For much of Israel’s existence, Israelis believed that their security depended on achieving full-fledged peace with the Jewish state’s Arab neighbours. That notion was refined in the 1980s and 1990s with Israeli and Palestinian realization that peace would have to entail the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. For Palestinians, this meant acceptance of painful compromises involving surrender of claims to pre-1967 Israeli territory and the effective surrender of the right of 1948 refugees to return to their homes. Palestinian difficulty in translating that acceptance into policy allowed Israel to evade taking the painful decisions peace would require such as a withdrawal from the West Bank and some form of sharing of sovereignty in Jerusalem. Unwittingly, the Palestinian inability to grab opportunity by the horn enabled Israel to instead tighten its grip on the West Bank and Jerusalem and make any partition increasingly difficult.
The Israeli-Palestinian peace-making paradigm has shifted three decades later. After peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan; historic agreements with the Palestinians on mutual recognition, cooperation in a variety of sectors; various failed roadmaps to peace; and multiple wars between Israel and non-state actor such as Lebanese Shiite Muslim Hezbollah militia and Islamist Hamas, peace is no longer perceived in Israel as a must. For Israelis, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become an issue of management rather than solution.
Changed Israeli perceptions of peace-making were long mirrored on the Palestinian side. A debilitating feud between Hamas and the Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Al Fatah movement that put the Islamists in control of Gaza coupled with Israeli intransigence effectively stymied Abbas’ ability to achieve peace. In effect, Israel and Hamas shared tacit common interests. Neither wanted a final solution but both favoured a long-term ceasefire provided that enabled them to further social and economic development. That prospect however was undermined by a debilitating Israeli land, sea and air blockade of Gaza designed to prevent Hamas from arming itself – a policy that ultimately failed with the Islamist group’s use of underground smuggling tunnels.
Abbas’ helplessness coupled with Israeli and Hamas intransigence nonetheless reaffirmed a long-standing fact of life of the Israeli- Palestinian equation: hardliners can serve each other’s needs to mutual benefit without making the kind of wrenching concessions that thwart the ambitions of peacemakers and moderates on both sides. A prisoner swap in 2011 in which Israel bought freedom for Staff Sergeant Gilad Shalit after five years in Palestinian captivity in exchange for the release of 1,027 prisoners − many of whom were responsible for deadly attacks on Israelis – highlighted the fact that sworn enemies found it easier to do business than those who advocate compromise and living in peace and harmony side by side.
Underlying, the swap was a belief on the part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas that there is no realistic chance for an agreement on peace terms that would be acceptable to both Palestinians and Israelis. Given the nature of his coalition government, Netanyahu has been unwilling or unable to give Abbas the bare minimum he would need to push forward with peace without at least the tacit backing of Hamas.
While Netanyahu officially refused to negotiate with Hamas, for its part, Hamas refused Israeli conditions for its inclusion in a peace process, including the recognition of Israel’s right to exist, abandonment of its armed struggle, and acceptance of past Israeli- Palestinian agreements. If anything, the prisoner swap and its military performance in military confrontations with Israel reinforced the Islamist movement’s conviction that its hard line is paying off. Netanyahu strengthened Hamas in its conviction not only by excluding Abbas from the prisoner swap, but also by his decision at the time to build a new Jewish settlement on the southern edge of Jerusalem and the granting of legal status to settlements established without his government’s approval. Netanyahu’s move flew in the face of Abbas’ efforts to make an Israeli freeze on settlements a core pre-condition for peace talks with the Israelis.
The paradigm of a tacit Israel-Hamas understanding bolstered intransigence on both sides and neutered Abbas shifted in 2014 with the military coup in Egypt of Hamas’ foremost ally, Islamist President Mohammed Morsi; a rift between Hamas and Iran over Hamas’s refusal to back the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad; the Israeli blockade’s increasing destruction of the Gaza economy; and mounting international criticism of Israel fuelled by its brutal assault on the Gaza Strip. If Israel was long the proponent of peace, Hamas has opened the door to Palestinians replacing it in that role.
Indirect ceasefire talks in Cairo designed to end the 2014 Israel-Hamas war and achieve a lasting ceasefire and post-cease fire negotiations effectively constitute discussions about the parameters of a potential future peace agreement. Israeli rhetoric notwithstanding, signs of changing attitudes of Israel and Hamas towards one another went significantly beyond the fact that the two sworn enemies who refuse to recognize one another were negotiating even if only indirectly. They also went beyond the fact that the road to the Cairo talks was paved in part on indirect negotiations between Hamas and the United States, which like Israel has declared Hamas a terrorist organization.
