Security remains Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s primary obsession. The solution to all evils. Nothing has changed after the October 7 attack, when the supposed fortress he had built around Gaza collapsed like a house of cards under Hamas onslaught. More than a month later, with thousands of dead on the list (more than 11,000 in Gaza and about 1,200 on the Israeli side), Gaza devastated and a war with an uncertain end, Netanyahu continues to bet everything on security and nothing more than security. Behind this, more and more voices, both in Israel and abroad, are asserting that militarists alone cannot pacify the Gaza Strip. He has also had no success in the previous fighting in the Palestinian enclave after the withdrawal of troops and settlers in 2005. The experts interviewed assume that the prime minister will not survive the crisis in office triggered by the Hamas attack.
“You cannot fight an ideology with weapons. “We need to counter Hamas’s ideology with a better ideology, and the best ideology we can present to the Palestinians is that they can live for Palestine, not just die for Palestine,” warns Gershon Baskin, a columnist and peace activist who advocates is known to have negotiated with Hamas in previous crises. In view of this and in defense of a discourse of a clear minority in Israel, he asserts in an interview in his home in Jerusalem: “Palestine must become a reality.” “The idea of Palestinian independence, liberation and the end of the Israeli occupation must be brought to life, to replace the ideology of death.”
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Israel insists on continuing to control Gaza’s security after the war, Netanyahu said for the last time on Friday, although he ruled out retaining Gaza. That means having “freedom of action” in “air operations” or “small incursions” on the ground to stop Hamas or another similar organization, says Ofer Shelah, a former parliamentarian for the centrist Yesh Atid party and an analyst at the Institute for National Security Study (INSS). But at the same time, Israel shows no signs of accepting that the institutional vacuum left by Hamas in the Gaza Strip government since 2007 will be at least partially filled by the Palestinian Authority (PNA), as the United States proposes. . The day after, so worrying in the international arena, is as if it did not exist for the Israeli executive, except for the ultranationalists with messianic dreams who demand the takeover of the Palestinian enclave.
The current focus of attention is the battle for Gaza City, “one of the most heavily fortified places in history,” says former general Giora Eiland by phone, where the Israeli army is confronted with two phenomena. On the one hand, the 20,000 to 25,000 highly committed Hamas fighters, their sophisticated tunnel system and Iranian technology. On the other hand, there is the “loyal” support that, in his opinion, they receive from the local population and those in charge of the administration.
Eiland, like Israeli military commanders, insists that the militants are receiving support even in hospitals. And that is exactly where Israel has been trying to gain ground with constant attacks in the last few hours, according to Palestinian health and humanitarian sources. The former general explains that the main health center in the Gaza Strip, Al-Shifa Hospital in the capital, in addition to receiving patients and citizens seeking refuge from the attacks, also maintains a Hamas command center in its facilities, which is why “we must destroy”. This area.” Although he assures that this is not what they are looking for, this argument leads him to justify the high number of civilians, despite the widespread criticism that Israel faces for alleged war crimes such as the attack by the Islamists on October 7th receives, die . “I don’t think Israel can do anything to stop it,” he says, “unless the Hamas leaders decide to surrender, which seems unlikely at the moment.”
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future plans
Gershon Baskin emphasizes that Netanyahu and his cabinet, which he believes will be “expelled” after the war, have no plans for afterward. Even after the race, neither Shelah nor Eiland see the prime minister in his position. The future without Hamas in power is something that others have already discussed, including some Palestinians, including the ANP president himself, Mahmoud Abbas. In this sense, Baskin proposes a multinational Arab force with Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the Emirates under the mandate of the UN Security Council, but with the ANP security forces at the forefront to create the feeling of a “new” It would be, he adds, a “technocratic government” that would lead to a new Palestinian government and learn from the “mistakes of Oslo” to guarantee the two-state solution.
