Israel needs to agree to a permanent ceasefire with Hamas in exchange for the remaining hostages, then announce a withdrawal from Gaza contingent on a US-brokered, binding accord with regional powers to step in and guarantee security in the enclave. Qatar would provide funds for reconstruction.
Hamas is now resurfacing in Gaza City and Khan Younis, where Yahya Sinwar is thought to be barricaded as many as 200 feet underground surrounded by Israeli hostages, unreachable for all intents and purposes.
One resident of northern Gaza told The Washington Post “it feels like we’ve regressed to day one of the war, with bombings and rampant gunfire, and drones persistently patrolling Gaza City.”
The Jabaliya refugee camp is once again a battlefield, and civilians were reportedly told to flee Zeitoun, a neighborhood in Gaza City. Familiar images showed families evacuating to nowhere on foot and in carts pulled by emaciated donkeys. The IDF said it had “intelligence regarding attempts by Hamas to reassemble.”
This was entirely predictable. From the first weeks of the war, I warned repeatedly that whatever early success the IDF was assured based on overwhelming military superiority, Benjamin Netanyahu would invariably (inevitably) end up mired in an intractable quagmire characterized by a never-ending insurgency. On November 7, for example, I wrote that,
The outcome in Gaza is a foregone conclusion. An IDF victory in the initial push to oust Hamas isn’t in question, which means everyone should be hard at work crafting next steps. Because “the day after” is when the losses (all sorts of different kinds of losses) could start to pile up for Israel. Those losses — which’ll run the gamut from propaganda coups when innocents get hit by a stray bullets to actual Israeli military casualties in the inevitable insurgency — could eventually add up to a Vietnam/Afghanistan/Iraq outcome for Israel, with the difference being that by virtue of geography, Gaza will never be out of sight, out of mind for Israelis.
Fast forward six months, and that’s exactly where we are. The IDF’s fighting the beginnings of an insurgency in northern Gaza and across the border, Israel’s memorial day ceremonies were interrupted by protesters.
“You took my children!” someone shouted at Netanyahu, during a memorial at Israel’s national cemetery. “Criminal!” demonstrators yelled at Itamar Ben-Gvir in Ashdod.
During remarks to NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Antony Blinken was blunt. “We’ve seen, in areas that Israel has cleared in the north, even in Khan Younis, Hamas coming back,” he said. “Going into Rafah, even to deal with these remaining battalions risks doing terrible harm to civilians and not solving the problem.”
The New York Times summed it up. “It has become a familiar scenario in the Gaza Strip over the course of the seven-month war: After pitched battles, Israel declares an area clear of Hamas, only to return after the militants reconstitute their forces,” an article read.
How many times did you hear it in November? Israel’s goal of “eradicating” Hamas, however you want to define the term “eradicate,” was unachievable. You heard it time and again. You can’t kill an idea, nor an ideology, and when it comes to militant groups, particularly religiously-motivated militant groups, it’s very often impossible even to kill all of the fighters.
Contrary to popular belief, loudly declaring that “failure’s not an option” doesn’t remove failure from the set of potential outcomes. With (sincere) apologies and with the utmost sympathy for the victims of October 7, failure for Israel is at least as likely as success by now and probably more likely if Netanyahu continues to insist on defining success as the “eradication” of Hamas.
To describe Gaza as tiny would be to overstate the case. In theory anyway, an army the size of, say, China’s or America’s, could occupy the space such that an insurgency would be a logistical impossibility by virtue of the overwhelming troop-to-local ratio. You can’t launch an insurgency when there’s one foreign troop for every citizen and 30 highly-trained, heavily armed foreign troops for every remaining militant. But that’s just a silly thought experiment. It has no practical application whatsoever.
The reality in Gaza is that although the IDF can obviously hold all occupied territory in perpetuity (Hamas has no capacity to launch a proper counteroffensive, nor to recapture anything other than a building or maybe a city block), the army will never succeed in killing every, single irritable Palestinian male with an inclination to put on a green headband and pick up a gun. And bear in mind: The IDF’s working at cross purposes with its own agenda given the extent to which the civilian death toll serves as a highly effective radicalization campaign. Sinwar intended that, of course.
Note that the IDF’s back to shelling border towns in the north. And Daniel Hagari indicated Israel’s battling Hamas in Beit Hanoun. Again. I’ve lost count of how many times the IDF claimed that fight was over. One local who spoke to the AP described the situation in Jabaliya as “madness.” That’s another fight that was supposed to be finished.
Efforts to minimize civilian casualties wouldn’t be successful even if Israel was committed to its obligations under international law, which they obviously aren’t. Residents are just shuffling from one battlefield to the other, dodging bullets and bombs and praying they might stumble across something to eat along the way.
Do note: If the fighting picks back up in the north and residents end up moving south again, while locals sheltering in Rafah move to their north, everyone might end up in Khan Younis (or, for many Gazans, back in Khan Younis). That could be especially perilous because apparently, both the CIA and Mossad know full well that Sinwar’s there, not in Rafah.