Netanyahu announced changed Israeli attitudes towards Hamas when he defined Israel’s goal in the Gaza war as the weakening of Hamas military capability, if not the demilitarization of the group, rather than his long standing objective of total destruction of the organisation. While Israel seemed to be indiscriminate in its risking of civilian casualties during the war, Hamas’ senior leadership in the Strip emerged from the fighting unscathed. The negotiations despite their cyclical breakdowns did not only acknowledge Hamas as a key player in any long lasting arrangement with Israel but also constituted a recognition of the fact that the Islamist group looks a lot better than other militant Palestinian groups in Gaza, such as Islamic Jihad, which has often played the role of an agent provocateur trying to force conflict in an environment in which both Hamas and Israel would have wanted to avoid military confrontation. Even if Hamas does not comprise the moderate Palestinians that Israel and its western backers prefer to deal with, it looks better than the Islamic State which occupies significant chunks of Syria and Iraq.
Israel’s acknowledgement of Hamas as the best of a bad bunch was evident in the substance of the Cairo talks: the building blocks of a future state and a two-state resolution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict −rule by a Palestinian national unity government, open borders, a sea port, extended territorial waters, and an airport −in exchange for military and security arrangements that ensure the security of both Israel and the Palestinians.
Anat Kurz, director of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for national security studies, which has close ties to Israel’s government and security establishment, reflected the changed attitudes in official Israeli thinking: “Israel does not want to destroy Hamas. There’s a shift in the Israeli position (…) Israel wants to leave Hamas enough capability because it is the most organised force in the Gaza Strip,” Kurz told The Guardian. She acknowledged that the labelling of a group as terrorist often served as a way of avoiding negotiations that could involve painful compromises. (Fraser, 2014)
Ironically, Kurz’s articulation of changed Israeli attitudes mirrored statements by Hamas leader Khaled Mishal, including his assessment of Israel’s demand that Hamas first recognize the Jewish state and denounce armed struggle before any potential direct talks.
In a lengthy interview with Al Jazeera, Mishal described the Israeli demands as a tool to evade negotiations, noting that the United States and the Vietcong negotiated an end to the Vietnam War while the fighting continued. “The argument throws the ball into the Palestinian court (…) We will not surrender to Israeli blackmail,” Mishal said. He noted further that a quarter of a century after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat first renounced violence and then recognized Israel Palestinians have yet to secure their rights. (Khaled, 2014)
Hamas mural in the West Bank
More importantly, both in his explicit remarks and in the tone of his interview Mishal made clear that Hamas had signed on to a two-state resolution that would end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.” We accept a state with the 1967 borders but Israel doesn’t. That makes a solution difficult to achieve,” Mishal said referring to the borders before the 1967 Middle East war in which Israel conquered the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.(Khaled, 2014)
Changed Israeli and Hamas attitudes however do not automatically lead to a solution. Nevertheless they are a sine qua non for any longstanding arrangement whether a ceasefire or a final peace agreement. So far neither Israel nor Hamas have demonstrated the political will to build on the change in the way they eye each other. Intractable hostility suited both Israel and Hamas until the last Gaza war.
The change is nonetheless significant. Hamas has clearly stated what it has long been signalling: Israel is there to stay. Mishal has downplayed the Hamas charter that calls for Israel’s destruction, saying that it is “a piece of history and no longer relevant, but cannot be changed for internal reasons.” His number two, Mousa Abu Marzouk, noted that “the charter is not the Quran. It can be amended.” Their statements echo the words of the late Israeli Defence Minister Ezer Weizman, who stood in front of his Likud Party emblem that showed Jordan as part of Israel and said with regard to the charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization that at the time called for Israel’s demise: “We can dream, so can they.”
The changing Israeli and Hamas attitudes reflect the fact that the most recent Israeli destruction of Gazan infrastructure failed to prevent the Islamist group from inflicting significant political and psychological damage on Israel. Hamas’ refusal to bow to Israeli military superiority as well as its uncompromising insistence on a lifting of the eight-year old Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip and the right to furnish it with an airport and sea port caught Israel by surprise. Hamas’ steadfastness left Israel with few good options.
