Hamas and Israel: What next?

“The Middle East has never been calmer than it is today over the past two decades,” Jake Sullivan, national security adviser to US President Joe Biden, bragged about the alleged successes achieved by the US administration in “advancing the cause of peace” in a region that has not been at peace for more than 100 years. general.

Sullivan's statements of excessive naive optimism came a few days before Hamas launched its bloodiest attack on Israel to date. This sparked a kind of crisis that even pessimists in their vision of the Middle East, like the author of this article, thought was a thing of the past.

Immediately, two analyzes emerged from the attack:

The first revolves around the fact that on October 7, Israel experienced its version of the September 11 attacks that struck the United States. However, the attack that Israel faced on October 7 is worse than the attacks of September 11. It is worth noting that the attack carried out by Al-Qaeda against the United States resulted in the deaths of three thousand people, while Israel mourns more than a thousand people as a result of the recent attack. When the numbers are adjusted to reflect the difference between the two countries in terms of population, we find that Israel lost the equivalent of thirty thousand American citizens.

The second analysis indicates the failure of Israeli intelligence, which is supposed to be the best in the world, to know what is about to happen, just as the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) failed before the September 11 attacks.

However, what should be noted is that October 7 ended the situation that had existed between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip since 2009, when it was Israel that violated the previous status quo.

In general, the status quo between two warring parties is broken when one of them feels that it is untenable.

In 2009, Israel could no longer bear the daily bombing targeting its towns and villages in the south. At the time, Israeli army commanders talked about “mowing the grass” in Gaza or cutting down Hamas’ poisonous weeds.

This campaign reached its peak in 2008-2009 with the launch of Operation “Cast Lead,” which turned a large part of the Strip into rubble, while leaving the poisonous weeds almost untouched.

At the time, Israeli leaders declared their desire to “break Hamas’ bones,” but not to the point of completely incapacitating it.

In doing so, they ignored the advice of a writer from Florence: “Do not wound a deadly enemy and then leave him to recover!” Either turn him into a friend or kill him.”

For their part, Israeli leaders tried to implement a strategy they had used against hostile Arab neighbors since 1948: “Get them to the dentist every ten years to get their fangs trimmed.”

The mistake that the Israelis made was not distinguishing between the traditional state structures that administer the country, and responding to the minimum needs of its society, and a non-governmental entity that shows little interest in the people living under its rule. Indeed, Hamas was in a position to completely ignore the needs of the people living in the Strip. 

For its part, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) covers basic needs, such as food, education, and health care, with the help of more than a hundred non-governmental organizations from thirty countries, in addition to recurring donations from countries willing to show solidarity with the Palestinians. In some cases, the matter amounts to foreign donors bearing the wages of employees in the local administration.

Thanks to “gifts” from “certain friendly forces,” Hamas and its junior partner, the Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine, do not need to buy the weapons they depend on.

The attack launched by Hamas may have stemmed from pure opportunism, meaning that its leaders could not ignore the unprecedented political crisis caused by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's attempt to shackle the Israeli Supreme Court. They also inevitably noted President Biden's indirect campaign to push Netanyahu out of power. Also, criticism from some foreign donors that Hamas is receiving huge sums of money, without doing much to advance the “cause,” may have contributed to the group’s decision to break the status quo.

The question now: what next? Breaking the status quo can be an effective way to end the stalemate of a situation, provided that the party breaking the status quo demands something that the opponent has the ability to provide. For example, after breaking the status quo by waging the Yom Kippur War, Egypt regained its lost territories. In a similar context, Jordan guaranteed the security of its agreed-upon borders through normalization with Israel.

However, in the case of Hamas, none of these outcomes are imaginable, as Hamas does not want to acquire lands, because Israel has already withdrawn from the Gaza Strip in 2005. If Hamas were actually working to build a state, it would have been It can use the last two decades to attract foreign investment, including from wealthy Palestinians around the world, with the aim of transforming the Strip into a vibrant little powerhouse on the banks of the Mediterranean. Perhaps Israel and its friends would have helped in trying to reduce the feelings of revenge in the hearts of the Palestinians.

However, as its charter clearly states, Hamas is not interested in building a state, but rather seeks to eliminate Israel - something the Israelis are unlikely to offer it.

Therefore, Hamas may end up in a situation worse than before, with continued destruction in the Gaza Strip, its weapons running out, and its best fighters being sent into the battlefield. As for the threat of executing prisoners, including citizens of countries other than Israel, it may eliminate a large part of sympathy towards the Palestinian “cause”, especially in the West.

What is worse for Hamas is that Israel may regain the image of the victim that it had lost for reasons, including the efforts of anti-Semitic figures and movements around the world. On the other hand, the recent operations of Hamas restore the old image of the Palestinians as terrorists and hostage takers - an image that Mahmoud Abbas and his group succeeded in changing through decades of perseverance, and even humiliation.

In the midst of the formation of a new situation, the initiative remains largely in the hands of Netanyahu. Given his feeling that his turbulent career as prime minister will inevitably end, Samson may be tempted by the option of total destruction. If he chooses to do so, he will be acting out of character, given that he has so far been cautious about using the military option.

In addition to the above, the current confrontation reveals the inability or unwillingness of the Biden administration to get rid of the disastrous policy towards the Middle East that President Barack Obama previously followed by ignoring friends, in the hope of warming relations with enemies.

There's a quote by Jake Sullivan that goes like this: In the Middle East, when things seem good, you should expect bad news.

Source: Al Sharq Al Awsat