Dan Perry: I think that’s true. The calculation remains as it was. Netanyahu clearly has decided that he can’t let his government fall — which it probably would if he ends the war, even in exchange for the hostages — because the far right refuses to end the war and leave Hamas in power. Now, I’m not sure I’m seeing a lot of good guys here. Israel walked away from the deal it signed under pressure from Trump in January, which would have ended the hostage crisis. On the other hand, Hamas, I suspect, is willing to see all of Gaza absolutely destroyed as it sticks to its guns that it must keep its militia going.
I don’t know if it’s true that they’re willing to hand over power, as has been suggested on Al Jazeera — in which case they’d keep their militia while not being in power. I suppose the question is, in the longer term, who is the rightful sovereign … in the West Bank and Gaza? If it’s the Palestinian Authority, then it’s a little bit hard to argue that there needs to be a separate militia. I think these militias — from Hezbollah to the Houthis to the Iraqi militias answerable to Iran, to Hamas itself and Islamic Jihad — have not been helpful. They undermine the authority of whoever is the legitimate government. Of course, the additional wrinkle is that Israel itself doesn’t recognize the Palestinian Authority.
NC: And on that front, Israel occupies Gaza, right? So legally, an occupied population has a right to resist, doesn’t it?
DP: Oh, I don’t know about that. I mean, look — I don’t believe that Israel occupied Gaza before October 7th, and certainly not since 2005. I know the argument that people use to claim it did. For me, an occupation is an occupation when you have troops on the ground and settlers all over the place — which was the case before 2005. But either way, Israel’s position is close to indefensible when they won’t even allow the Palestinian Authority to return to Gaza. So it really sort of looks like Netanyahu is willing to prolong the war, even though the vast majority of the Israeli public would like the war to end and to get back the hostages. Even as they too would want Hamas disarmed and gone, they’re willing to make that deal.
NC: Yeah, that is the counterweight to it, isn’t it — that there may be a will within the cabinet to plow on with the bombing and the killing, but there are these growing demands for the war to end. Just take a look at this letter signed by thousands of Israeli reservists, even former Mossad figures, saying that the war must end. But the way it is right now, that is not even on the horizon, is it?
DP: It’s a little bit odd for a government in a democratic country to be so indifferent to public opinion. Majorities of 70–80% oppose not just the resumption of the war, but also the refusal to set up an inquiry commission — from which Netanyahu would emerge targeted and feathered, for sure — as well as the continued draft evasion by the Haredim, the ultra-Orthodox, who are Netanyahu’s coalition partners. The government is incredibly unpopular, and it is walking a tightrope. Because it’s true, on the one hand, that if the far right’s threats are genuine — and I think they are — then ending the war would bring down the government, mercifully, in the eyes of most Israelis. On the other hand, if they plan to continue this way, polls show they would lose the next election. So Netanyahu is between a rock and a hard place, essentially. And then as he continues his machinations and calculations, everyone suffers — not just the Palestinian people, but also the Israelis.
