The war in Gaza reaching the 50-day mark, 239 hostages are still being held by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, Israeli soldiers are inside Gaza City, and as a result of Israel’s bombing campaign countless buildings have been destroyed in the Northen part of the Strip and an unbearable number of civilians including children have been killed.
As the ICC chief prosecutor stated during his visit to Cairo, Israel needs to demonstrate that any attack that impacted innocent civilians or protected objects was conducted in accordance with the international law and specifically the principles of distinction, precaution and of proportionality. Even if Israel succeeds in doing this, something that seems very challenging in view of the extent of the destruction it caused in Gaza, the question arises: what is the endgame? To really overthrow the Hamas regime, as the Biden administration and Netanyahu’s government declared, or just take reprisal on Hamas for the atrocities and crimes it committed since October 7. This question is particularly important now since there is a question of what will happen after the short cease fire ends. The war may drag on for a long time while the number of Palestinian and Israeli civilians who will be harmed will only increase.
It is clear that the only suitable replacement to the Hamas regime in Gaza is the Palestinian Authority (PA). Theoretically, this should not be complicated, since although Hamas in its military coup in 2007 murdered some of the PA’s officials, it kept a large part of its bureaucrats in their positions. But, politically and rightfully, the PA will not be able to agree to such a thing while Israel continues its accelerated ethnic cleansing and apartheid in the West Bank. In their meeting on November 5, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the PA is ready to accept full responsibility for the Gaza Strip only as part of a comprehensive political solution.
This is why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to be bluffing. In order to topple the Hamas regime, he will have to topple his own regime. Netanyahu only cares about his own political survival and for achieving that goal he is completely dependent on his coalition with the far-right parties which sees the Palestinian Authority and any political agreement with it as a bigger threat than Hamas. For example, on August 31, 2021, the far-right and supporter of genocide, Minister Bezalel Smotritz, explained in an interview (as an Member of Knesset) “In some respects, the Palestinian Authority is more dangerous to Israel than Hamas. The Palestinian Authority is a strategic threat. On the other hand, Hamas is a tactical threat that can be managed.” This month, on November 3, Minister Smotritz said “the Palestinian Authority is not the solution – it is part of the problem. We do not repeat mistakes and concepts that blew up in our faces.”
Although Netanyahu could have formed an alternative emergency coalition, even temporarily, only the far-right parties are willing to abolish the independence of the judiciary that Netanyahu needs in order to cancel or stop his criminal trial or render it meaningless. The far-right parties will also help Netanyahu establish a toothless commission of inquiry into responsibility for the October 7 disaster. We recently saw an example of Netanyahu’s deep attachment to the far-right when he chose not to fire the far-right Minister Amichai Eliyahu despite the huge international damage he caused to Israel when he said that dropping a nuclear weapon on the Gaza Strip is “an option.”
It is not difficult to imagine that in a few weeks from now, after many more Gazan civilians will be killed and most of the hostages from Israel will still not be released, Netanyahu will have a celebratory press conference where he will announce that Israel has exacted a heavy price on Hamas, killed thousands of terrorists and destroyed its military infrastructure, but in practice will allow Hamas rule to continue. In order to satisfy many in the Israeli public who trusted the declarations of his government, Netanyahu will probably claim that he wanted to overthrow the Hamas regime but the international community stopped him.
The US has known for long that Israel has a strategy of reprisal. According to a US Defense Intelligence Agency appraisal with the title “Israel: experience in combating terror”, that was made on June 11, 1984, and declassified in 2016, “the commitment to a reprisal policy is deeply ingrained in the Israeli military establishment. Although Israeli military intelligence officials have consistently warned that such actions have had little deterrent effect on terrorists, the leadership has shown a willingness to take action if Israel’s security interests are at stake”.
The document explains how from the 1950s until the 1980s, Israel “moved from a policy of simple eye for an eye operation to a fully developed doctrine of retaliation. This held that terrorism could be countered by placing an unacceptably high price (to the Arabs) on such operations”.
Also mentioned are the difficulties that Israel faces today in Gaza, “No matter how expertly conducted from a military perspective, IDF operations against terrorists operating from bases in civilian areas damaged Israel’s prestige, the image of its military, and its relations with friendly states. Another cost “is the extent to which Israel’s confrontational approach for dealing with terrorism contributed to its perpetuation. Israel’s large-scale actions satisfied the Palestinian goal of eliciting a strong Israeli response, bringing attention, and sometimes sympathy, to the terrorist cause. Furthermore, the Israeli approach does not appear to have hampered recruitment of Palestinians willing to die for their cause.”
As the US Defense Intelligence Agency appraisal concludes, “approach to terrorism that relies primarily on force creates a dynamic of stimulus and response, rather than a clear end to the problem”. The only solution to the problem of the Gaza Strip, as well as to the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is diplomatic and not military. President Biden should not allow Israel to continue to wage a war of futile reprisal, which will solve nothing and only cause more human suffering.
Eitay Mack is an Israeli human rights lawyer and activist.