The effects of Hamas’ strategy were evident on the ground. Beyond having been forced into a war of attrition, Israeli towns and settlements adjacent to the Gaza Strip turned a majority of their residents into internal refugees. “This is a strategic achievement on a par with Hamas’ success in closing (Tel Aviv’s) Ben Gurion international airport for a couple of days” during the war, commented DEBKAFile, a news website with close ties to Israel’s military and intelligence establishment. (2014, August 28) In addition, Israel’s international standing was significantly dented highlighted by US and British suggestions that they may review arms sales to the Jewish state more stringently and stepped up calls for sanctions against Israel. An Israeli newspaper headline read: After seven weeks of Gaza war, Hamas: 1, Israel: 0 (Oren, 2014, September 12)
The Israeli-Palestinian conflagration in Gaza constituted a watershed with Israel struggling to counter mounting international criticism of its disproportionate use of force and Palestinians’ increasingly united refusal of agreements that do not take into account their interests. The new Palestinian resolve was rooted in a measure of reconciliation between Hamas and Abbas; Hamas’ transition from an embattled group, unable to pay public sector salaries prior to the Israeli assault, into a resistance movement with street credibility; and in the absence of Arab support in the Gaza war, a realisation that Palestinians will have to rely on their own resources.
Iron Dome system intercepts Gaza rockets aimed at central Israel. Photo source Israel Defense Forces.
Palestinian resolve was further strengthened by the performance of Palestinian fighters on the ground. Palestinian rockets were able to target urban centres deep inside Israel even if they were unable to defeat the Jewish state’s Iron Shield anti-missile system. Moreover, Palestinian fighters several occasions reached Israel through their tunnels killing a significant number of Israeli soldiers on Israeli soil. In addition, international public opinion was turning against Israel as casualties in Gaza mount and the recognition seeped in that Hamas will have to be a party to any lasting ceasefire or credible effort to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Similarly, many Arab governments saw whatever street credibility they had reduced because of their silent endorsement of the Israeli assault on Hamas which they view as an extension of their effort to destroy the Muslim Brotherhood; at the same time Qatar was gaining popularity with its support of Hamas, an offshoot of the Brotherhood.
The newly-found resolve has translated into Palestinians across the board demanding that any lasting ceasefire be linked to their political demands, first and foremost among which a lifting of the seven-year old Egyptian-Israeli blockade of Gaza. The demands were endorsed not only by Hamas but also the Palestine Authority, which, incapable of coming to the aid of the embattled population in Gaza, had been weakened and appeared helpless as Hamas fighters took on the Israelis.
With mass protests in support of Gaza across the West Bank, both Hamas and the Authority needed to be watchful that the demonstrations did not turn against them given that their seven-year old feud has rendered Palestinians ineffective in peace efforts and effectively played into Israel’s divide-and-rule strategy.While some analysts believe that economic progress on the West Bank makes it unlikely that its residents will want to risk their well-being with a third Intifada or popular revolt, both Hamas and the Authority may see a civil disobedience campaign as a way to keep Palestinian anger focussed on Israel.
Gaza may have aligned the interests of Hamas and the Authority and this was reflected in the little-noticed Palestinian demand that Israel recognise the reconciliation between the two groups as part of any lasting ceasefire. Israel had denounced a reconciliation agreement that earlier this year created the basis for the formation of a national unity government backed by both Hamas and Al Fatah, the backbone of Mr. Abbas’ Palestine Authority. The primary motive of Israeli assault on Gaza is widely believed to have been the undermining of the reconciliation. That effort has clearly backfired and, if anything, strengthened the basis for a greater degree of Palestinian unity. “Hamas is no longer a terror group carrying out attacks, it’s a mini-army in a mini-state,” said Amir Oren, a columnist for Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz(2014, August 31).
The turning of international public opinion against Israel; the private, if not public, dismay in Western capitals at the heavy handedness of the Israelis in Gaza; Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s potentially politically damaging post mortem of the war; as well as the strengthened Palestinian resolve; all had the makings of a paradigm shift in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. How the shift plays out will depend on whether the war in Gaza sparks a third Intifada as well as on developments in Israel, including the fallout of the post- mortem and the impact in Israel of the loss of significant empathy in international public opinion as well as among its most important allies, the United States and Europe.