Former parliamentarian Shelah believes that the presence of international organizations and some kind of coalition or alliance of Middle Eastern countries will be necessary to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza. There, he explains, the ANP should be involved in some way, hoping to “recover in Gaza, although it will take years,” but in no case Hamas. “The Israeli dilemma is enormous,” says Mahmoud Muna, bookseller and head of the Educational Bookshop and Palestinian from Jerusalem, about the lack of ideas for the future. He predicts that the proposed solution will be good or bad depending on whether Israel accepts it. “And what Israel accepts will not be good for Gaza. “I don’t see the world forcing a solution that Israel doesn’t want,” he concludes pessimistically.
The scenario outlined by former general Giora Eiland for the Palestinian enclave consists of three phases. On the one hand, the current war, which lasts about six weeks or more; a second to lead an international force to assist Gaza residents with a European or Arab and Palestinian presence; and the third, which must make the agreement that allows to regulate the layout of the territory. He points out that what is most “urgent” at the moment is to free the hostages, even if the price to be paid is the release of a few hundred Palestinian prisoners and several days, three or four, of a ceasefire that Hamas is seeking. . But, the former general adds, neither Israel nor Hamas should be in control of Gaza, although troops would have to take action should a “terrorist threat” arise from one armed group or another.
Until a few days ago, former negotiator Baskin had maintained a direct line to the leadership of the Islamic movement. He negotiated with them back in 2011 for the release of soldier Gilad Shalit after more than five years in Gaza in exchange for more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners. Among them was the current head of Hamas in Gaza, Yahia Sinwar, one of Israel’s most wanted men. On November 1, Baskin sent a letter to Ghazi Hamad, one of the militia’s leaders, which she also made public, ending a relationship that lasted nearly two decades, more than a thousand conversations and four face-to-face meetings. In the letter he explains that without “humanity” he is “evil.” Hamad has bragged about the Oct. 7 attack and insisted that Israel should not exist, echoing one of Hamas’ pillars.
Israel now faces not one, but more than 240 hostages held by the enemy in Gaza. “The only way to save them all is an agreement with Hamas. But the agreement with Hamas, which provides for the release of all Palestinian prisoners, around 7,000, is unacceptable for Israel. (…) It also contradicts the ultimate goal of the war, namely the destruction of Hamas,” admits the former negotiator, who has not yet ruled out a pact that would allow the release of children, women and the elderly. In an interview on Friday, he assured that he knew firsthand that the situation had been brewing until three days ago, when Egypt took part in the contacts and the Islamists closed the list of abductees to be released, which did not include the military women. . But the Islamists’ demand for a ceasefire was not accepted. And now, he comments, although this is hinted at in the ongoing negotiations in Qatar, “Israel will not accept a ceasefire in exchange for the release of 10 or 15 hostages.”
Former MP Shelah believes the fate of the hostages depends on Yahia Sinwar. A break of several days would be possible to free some, “but that should not mean the end of the war.” “Hamas would win if it managed to end the war with the hostages,” he concludes.
For his part, Baskin believes that Israel underestimated Hamas’s current capabilities and thought that the Iron Dome anti-aircraft system was enough to stop 90% of its rockets, but they evolved, the tunnels came and the October 7 attack came Security fence that cost $1 billion. All of this will need to be analyzed and monitored after the war, as the Prime Minister himself recognizes.
“Netanyahu has managed to remove the Palestinian issue not only from the Israeli agenda, but also from the international community (…) Why does Spain support the two-state solution and only recognize one of them?” asks former negotiator Baskin . In any case, he himself blames the Israelis and also the Palestinians for not knowing how to follow Israel’s narrative or come up with a serious peace plan. “We knew about the hypocrisy of the United States, but we trusted Europe,” complains bookseller Mahmoud Muna. In any case, Spain is not one of those who feels worse about his diatribe. “We Palestinians are alone,” he adds, also pointing to the neglect of Arab countries whose oil wealth cannot prevent the fuel crisis in Gaza.
In an interview with Haaretz newspaper in 2015, a few months after the last war in Gaza, Ofer Shelah somehow predicted what will happen in 2023. Israel failed because of the “lack of a complementary political process” and the “next attack” is a matter of time and it will become even more terrible.”
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