Deluge, page 15
Israel’s response was to say that it received many private words of encouragement from Arab governments. Given widespread opposition to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood that spawned it, this was a not entirely implausible contention. At the same time, for Israel to claim, against the available evidence, that its war had unanimous backing, because it was supported either openly and vocally by its allies, or quietly and informally by others, smacked suspiciously of propaganda. Here again Egypt is instructive: Sisi’s Cairo detests Hamas, not least because of its organic relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and vocal opposition to Sisi’s coup. Yet Egypt thereafter also concluded that its sentiments about Hamas notwithstanding, the PA was incapable of administering the Gaza Strip, and the alternative to Hamas was either a power vacuum and chaos, or a new regime aligned with jihadi movements rather than one focused on the Palestinian arena. Claims that Sisi has been salivating over the prospects of Hamas being removed from power should therefore be taken with some skepticism.
Arab states could potentially accept a role in post-war planning if offered a clear pathway to a political resolution in the form of a two-state settlement. This would, however, require a US willingness to compel Israel to end its occupation of not only the Gaza Strip but also the West Bank. Washington has made clear its political horizon is a revival of the Oslo process, which has over three decades resulted in the consolidation of occupation rather than a Palestinian statehood which was not incorporated into its terms, and even this is strenuously rejected by Israel.
The war on the Gaza Strip has once again exposed the impotence of the formal Arab state system, and its inability to function in coherent and purposeful fashion. Yet it has also revealed significant weaknesses in Israel, that in the coming years are likely to embolden Arabs now convinced that the Jewish state can be not only effectively challenged but also defeated. How these countervailing pressures may play out is too early to determine, but it is already clear they will be in tension for years to come.
* * *
Mouin Rabbani is co-editor of Jadaliyya and host of its Connections podcast.
“Gaza has become a graveyard for children”
—UNICEF
10
Into the Abyss
Nathan J. Brown
Hamas’s dramatic and unexpected offensive on October 7 thrust Israel-Palestine rapidly forward—but less toward a clear outcome and more toward deepening conflict. The immediate effect on each individual actor was to retreat back into a bubble. Hamas showed that it could dominate the public sphere among Palestinians; it could also capture global attention but at the cost of exposing Palestinians to unprecedented levels of violence and isolation. Israelis endorsed any actions that responded harshly and abandoned efforts to link short-term tactics to a dispassionate calculation of long-term consequences. If each actor fell backward, however, the effect on the inhabitants of Israel-Palestine was to shove them onward into an abyss in which—to paraphrase Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit—hell is other peoples.
Israelis and Palestinians rushed ahead not merely impulsively but with moral blindness as well. The moral blindness should be easy to see—except that blindness is about not being able to see. Hamas’s tactical brilliance was harnessed to a set of atrocities directed against civilians that were collectively far bloodier than Deir Yassin. For others, the immense cruelty of the Israeli closure of Gaza had long dropped from view—a closure whose origin predates Hamas’s control of the territory and was clearly far more effective at impoverishing two million people than making Hamas militarily incapable.
I make these observations not in an effort to draw up moral balance sheets or assign culpability, but simply to observe that very few observers and none of the participants are able to keep more than one party’s sins in view. No sense of shared humanity has driven either understanding or action. And indeed, it seems that nobody is driving events now—or rather that those driving events have no realistic path to follow that will deliver a better world to anyone.
Hamas: seizing the initiative
For Hamas’s part, its brutal campaign showed less solid long-term thinking than the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003. And indeed, that may have been the point. The extent of despair and powerlessness among Palestinians had grown so profound that the ground was open to anyone who seized any kind of initiative. With apartheid-like conditions entrenched by harsh security measures, settler violence, diplomatic inertia, and political decay, Hamas’s leaders seem to have been driven by a grim determination that upending arrangements was bound to have a positive outcome. But if they had a plan for following up on their success with anything more substantial than hostage negotiations, this was kept even more secret than the initial attack.
Hamas’s decision-making has often been linked to the regional situation (the desire to energize the “resistance camp” or disrupt Saudi-Israeli normalization). If regional politics was indeed the driver, Hamas may have miscalculated. But the October 7 attack was far more likely geared first and foremost to the Palestinian arena, where there is pressure to engage in resistance and where the national leadership is bankrupt. There was also a long-held understanding within Hamas that its truncated and blockaded republic of Gaza was not a tolerable outcome. This led some leaders within the movement to drag the rest of Hamas into uncharted waters.
And in some ways that effort paid off short-term. Hamas showed Palestinian and international actors that it could not be ignored, it thrust the Palestinian cause on to the agenda of the leaders of the most powerful states in the world, it showed the bankruptcy of Israeli tactics and dragged Israel into a costly (and perhaps unwinnable) military conflict, and it forced Israel as well as other global actors to negotiate (over hostages, though, not Palestinian rights). The historic national leadership in Ramallah reacted to events with a deafening silence born of impotence. Many Palestinians who had waited for someone to do something rallied around Hamas’s boldness.