In a bid to manage a unilateral Israeli end to the fighting in Gaza, Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have already embarked on their ‘victory campaign’ claiming significant damage to thousands of alleged terror targets; the destruction of dozens of tunnels; a strengthening of ties with Arab states such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia; and a warning that if Hamas continues to attack Israel Palestinians will pay an intolerable price. This narrative could be easily punctured by a Palestinian attack with the guns having fallen silent. As Ha’aretz columnist Yossi Verter warned:
The dangers facing (Netanyahu) are immeasurable: if the rocket fire on the south continues even after IDF (Israel Defence Forces) forces withdraw from the (Gaza) Strip, he is likely to be held responsible for national humiliation, which would cause him to lose support from within his coalition, his party, and ultimately, the Prime Minister’s Office as well. (2014)
Post-ceasefire talks have bought Netanyahu time but would only eliminate the threat if agreement is reached on Palestinian demands.
Whether the fall-out of the Gaza war ultimately leads to an Israeli government more inclined to make the painful concessions necessary for an Israeli-Palestinian peace − or one that is even more intransigent and hard line than the one Netanyahu heads. Whichever way, it would together with the newly-found Palestinian resolve, constitute a paradigm shift.
The fall-out is also likely to impact Israeli military and intelligence strategies and focus. Israeli military and intelligence sources attributed their failure to predict Hamas’ ability to stand up to punishing military strikes to a decision in the last decade to focus the country’s intelligence resources on gathering tactical intelligence and its military on ensuring weapons and training superiority rather than on understanding the enemy’s strategy, mindset and evaluation of the local and international environment in which it operates. As a result, Israeli intelligence and security agencies had cut back on personnel seeking to understand the broader picture in which Hamas and other groups operate.1
Proponents of the shift in focus pointed to Israeli successes in recent years including the 2008 assassination in Damascus of Imad Mughnieyh, a widely respected Hezbollah and Iranian operative, who masterminded attacks on Israeli and US targets as well as a host of kidnappings of foreigners in Lebanon, including the CIA’s station chief. They also listed the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists in Iran and elsewhere, the Stuxnet cyber-attack on Iranian computer systems related to the Islamic republic’s nuclear program, and the 2007 destruction of a Syrian plutonium reactor built with the help of Iran and North Korea. They further argued that Israeli forces involved in Gaza benefitted from superior tactical knowledge.
Those successes notwithstanding Israeli intelligence was unable to provide Netanyahu and members of his security cabinet with the necessary strategic analysis to pre-empt what had become a classic example of Machiavelli’s pursuit by Hamas of diplomacy by other means. Israeli intelligence’s inability was already evident in faulty analysis of the popular Arab revolts that toppled the leaders of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen as well as of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s strategy of allowing the Islamic State, the jihadist group that controls a swath of Syria and Iraq, to emerge as the major rebel group so that he could substantiate his claim that he was fighting a terrorist phenomenon that threatens not only his regime but also the region as a whole and the West.
While Israel and Hamas were negotiating the 2014 ceasefire, says DEBKAFile (2014), the intelligence failure left, as
The initiative in Hamas’ hands and Israel ignorantly navigating its military moves towards a ceasefire instead of winning the war. Despite its inferiority in fighting strength and weaponry, Israel’s enemy uses this ambivalence to retain the element of surprise and keep the IDF moving without direction.
It has also made Netanyahu more vulnerable to criticism that Israel would be unable to militarily defeat Hamas in a war of attrition that takes an increasing toll on Israel’s population and limited his freedom to manoeuvre in the post-ceasefire negotiation with the Palestinians. As a result, some of the prime minister’s critics, including former defence minister Moshe Arens, appeared willing to concede to some of Hamas’ demands in the absence of Israel’s ability to wage a military campaign aimed at complete disarmament of Hamas on condition that the government prepared for another round of fighting which they view as inevitable at some point in the future (Arens, 2014).
Criticism in Israel focuses on the military’s politically mandated strategy and its failure in recent years to reorganize and review its doctrine and strategy in a world in which Israel is more likely to confront unconventional rather than conventional forces. Israel’s last four wars were against the Hezbollah, and Hamas rather than conventional Arab armies.
