Nine months into the war in Gaza, Israel is still negotiating with Hamas under international pressure from the United States, regional neighbors, and protesters from around the world. It is the surest sign that the most likely outcome of this conflict is a return to the status quo that existed before October 7.
1) The targeted killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh removes the main conduit for communicating messages to Hamas leaders in Gaza, effectively leaving the far more irrational and unpredictable Yahya Sinwar in a position of almost sole authority for the movement.
2) It will be a long, slow road for Hamas to restore its financial and military strength, given the difficulties involved in reconstruction, Israel’s reluctance to allow the transfer of funds and materials, and the lack of economic activity for generating tax revenues.
3) Israel will probably impose buffer zones and nightly raids, maintaining its foothold along the Philadelphi Corridor and thereby creating a persistent set of issues to occupy international protestors.
Nevertheless, the most probable scenario moving forward is a return to Hamas dominating the Gaza Strip and the Israeli government at a loss for options on how to ensure long-term security. The public remarks by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Daniel Hagari on June 19 and again on July 8 have only put a voice to what all sides should already know. And yet, none of these leaders appear to have thought through the implications of what happens when reality sets in for their publics.
Go-To Strategy
The basic roadmap on all sides is clearly evident based on their current posturing. Hamas will portray its ability to withstand the Israeli onslaught as a victory for the resistance. Every statement issued from the mouth of Yahya Sinwar will be paraded across social media as a breath of freedom for the world’s oppressed. Hamas leaders may get evicted from Qatar, according to recent reporting in the Wall Street Journal, but that may be to their benefit, as it could relieve them from the oversight and constraints imposed by the Qatari government. Hamas will have to rally behind Sinwar, championing any pronouncement he makes sight unseen because he will now have elevated himself to a truly global level of radical chic.
Indeed, this is the only solution for Hamas because maintaining international pressure on Israel is its only chance for survival. And that pressure can only be sustained by proxy. Motivating young protesters in Western capitals and campuses by validating their self-righteousness has become the preferred formula for convincing Western governments to press for rules of engagement, ceasefire conditions, and political concessions that favor Hamas.
However, there is only so long that one militant terrorist group can mobilize global public opinion. Election cycles will come and go, and their results will buy Western politicians some wiggle room to claim they are working on peace in the Middle East. However, they will no longer be under any significant pressure to accomplish anything. Corporations will see no contribution to their bottom line in this kind of social justice advocacy, and universities will start to listen more carefully to the concerns of their alumni donors.
Hamas would appear to have no plan for sustaining international support beyond its current public relations strategy. Sinwar will rule over a post-apocalyptic wasteland of a Strip, his lieutenants under constant threat of targeted arrest or assassination, with many Gazans now living abroad increasingly unafraid to voice their disgust with what he has wrought. The only solution is more oppression and intimidation, all of it masked by the thin veneer of supreme moral triumph as Hamas leaders admire their reflection in the mirror of their own propaganda.
Mission Accomplished
The Israeli government is in a no less enviable position, whether it be the current government extending operations with a second offensive in Lebanon, a new cabinet led by Benny Gantz as prime minister ruling over a fractious coalition, or Bibi Netanyahu acting in a caretaker role after an inconclusive election. Whatever emerges in Jerusalem will portray the war as something closely akin to “total victory,” even if the definitions of “total” and “victory” remain a bit fuzzy. Buffer zones and nightly raids will be characterized as deterrence restored. A private understanding among Israeli officials and Palestinian interlocutors will likely effectively amount to a ceasefire agreement. However, it will only provide temporary calm from Hamas, and neither side will publicly acknowledge it as a formal arrangement. After one or more rounds of elections resulting in a quasi-stable political situation in Jerusalem, Israeli leaders can settle into the routine of designing new border walls and more sophisticated early warning systems to reassure the public.
There is no other way for the political class. The Israeli public will not be convinced that a reduction of Hamas fighters to between 9,000 and 12,000 represents progress or that one barrage of missiles every month falling on southern villages is a great improvement over weekly or nightly salvos. They will not be impressed by the talk of a diplomatic offensive to win over the international community to a more robust embargo and sanctions regime. Politicians in Jerusalem can bandy about proposals for a Palestinian Authority reconstituted under new leadership or a power-sharing arrangement in which Hamas is only nominally involved in governance. Still, no one outside of Gaza can exert political influence inside the Strip, and no one inside the Strip can compete with Hamas.
