Most of the world would get behind a reasonable proposal.
The pressure of the world right now should be on Hamas, which launched a devastating war, but instead it is on Israel. That’s bad for everyone but Hamas and its patrons in Iran – but it is also at least in part Israel’s own fault.
If Israel were run by a competent government, it would be declaring day and night that the Gaza War can end immediately, and with it the fears of disease and famine and the civilian casualties and the many calamities the war has produced, from Yemen to Iraq.
It would be saying that all fighting can cease if Hamas coughs up the 130-odd remaining hostages (which pretty much all the world wants) and hands the strip back to the Palestinian Authority, from which it was taken by force in 2007 (which should bring cheers of joy from across the planet, beginning with Gaza itself). The PA is not perfect, but it is way better than Hamas: It is comprised of nationalists and sometimes corrupt mediocrities, but it has tried to keep the peace in the West Bank and it is not an assemblage of bloodthirsty jihadi maniacs. It can be reformed, assisted, rejuvenated and improved. It’s a start, perhaps en route to an independent state.
To close the deal that much faster, Israel might also offer the vile Hamas leadership amnesty and a one-way ticket to Qatar or Turkey. It would then be in a good position to demand a fast-tracking of peace with Saudi Arabia – which the Saudis seem to also want (in exchange for a military alliance with the US).
What’s the harm? If Hamas says no, the pressure would flip. And it would be coming from the Arab countries as well.
Israel is not doing this not just due to poor messaging abilities – indeed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu counts that as one of his skills. The real reason is because any effort to articulate a day-after plan that is not Israeli occupation of Gaza will court trouble with the extreme right parties on which Netanyahu’s coalition rests. That’s basically the story. So the war drags on and on.
And as but one result, the pressure is on the wrong party.
Yes: the pressure should be on Hamas, the effective government of Gaza, which on Oct. 7 invaded Israel, killed 1,200 people in a manner that can only be called a savage massacre, and kidnapped about 250 back to the seaside strip. This is a group that oppresses the Gazans with a theocratic police state, and which since the 1990s has mainly tried to scuttle peace efforts with terrorist attacks. It is a criminal outfit whose pockets of supporters in the West are idiots or ignoramuses (or Islamic fanatics themselves).
Israel responded by going to war with the stated aims of removing the no-longer-tolerable group from power and achieving the return of its hostages. The clamor to end the war is mostly because it has been so destructive and deadly for civilians in Gaza, among whom Hamas is entrenched and embedded. But ending it on terms different than I have described – by leaving Hamas in power – would be seen by the region as a defeat for Israel and for the West, and jihadism would be strengthened, as would Iran. This would be terrible mainly for the Arab countries, which need jihadism and Iran weakened. It would also ensure further wars in the Middle East, as Hamas has vowed to commit “more October 7s.”
Instead of pressing for a surrender now, and getting the Arabs behind him, Netanyahu vows to fight to the end. But it is hard to see how he succeeds without invading the south Gaza city of Rafah, where over a million Gazans (mostly displaced persons) are huddled, almost surely above tunnels housing the Hamas leadership and Israel’s hostages. It promises to be a bloodbath.
Meanwhile, President Biden has made it clear that despite his hitherto steadfast support he cannot back endless war. Not in an election year in which the war has become a domestic political issue and has split the coalition he needs intact – with most Jews going one way, and most minorities and progressives the other.
The proposals he is cooking up will probably include the element of Palestinian statehood, which many in Israel will oppose inter alia because it will look, at this time, like a prize to Hamas for its barbarism (even though Hamas opposes a peace deal even if the result is a state – it wants all of Israel and the Jews to be gone).
But long before any statehood process can succeed, the war will have to end.
The war was never going to have a perfect and pretty conclusion.
I have taken some heat for consistently arguing in print and broadcast that Israel is justified in attempting to remove Hamas from power in Gaza – but early on I also argued that it should leave no stone unturned in a search for alternatives, because such a war will be extremely messy and will amount to a gift to radicals everywhere, especially Iran and Hamas itself.
Had that call been heeded, Hamas could not be asking in exchange for the hostages for an end to the war that would leave it in power and project an Israeli defeat – because there would have been no war. It would have been just a simpler (though still vexing and dangerous) question of prisoner releases.
Israel would have the hostages back, probably more of them alive, as well as the moral high ground to demand a fast-track on peace with Saudi Arabia. It could have later demanded Hamas hand over the strip without the almost impossible complication of the hostages, and if absolutely necessary attack another day.
Instead, we head this week into the fifth month of the war with Hamas entrenched in the southern half of the Strip, still holding on to 130-odd hostages, and Israel dealing with war crimes accusations at the Hague.
If Israel heeds my call above, its position would improve. And so would the position of all reasonable people in the region and the world.
Hearings to begin at The Hague in case claiming Israel’s Gaza war is genocide