“US officials say Israeli intelligence agencies agree with the American assessment that Sinwar and other Hamas leaders are not hiding in Rafah [and] most likely never left the tunnel network under Khan Younis,” the Times reported on Monday, adding that in fact, “Israeli officials do not believe Sinwar [was] ever hiding in Rafah.” (Emphasis mine.)
In other words: To the extent the IDF has used Sinwar as an excuse to launch a full-on invasion of Rafah, they (the IDF) might’ve been lying. And if you’re wondering whether the US is now actively leaking intelligence to undermine Israel’s claims about Rafah, the answer would appear to be “yes.”
Much as I wish this weren’t the case, the grim reality is that Israel isn’t going to achieve its goal of “eradicating Hamas,” probably not even as an armed group, let alone as a political movement and an ideology. The political leadership’s out of range. I think that’s lost on a lot of readers, so let me just say this unequivocally: Hamas’s political leaders are sheltered, openly, by Qatar. It’s not a secret. They’re not hiding under the desert somewhere, they’re in luxury hotels. That reality gives this entire endeavor an air of farce.
As far as Sinwar and the military leadership, if they’re 15 stories underground in Khan Younis with the hostages (as reports suggest), I don’t see a happy ending. The better plan might be to negotiate for the hostages and let Qatar arrange for Sinwar to go into exile with the caveat that Doha can’t host him, nor Istanbul. If he’s not allowed in Doha or Istanbul, he’s a dead man anyway. It might take a while, but the US and Israel would eventually track him down.
One way or another, this has to end. Or it won’t ever end, if readers will pardon the tautology. During an interview with CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Blinken warned that Israel’s going to “be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency because a lot of armed Hamas will be left no matter what they do.” If the IDF leaves, “then you’re going to have a vacuum that’s likely to be filled by chaos by anarchy, and ultimately by Hamas again.”
During the same CBS cameo, Blinken suggested, implicitly, that Netanyahu and the war cabinet simply haven’t yet come to terms with reality. “We’ve been working for many, many weeks [with Arab countries and others] on developing credible plans for security, for governance, for rebuilding,” he said. “We haven’t seen that come from Israel.”
At some point, it’ll be incumbent upon Netanyahu, the war cabinet and Israel more generally, to acquiesce to reality. No matter how harsh reality turns out to be. That’s the annoying thing about reality: It’s inescapable. America knows this all too well: Afghanistan has the same government today as it did on September 10, 2001.
War is still ongoing in Syria, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other places we entered and left as noisy losers. Everyone in these places is losing in one way or another and will be until civilization ends later this century.
Politico’s National Security news letter had an interview with Bafel Talabani, leader of an Iraqi Kurdish organization. He’s in Washington to talk about counter-terrorism issues, but the interview inevitably turned towards the war in Gaza. His take seems to largely align with the article above. It’s definitely helpful to hear things from a Middle Eastern perspective now and then. A brief excerpt:
Do you see American troops in the Middle East coming under threat again?
A lot depends on what happens in Gaza. I don’t see any immediate threat to U.S. troops. But you know, things could change. This Rafah stuff is really concerning.
Has the war in Gaza affected your work? What are the global implications of the war?
Massively, colossally. What the United States and the Western allies need to be aware of is that an entire generation of Arabs and Muslims are growing to be untrusting and have a hatred toward the West. This is happening even in really West-friendly places like Kurdistan — there is a massive shift in public opinion … it will take generations to erase this newfound opinion of the West.
The principle of destroying Hamas is false. It’s impossible … I think Hamas, or whatever comes after Hamas, the membership of this organization will be more.
That will not be helped by the former/next President’s betrayal of the Kurds through his “brilliant” agreement with Erdogan to give Turkey the green luck to massacre our allies, the Kurds, in Syria.
I wish this had an edit function.
It’s worth mentioning given the number of times I’ve heard the argument, that the US almost surely wouldn’t respond to a hypothetical attack from Mexico in the same way Israel responded in Gaza. Let’s say Mexican drug cartels launched a cross-border attack and killed 10,000 Americans. I’m not sure why they’d do that, but let’s just pretend. Would the US military launch a full-scale invasion of Mexico and proceed to slaughter 1.3 million Mexicans over the ensuing six months? i.e., 1% of all Mexicans? We could. There wouldn’t be anything they could do about it. And we could argue that the government in Mexico is beholden to the cartels. Because it is. But no. We surely wouldn’t do that. In fact, when you actually think about that argument for even a few seconds, it’s a completely ridiculous proposition.
As an aside, election season in Mexico is absolutely wild this year. Nearly 3 dozen candidates for various offices have been assassinated. So far. Election day isn’t until June 2. Can you imagine wanting to run for office there?
The comparison isn’t perfect by any stretch, but Mexico is a narco state, and it’s not a big leap from that to a narco-terror state. You just need the terror. The government’s corrupt at pretty much every level to a greater or lesser degree. And depending on where you are in Mexico, the locals absolutely support the cartels, at least to the extent the bosses are community benefactors. So, you know, if there was a cross-border attack, you could make a Gaza-like case for a military response. But there’s no universe in which that response would constitute a full-on invasion, let alone an occupation, and there’s no universe in which the US kills 1.3 million Mexicans in pursuit of 50,000 cartel members (or whatever) and 10 bosses. All of that to say I don’t think that argument (which you hear again and again from apologists for the IDF’s war conduct) holds up.
