A Peace of Hope at Last?
Hamas’ acceptance of the Trump Peace Plan for Gaza is a relief. For those of us who have been hostages-first, the return of those innocent civilians stolen from their homes on October 7th has been the priority above all others. And now that, dead and alive, the hostages will finally be released and the war ended with the basic capitulation of Hamas, hopefully, we can move on from this extremely painful chapter in the history of the conflict.
Of course, this won’t be immediate in the slightest.
This war has been devastating for too many reasons. On the one side, the damage to Gazan civilian lives and infrastructure, and prolonging the humanitarian catastrophe, will leave yet another deep scar in the Palestinian psyche. On the other side, it has ruined Israel’s already fragile international reputation and pushed people even further toward the far-left and far-right in Europe and the US.
In many ways, however, this war was inevitable. The coexistence of a radical Islamist and Jihadist with a free, democratic, and Jewish state as a neighbor was also going to end in violence. Hamas’ near-totalitarian rule over Gaza has been one of the main barriers to any form of peace agreement since it took over the Strip in 2005. The launch of the unprecedented and unnecessary Second Intifada after the Israeli withdrawal pushed Israeli society further into the smothering embrace of clandestine Kahanism and complicated the possibility of Palestinian nationhood, let alone statehood.
The Hamas-Fatah split, created by the former’s extremism, has sown the seeds of Machiavellian opportunism for Likud, as Netanyahu played the two off one another to ensure that a Palestinian state would never be viable. By cracking down disturbingly in the West Bank and threatening it with illegal annexation while also giving Gazans more money and opportunities for work, the “plan” was to keep the PNA weak to delegitimize support.
And like all stupid strategies, this blew up in Israel’s face. Despite the remarkable advances it has made with its neighbors: the Abraham Accords and a semi-normalization with Saudi Arabia, the inevitability of a Palestinian state could have been something Israel had had greater control over. That, instead of the poor-sighted negationism, Israel had been able to determine how a Palestine emerged on its terms, it could have been so much better for the region. But unfortunately, such a vision is impossible when you have a Machiavellian running the show who, above all, is desperate to stay out of prison, even by destroying his own country.
October 7th was the consequence of a lot of things. Not only was it principally an exercise of masturbatory violence from an army of génocidaires, but also the illusion of Western rationalism that Israelis suffer from as well as we. As Gazan lives improved, Hamas’ grip slipped, and that, coupled with the frustration over the rest of the Arab world turning their backs on “their” cause, making Israel invade was the best way of ensuring that Saudi Arabia would be unable to normalize relations. Seeing the intense polarization in Israeli society, after four election reruns, the terror group saw an opportunity to vent its isolation. And with the IDF’s complacent evaluation that a threat from Gaza was low and the eagerness of the Israeli cabinet to create a frozen conflict, Hamas terrorists were able to rape and pillage like Vikings.
The complacency over the threat from Gaza has been the most significant reason for the disaster that has unfolded. Not only had the invasion plan for Gaza not been updated since 2018, but the intelligence on the group was, compared to that on Hezbollah and Iran, extremely lacking. The complete lack of a post-war invasion plan from a divided cabinet also shows why this conflict has dragged on so long.
Perhaps most significant have been the war’s aims. Though returning the hostages has been a stated priority, it has rarely been so. The elimination of Hamas as a group has meant pursuing an extremely destructive conflict that has resulted in the death of many civilians and soldiers, and, though it certainly has made dents, it has still not eliminated the group after over two years of fighting. As the humanitarian crisis began to unfold as a result of the poor planning, I had long abandoned the goal of destroying the group in favor of returning the hostages as soon as possible.
But the terrible strategic failures of this war have been seen mostly in Europe. As a vast handful of allies (though admittedly for dubious reasons), have recognized Palestine, and the rise of cultural Nazism (under the guise of anti-colonialism) has taken to the streets and universities in European capitals, Israelis have now yet more societies that do not want to understand them. The unreasonable positions by the Kahanist elements in the Israeli government have made it harder for those of us more sympathetic to the Jewish state and ordinary Israelis, have found it difficult to argue their case convincingly. The incompetent conduct in many aspects of the war, even compared to the unparalleled situation of urban warfare in history, has made it extremely hard on many of us who maintain solidarity with the hostages.
Perhaps the most disheartening has been the desperate but deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war back in March this year to put pressure on Gazans to put pressure on Hamas. Despite food and aid on aggregate being sufficient for months before the blockage, the poorly organized distribution system in the GHF made the problem much worse.
Nevertheless, this war has been, despite strained relations with the West, a military win for Israel in the region. Hezbollah has been mostly destroyed in Lebanon with only moderate casualties for civilians, and the Lebanese government is now taking responsibility for disarming the terror group. The Houthis, who have been firing rockets periodically into civilian areas in Israel without impunity, have been dealt major blows by the IAF in Sana’a. And Iran, the great Islamist terror bully, has been shown to both its rivals and enemies to be a weak and pathetic regime compared to Israeli intelligence and air supremacy. These are crucial victories that must be recognized as region-defining.
The conclusion of the conflict has not come from Europe or the UK or Canada, or Australia, but from the US. I concur with the Israeli journalist Haviv Rettig Gur that the plan that has been laid out by the White House is “the best possible outcome for Gazans”. The plan that has broad multilateral agreement from moderate Arab governments, the Americans, the Israelis, and the PNA, is a tremendous feat for the Trump administration. And it has also secured an ultimate victory for Israel. The return of the hostages and the dismantlement of Hamas’ violent tyranny over the Gazans will now be complemented by a long and dedicated rebuilding of the entire Strip overseen by an international coalition. As long as it holds, it will have earned Donald Trump the Nobel Peace Prize, if he hasn’t won it.
This will, I hope, be a blueprint for what should also be applied to the West Bank. Though overshadowed by the conflict in Gaza, the West Bank Palestinians have been the main victims of the disturbing right-wing turn in Israel. Frequent threats of annexation and settler violence have been the symptoms of an overly drawn-out Israeli occupation that needs to be replaced with a similar US-Arab coalition as in Gaza. Perhaps when that happens, we could have at last a very frosty, unfriendly peace.