Said Amos Harel, one of Israel’s most respected military commentators stated:
These phenomena show that the IDF, especially the ground forces, needs to think hard and plan anew. Israel’s technically advanced forces found an enemy playing in a different field, thus eroding its advantages. The Israel Air Force, with the assistance of MI (military intelligence) and the Shin Bet (Israel’s internal security service), can strike its targets with great precision. But against Hamas or Hezbollah, this may not be enough to win decisively… If the IDF wants to preserve its ability to win using manoeuvres, quite extensive changes must be considered.2 (Harel, 2014)
The debate about the Israeli military came against the backdrop of its changed demography. Israel’s military today is not what it was in the late 1980s when it told then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin during the first Intifada or Palestinian popular uprising against Israeli occupation: “We can solve this militarily but not on terms that would be politically or morally acceptable to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) or the government (…) you, Mr. Prime Minister have to solve it politically.” A few years later Rabin engaged in the failed Oslo peace process with Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Nor is the Israeli government similar to that of Rabin. Netanyahu’s government in the first week of the assault on Gaza turned down a proposal to conduct lightning strikes inside Gaza that would have destroyed Hamas’ command and control centres and other military infrastructure. It also refused to entertain a proposal for a full re-occupation of the Gaza Strip. Debkafile suggested that had Israel opted for lightning strikes “at an early stage in the conflict, instead of ten days of air strikes, it might have saved heavy Palestinian losses and property devastation, the extent of which troubles most Israelis too.” (DEBKAFile, 2014, August 6).
Israel’s liberal Ha’aretz newspaper added in an editorial: When you’re too heavy, big or bloated, it’s hard to move, run or even bend down. Your arm is so fat it can’t reach into a tunnel. It gets stuck and you stand there helplessly. That’s precisely the situation with the Israel Defence Forces. It’s a King Kong of an army — big and cumbersome; every move unintentionally knocks down a house, bridge or UN school in Gaza… The top brass has forgotten that line in the Book of Proverbs: ‘with wise advice thou shalt make thy war.’ (Shtrasler, 2014).
With analysts predicting increased differences between the military and Israel’s political leadership in the wake of the Gaza war, both entities are coping with very different political and demographic constituencies. Israel’s right-wing has moved further to the right forcing Netanyahu to fend off pressure from coalition partners like Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman whose Yisrael Beytenu (Israel is our Home) Party ended its alliance with the prime minister’s Likud early in the war, and economy minister Naftali Bennett’s Habait Hayehudi (The Jewish Home) Party that both advocated reoccupation.
Similarly, religious and conservative forces have become more prominent in the Israeli military. The commander of Israel’s elite infantry Givati Brigade Col. Ofer Winter, that suffered high casualties in the last month, declared holy war on the Palestinians in a message to his troops at the beginning of the Gaza war that went on to say: “The Lord God of Israel, make our way successful (…) We’re going to war for your people Israel against an enemy that defames you.” (Misgrav, 2014).
Reorganizing the military and revamping its doctrine and strategy is no mean task. It involves a debate that by definition will have to also include Israel’s broader policies towards the Palestinians at a time that popular anti- Arab and anti-Palestinian sentiment is running high.
Source:
This article was published in RETOS Internacionales, published by Tecnológico de Monterrey, page 35, and provided by the author.
References:
Arens, M. (2014, August 25). A war of attrition is not an option in Gaza. Haaretz. Retrieved from http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.612178
DEBKAFile. (2014, August 6). Iran, Al Qaeda took note of curbs on IDF vanquishing Hamas, which now has core of a Palestinian army. DEBKAFile. Retrieved from: http://www.debka.com/article/24166/Iran-Al-Qaeda-took-note-of-curbs-on-IDF- vanquishing-Hamas-which-now-has-core-of-a-Palestinian-army-
DEBKAFile. (2014, August 28). Though militarily inferior, Hamas has hit Israel strategically with attrition and population flight. DEBKAFile. Retrieved from: http:// www.debka.com/article/24215/Though-militarily-inferior-Hamas-has-hit-Israel- strategically-with-attrition-and-population-flight
Fraser, G. (2014, August 15). Sometimes it’s good to talk – even to ‘terrorists’. The Guardian. Retrieved from: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2014/ aug/15/good-to-talk-terrorists
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Khaled, M. (2014, August 17). Not a war of choice. [Video]. Al Jazeera. Retrieved from:http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/2014/08/khaled-meshaal- not-war-choice-201481516939516479.html
Misgav, U. (2014, August 15). Israel should get God out of the army. Haaretz. Retrieved from: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.609495
Oren, A. (2014, August 31). Israel’s defense establishment recommends easing Gaza restrictions. Haaretz. Retrieved from: http://www.haaretz.com/news/ diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.613239
Oren, A. (2014, September 12). After seven weeks of Gaza war, Hamas 1, Israel 0. Haaretz. Retrieved from: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel- gaza-conflict-2014/.premium-1.612437
Shtrasler, N. (2014, August 5). The IDF has put its brain in storage – or lent it to Hamas. Haaretz. Retrieved from: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.608859
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