But if it came to dominate Palestinian politics, Hamas showed no ability to construct any framework for unified action or to translate its propaganda victories into practical ones. Tactics seemed to be connected to a prayer rather than a strategy or a plan.
Israel: A ferocious response in support of an endless war
Hamas’s October 7 offensive meant that Israel’s central goal of maintaining the status quo in Gaza collapsed. So Israel invaded Gaza, killed enormous numbers of fighters but many, many more civilians, decimated Gazan civilian life still further—with great immediate impact but unknowable long-term effects. Deeply divided Israelis will give their leaders a blank check for any harsh measures, without abandoning an impulse toward recrimination (much of it justified) based on the warring camp in Israel to which they belong.
Initial reactions to Hamas’s bloody attack on Israelis and Israel’s declaration of war focused on the short term: how strongly would Israel react and what would its objectives be? When Israel finally spelled out war aims, they were very ambitious: to oust Hamas from governance and to destroy its military capability. Some, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, went further: the goal was to kill every member of Hamas whether inside Gaza or not. While few international actors echoed the bloodthirsty rhetoric of Israeli leaders, the goal of eliminating Hamas politically and militarily was widely embraced without thinking by US and European leaders who only asked what would come next—and showed an inability to hear the Israeli answer that there would not be anything next. There would be no “day after.”
It rapidly became clear that the Israeli military operation was killing many civilians and destroying part of Gaza, including housing, infrastructure, and critical aspects of civilian life. What outsiders were slow to realize was that this was not simply collateral damage; it was also related to a new security regime. Israeli leaders hinted and then spoke more openly about imposing significant military buffer zones within Gaza that would be inaccessible to Palestinians for a while, if not indefinitely. The Israeli military operation seemed designed to force a significant number of people to leave Gaza into the Sinai Peninsula, but that possibility was hampered as a result of external pressure and very sharp Egyptian resistance. Population shifts within the Gaza Strip, however, were profound. As they flattened neighborhoods and forced hundreds of thousands to move, Israeli officials were steadfastly silent on any possibility that displaced people would be allowed to return to their (often no longer standing) homes. And they made clear that, even when fighting died down, the ongoing Israeli military stance in Gaza would tighten the border and increase security forces’ capacity to conduct incursions into populated areas.
Israel will not seek to dominate Gaza to the same degree as the West Bank, because without settlements in Gaza, that level of control is not necessary. (Israel will likely not reintroduce settlers into Gaza, though the idea is discussed.) Future military moves might include setting up military installations within Gaza. Parts of the north of Gaza might be effectively annexed—at least in security terms—and turned into a closed Israeli military zone.
And governance? Israel made clear that was not its problem.
No good options
The United States played a dramatic role in the war’s initial stages, hardwiring the American and Israeli decision-making processes together in an unprecedented way. European states have followed their general pattern of tailing the United States while advocating a bit more publicly for civilian lives and longer-term diplomacy. The result may be that the United States gains real leverage with Israel, but it is unclear whether the US would know what to do with it.
The United States immediately pressed Israel for its post-war plans and observers rushed out one unrealistic proposal after another. But there was no sign of consensus, and even the most detailed authoritative statements lacked clarity. US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s comments on October 31 were the most specific offered, but they only suggested that the United States and other countries were looking at “a variety of possible permutations.” He mused that an “effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority” (PA) should ultimately govern Gaza but offered no clues on how to make the PA effective or overcome Israeli opposition. He only suggested vaguely that, in the meantime, “there are other temporary arrangements that may involve a number of other countries in the region. It may involve international agencies that would help provide for both security and governance.” The nominees floated for this interim role include Arab states and the United Nations (UN), supported by other governmental and nongovernmental international organizations.
After 2007, the Hamas government could not provide for all its people’s needs, and so international bodies stepped in. For example, a desalination plant was managed by the UN Children’s Fund, a power plant managed by the Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority, some schools managed by the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and salaries of hospital staff paid by Ramallah. This setup was necessary to avoid essential services being cut off when the international community boycotted Hamas and to facilitate vital cooperation with Israel in running these services.
Most of the ideas about the “day after” that assume Hamas will soon be gone are based on expanding these ad hoc international arrangements with less involvement (or none at all) by formerly Hamas-led structures. But multilateral institutions have been far more adept at service provision and humanitarian aid than governance. Misleading comparisons to Kosovo or Iraq obscure the far more hostile context: UNRWA alone has already seen more than 130 of its workers killed, Israeli officials have heaped vituperation on senior UN officials, and internal security has dissolved in Gaza. For the UN to establish a political or peacekeeping mission, a high degree of consensus would have to be possible in the UN Security Council, which is already deeply divided on many global issues.