There used to be a terrible network show called “Hack.” I never watched it, but it became “popular” as sort of a comic meme in some circles. The premise of the show was that a disgraced cop leaves the force and becomes a taxi driver, but continues to unofficially practice law enforcement as a measure of atonement. But one of the recurring tag lines in promos for the show was that Hack (the disgraced cop) had to “become” like the criminal he was chasing in order to catch him. And so one of the many resulting “jokes,” was that in order to catch a rapist, Hack had to first become a rapist. Off-color, I admit, but still an accurate description of the show, and likely more entertaining.
I haven’t thought about that show in a while, but every time I hear Netanyahu talk about ridding Gaza of “terrorists,” I am drawn to think he must have been a fan.
I’m a bit hesitant to answer since we haven’t yet finished our previous convo… but here goes…
You say it’s impossible… Yet after 9/11, where a small group of terrorists based in Afghanistan killed 3,000 people (not 10k, though I’ll concede I don’t think that matters as much as people say). But when you did, you didn’t just pursue AQ/Bin Laden. No, you decided that the government of Afghanistan was guilty by association (not wrong but the relationship Afghan gvt/AQ was obviously looser than Gaza leadership/Hamas where they are one and the same) and you invaded the whole country, butchering, okay, a lot less than 1% of the pop. directly (70k “only” vs a 1% threshold of 400k, though I’m not sure about the indirect death toll). OTOH, you lost that war.
But also – Afghanistan is far and not a credible on-going threat to the US civilian pop. I would argue Oct 7th showed the Israelis underestimated Hamas at significant cost…
I’m not sure what you mean by “we haven’t finished our previous convo.” All convos with me are finished when I remind myself that I’m arguing with people I’ll never meet in an online message forum, which is one definition of insanity in the internet era. The fact that it’s my message forum doesn’t make it any less insane. Whenever that starts, I go outside and run a couple of miles and then I’m over it.
Wise attitude.
Still, it can kind of feels different on a small forum like this one, with repeated interactions. You can get a sense of someone’s personality and internet ‘friendship’ do exist.
Going out for a run – I suppose that’s better than missing the turn off for the gun range and, instead, driving over to the mall and pondering whether you want to be featured on the evening news at 6:00.
From the Feb. 25, 2024 Wall Street Journal article ‘Mexico’s Hugs, Not Bullets Crime Policy Spreads Grief, Murder and Extortion’: “Most of the disputes involve the Sinaloa or Jalisco cartels, among the world’s largest criminal organizations and the top traffickers of fentanyl—the low-cost, high-margin synthetic opioid that kills tens of thousands of Americans a year.”
There’s your 10,000 dead Americans – on a recurring yearly basis no less. So, there is no need to pretend. The drums of war are getting louder every year. When the time is right, due to an economic depression or politicians in need of a distraction, we will do what we always do and invade. The Mexicans will fight back and civilians will perish on both sides. It’s who we are and we are incapable of redemption. The list of “completely ridiculous propositions” during my lifetime includes the Formosa Crisis, Bay of Pigs, Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Lebanon, Libya, Grenada, Andean Initiative in War on Drugs, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq and list goes on and on and on with conflicts and clandestine incursions that the general public doesn’t even remember. We’ve been to the halls of Montezuma and we’ll be back in due time.
Remember Ron DeSantis, the “moderate” Trump so many captains of finance were throwing money at?
“DeSantis: I’d strike drug cartels in Mexico ‘on day one’”
“Asked by Fox News’ MARTHA MacCALLUM if he would support sending U.S. special forces over the border to take out fentanyl labs and disrupt cartel operations, Florida Gov. RON DeSANTIS replied: “Yes, and I will do it on day one.”
“When I talk about using the military to take on the drug cartels because they’re killing tens of thousands of our citizens,” the second-highest polling Republican later told SEAN HANNITY, “we have every right to do it, I’m going to do it. I’m not just going to get into office and say ‘forget about it.’”
Yasser Arafat had an opportunity to “do right” for the Palestinian people. However, just because Arafat killed that possibility- it is absolutely time to resurrect that proposal, along with the threat of a “big stick” to be used against the Palestinians if they attack Israel.
OK – speaking only from a fact-checkable memory, Arafat has widely been credited with turning down a peace plan. That is something he later said he had come to regret. A little too late.
But it is probably wrong to heap all of the blame on the inventor of the popular three-days-unshaven look. I recall White House insiders lamenting that the two sides were so close, but neither one would give in on a last bit of West Bank territory to be retained by Israel.
The unbridgeable difference?? Something like 13.4 versus 13.6% of West Bank territory.
Neither side would give in on that .2%. Perhaps it’s human nature bolstered by a shared Middle Eastern bazaar culture? If that is only partly correct, what hope is there for any kind of negotiated agreement in the region?
The situation has to get so bad that both sides see a two state solution as the best path forward.