While one part of the Israeli public still holds out hope for total victory, another part of the electorate has similarly unrealistic expectations for a deal. However, as veteran Israeli diplomatic correspondent Lazar Berman has carefully pointed out: “The hostages are [Hamas’] insurance that it will emerge from the war as a coherent organization, and therefore victorious.” It matters not how many concessions an Israeli government offers if Hamas perceives an existential threat to surrendering the hostages, meaning that many of those who remain will never be coming home.
By the same token, no Israeli government will have public support to make the kind of concessions that are ultimately necessary to reassure Hamas, i.e., a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and recognition of Hamas as the governing authority. The inability to resolve the hostage issue will come to define the Israeli public’s jaded perception of the new reality—essentially a return to the status quo ante—and that disillusionment will serve as a stumbling block to any Israeli government that aims to find a new way forward on security. It will be an incredibly challenging precondition for any international attempt to restart peace talks.
Israeli leaders would appear to have no plan for sustaining Israeli public support beyond impossible proposals for a full military occupation and attacks on political opponents for being soft on terror. Gantz was correct in withdrawing from the War Cabinet over the issue of a lack of long-term planning, in the sense that there were no other significant issues related to the conduct of the war that anyone in the cabinet would have done differently than Bibi. However, pointing to the lack of a long-term strategy is not the same as proposing a viable plan of your own. October 7 and its aftermath will likely be an albatross around the neck of a series of Israeli governments turning over in rapid succession.
The Day After
Diplomats in Washington, London, Paris, and elsewhere can work on ideas for governance and support for civil society in Gaza, with the goal of finding a solution that both ensures Israeli security and opens up a path to eventual statehood for the Palestinian people. That is their job. If they succeed, then may it be a thousand blessings on their households. But as Nahal Toosi has written in Politico, any survey of the various plans that have been circulated must conclude that there is no practical, viable, sustainable, and effective plan for achieving anyone’s desired outcome. For politicians in these capitals, the real day-after planning incumbent upon them is how to move forward when the status quo returns and the reality sets in for the public.
The saddest truth that we may all have to live with may be the prospect that politicians around the world will be quite content with a return to the status quo. As long as Western governments can deliver humanitarian aid, avoid any messy commitments in terms of boots on the ground, and still get reelected, it will be a win for them.
That is not to say that a peace process is impossible. Various experts over the years have theorized that launching a Middle East peace process requires some sort of major event to act as justification to spur the parties to participate, such as a sudden change in the leadership of the Palestinian Authority or Saudi Arabia’s full acceptance of normalization with Israel. Of course, political leaders ultimately can point to any event as justification for restarting talks if it is framed in the right way, just as they can walk away from peace talks by blaming either side for failing to commit to the process fully. This is merely to say that a peace process is not any sort of definitive sign that the West has once again turned toward the Middle East, having learned the lessons of the Gaza War, with the intention of redoubling efforts to achieve regional peace and security.
Losers and Winners
The losers of the Gaza War seem clear at the moment. The hostages and their families have suffered, as have countless Palestinian civilians. The Biden administration, caught between a rock and a hard place in attempting to navigate the conflict, will suffer in terms of voter turnout in November. Netanyahu and Sinwar may both live to fight another day, but the former’s political days are numbered, and the latter is now targeted as Israel’s public enemy number one. Almost everyone in a position of power on both sides will have their reputation tarnished by association with a devastating and ultimately inconclusive campaign.
It is much harder to see who will come out ahead from the conflict. There is already a trend toward recognition of some version of Palestinian statehood, even if that recognition is largely a diplomatic move to extend limited political support by countries that have little to lose from the gesture. It could take another decade for the Palestinian Authority to lobby Western capitals for more concrete forms of territorial and legal sovereignty.
By then, the circumstances on the ground will undoubtedly have created new political realities. Any successor to Mahmoud Abbas will have to promote the Palestinian Authority as a legitimate and capable institution of statecraft without alienating potential negotiating partners on the Israeli side. However, on the Israeli side, Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman are both waiting in the wings to form a coalition that can unseat Netanyahu, and neither one is likely to engage in peace negotiations.
For the United States, there is no role moving forward except at two or three steps removed. It will be up to the parties in the region to reconstruct what politics looks like after Gaza. The Qataris and Egyptians will shape that dynamic, and the Saudis can provide incentives for the parties to move in a positive direction. Washington’s most vital task after the war will be to support its allies in Doha, Cairo, and Riyadh, lending its public diplomacy efforts to amplify their efforts and bolster the credibility of a regional dialogue on Israeli-Palestinian affairs.
Joshua Yaphe was a Senior Analyst for the Arabian Peninsula at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The opinions and characterizations in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Government.
Image: Mohammed Abua Elsebah / Shutterstock.com.