Regional management seems even less plausible. Why would countries in the region want to take responsibility for administering Gaza under the military control of Israel? And why would Israel want regional actors to have military control of Gaza? Arab states never wished to be made responsible for Gaza and that preference has likely been strengthened. Nor are they likely to band together to manage a problem they feel was caused by the recklessness of others. The few experiences of multilateral involvement by Arab states in “peacekeeping” or security arrangements do not provide positive models. In short, Arab states are unlikely to accept a role. And in the unlikely event they were persuaded to step in, such involvement would likely be ineffective in providing administration, much less security.
The PA is unlikely to restore its pre-2007 institutional and legal framework. First, Israel’s long-standing policy to disconnect Gaza from the West Bank and to treat Gaza as a nonentity in political and governing terms would have to be completely reversed, and that seems unlikely. Second, the PA lacks popular support to begin with; to be seen as the agent of Israeli invasion and US complicity—which is how most Palestinians would see it—might be close to suicidal. The PA is clear on this point; its prime minister has said that
[t]o have the Palestinian Authority go to Gaza and run the affairs of Gaza without a political solution for the West Bank, as if this Palestinian Authority is going aboard an F-16 or an Israeli tank? I don’t accept it. Our president [Mahmoud Abbas] does not accept it. None of us will accept it.
And the PA’s stubbornly passive behavior has been consistent with this stance: PA officials launched an initiative to participate in a humanitarian response in Gaza but did not engage in strategic communication to promote a ceasefire. There has been no political dialogue with Hamas nor other Palestinian factions. On top of that, the potential PA administration would be under Israel’s complete security control, similar to the West Bank’s Area C. This complete control would likely exacerbate the image of the PA as an Israeli “contractor.” A “revitalized” PA capable of undertaking administration and providing security in Gaza would seem to require both elections and a very muscular diplomatic process within an acceptable horizon. Neither is likely; those now calling for a “revitalized” PA are precisely the same actors who have resisted such steps for many years.
Evolving actors
Changes within each actor are likely to complicate matters further.
Israel’s future posture is unknown even to most Israelis. Over the short term, there is unity behind a military effort, but the underlying fissures in Israeli society seem more deferred than resolved. The religious nationalist camp has lost its centrality with the expansion of Israel’s governing coalition, but it retains key ministries for now, and its citizens’ violent activities against Palestinians in the West Bank have stepped up. Its vision for annexing the land but denying rights to non-Jewish inhabitants has already advanced very far. The country’s military and security leaders are both leading much of the country’s response, but they are also taking blame for missing the signs that Hamas would strike out; the tensions between the leadership and rightist politicians seem to be just below the surface. Leading Israeli political and security figures are divided about whether the PA in Ramallah is annoying, hostile, or a potential partner, but the idea that Palestinians are a national community that should be treated as such is accepted only in pockets of the Israeli political spectrum. The political configuration in Israel is volatile, and the stance and composition of the country’s leadership a year from now are difficult to foresee.
Meanwhile, Hamas is not likely to be destroyed, though it will undoubtedly suffer tremendous losses. It may be that the movement’s political wing—since it operates above-ground—is a softer target than the military wing, which is both hardened and already partially underground. There is a significant possibility that the military wing will actually increase its hold on the organization—and that it will identify any postwar governance that targets the movement as collaboration with Israeli efforts to eliminate it.
So how will Gaza be governed? Maybe it won’t be
The question is not whether Israel will “reoccupy” Gaza. The most onerous aspects of Israel’s occupation never ended: what ended with the Oslo Accords was Israel’s post-1967 strong role in overseeing administration and internal security outside of settlements; what changed in 2005 was the withdrawal of Israel’s settlements and the attendant military presence. Now that Israel has moved back inside Gaza, rearranged its population, and disrupted all aspects of civilian life, it seems quite content to let matters rest there until something better comes along. And maybe nothing will.
Rather than a “day after,” what seems more likely is a shift from intensive to low-level combat that has no clear resolution. There will be efforts to devise arrangements, to be sure. But the most notable diplomatic fallout from the fighting might be that diplomacy becomes even more difficult. The coordination necessary to make any arrangements for governance functions may be extremely hard to achieve.
Gazans will live in the surviving buildings and makeshift structures for a while. Any rebuilding will exclude significant portions of Gaza. Commerce, manufacturing, agriculture, and other businesses will be effectively destroyed, rendering Gazans completely dependent on humanitarian aid. Once a “besieged enclave,” Gaza will be reduced to a “supercamp” of internally displaced persons.
For the foreseeable future, there will be no central government for Gaza. Not only will no force be able to supply security in terms of public security and basic law and order, but also, continuous Israeli raids or Hamas attacks on perceived collaborators may be ongoing.
