Ravi Agrawal
There is perhaps no other person alive who has Ehud Barak’s range of experience for what war in Gaza looks like—and how Israel’s wartime decisions get scrutinized by the media. Barak led the army when Israel first pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 1994 after the Oslo Accord negotiations. In 2000, during the Second Intifada, a major Palestinian uprising, Barak held the dual roles of defense minister and prime minister. And then in a later stint as defense minister at the end of 2008, Barak led what was called Operation Cast Lead—a three-week conflict with Palestinian paramilitary groups that has been Israel’s largest ground operation in Gaza to date.
I spoke with Barak on FP Live, the magazine’s forum for live journalism. Barak is Israel’s most-decorated soldier and remains in close contact with Israel’s top military officers. We discussed whether it was possible to eliminate Hamas, how Israel was weighing a fall in U.S. and global support for its actions, and how prepared it was for a wider war. Barak has not been afraid to criticize his former colleague, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but he believes it will be a few weeks before anger against Israel’s leader reaches a tipping point.
Subscribers can watch the full interview on the video box atop this page. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.
Ravi Agrawal: Israel says it’s begun a new phase of the war. It won’t call it a ground invasion, but it certainly looks like one. How do you see it?
Ehud Barak: Our objective is to limit the military and government capabilities of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. This could not be accomplished by airstrikes alone. We have to deploy probably many thousands of boots on the ground.
The operation in Gaza is being executed under four constraints. The first of these is the hostages. The second is the risk that the conflict will spread to Hezbollah in Lebanon, probably to some dormant cells of al Qaeda or some other organization in the West Bank, and even Shiite militias in Syria or Iraq, backed by Iran. A third constraint is international law, which we are committed to. We know from experience that our universal support will erode very quickly and the legitimacy of the whole operation will be under question. Lastly, even if we accomplish our goal of removing Hamas’s physical infrastructure and governing capabilities in the Gaza Strip, we do not intend to stay there for the next 10 or 20 years, so who takes the torch from us?
RA: Let me ask you about the question of international law, then. The situation in Gaza is dire. Many thousands have died, and many of them are innocent civilians. Why can’t Israel fight Hamas without killing so many Palestinian civilians? Can you explain that?
EB: We are committed to international law and trying our best to minimize collateral damage and the killing of innocent people. Hamas is responsible for both the slaughtering of Israelis on Oct. 7 and for any risk to human life of Gazans, because we are warning them according to international law. About 750,000 Gaza residents already moved to the south part of the Gaza Strip, where we promised not to attack them. Approximately 300,000 still remain in northern Gaza. They want to leave, but they are not allowed to leave. They are being held at gunpoint by Hamas, who have forced them to stay in order to use them as human shields. The main command center of Hamas in the Gaza Strip is underneath the biggest hospital in Gaza, known as the Al Shifa Hospital. They are responsible on both sides of this equation. We cannot give impunity to these ISIS-like barbaric murderers just because they use their own people in order to protect themselves.
RA: You’ve said elsewhere that while you support a ground invasion, you admit that Hamas’s ideology can’t be eradicated. If Hamas and its ideology can’t be eradicated, what is the point of what Israel is trying to do in Gaza right now?
EB: Think of what any free democracy would do. If a group of terrorists were to come into America from over one of its borders and kill the equivalent of 1,400 people within 24 hours, which is close to 60,000 Americans, the United States would do whatever it takes. They would not ask questions about proportionality or anything else. We are doing our best and going about this cautiously.
We are dealing with a barbaric massacre carried out by people who belong to a political movement. The movement will remain, but each and every one of the people who perpetrated these attacks are targets. The infrastructure of the rockets, the munitions depot, the training sites, the offices, the communication centers are all targets we will destroy. This will make it impossible for Hamas to run the Gaza Strip, which leaves the question of who to pass control to.
RA: Let me push you there. You used the phrase “whatever it takes.” That’s not just a hypothetical for the United States. After 9/11, America took dramatic steps around the world, including fighting two wars, to ensure that it was able to keep itself safe. But the war on terror had dramatic impacts on America’s standing in the world. It is my understanding that several American diplomats have spoken to the Israeli government in recent weeks and warned them of some of America’s mistakes after 9/11. Given those mistakes, do you think that Israel is considering that history and internalizing what it means to retaliate in the way you’re describing?
EB: It’s not a secret that the United States made a lot of mistakes after 9/11. We are trying to learn from them both on the strategic level and on the tactical level.
But the massacre on Oct. 7 touches on the very basic commitment of a government to its citizens. Before the right of equal opportunity, there is the right of a citizen to be physically protected in his or her bedroom by the government, and we failed to deliver it. This was a failure of the Israeli government, army, and intelligence service at every level, but we still have to make sure that it will never happen again. That cannot be accomplished by television interviews or by diving into history books. It requires action, and this is the action we chose to do at this time.
RA: Can you share insights into how Israel’s military is thinking about destroying Hamas’s capabilities? What does that entail? Is it even possible?
EB: The overall contours are that Hamas probably has another 10,000 rockets and probably 200 miles of tunnels under Gaza, and they have probably 25,000 to 30,000 fighters between Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. We should bring probably 50,000 or more troops in order to make sure that we win. Israel has superior armed forces, better trained, and highly motivated after the pictures they were shown several weeks ago and determined to destroy Hamas. They will be destroyed step by step, hopefully with a minimum amount of innocent civilians being held at gunpoint by Hamas. It will cost us toil, sweat, tears, and blood, but it will be completed. Hamas cannot represent an existential threat to the state of Israel.
Even if it develops into a full-scale regional conflict with Hezbollah, which has 10 times more rockets and missiles, or if the West Bank or Golan Heights are involved, Israel is still stronger. It’s not an existential threat, but it will take more time, more losses, and more friction with our supporters in the world.
RA: The details on how Israel can destroy Hamas’s capabilities still seem fuzzy. But even assuming that’s possible, is there a plan for what happens to Gaza the day after?
EB: I’m confident that our war cabinet and the Americans and probably some other capitals in the region are in contact about what to do.
It’s probably possible right now to have a multinational force, if not led by Egypt, then by some international force, backed by the Arab League and a U.N. Security Council resolution, to help bring back the Palestinian Authority to Gaza and help them financially develop what they need, in terms of power, water, and make it a normal place.
RA: Much has been said about how successive governments led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu neglected the security of the southern communities, while bolstering Hamas. Many critics will argue that Israel helped Hamas partly to weaken the Palestinian Authority. How do you reflect back at those policies over the last decade or so under Netanyahu?
EB: One of Netanyahu’s extreme-right ministers explicitly said that Hamas is an asset and the Palestinian Authority is a liability—rather than the other way around. Netanyahu pushed this policy for at least the last five years. He basically decided that in order to effectively block any possibility of moving toward a two-state solution, which he hates for some reason, we have to strengthen Hamas and weaken the Palestinian Authority. He was yielding to Hamas’s demands and keeping them alive and kicking and paying them protection money through the Qataris. That was a very bad policy that many of us, including myself, explicitly attacked and described as a grand negligence of our interests.
RA: So, Netanyahu saw Hamas as an asset but now wants to eradicate them. He has presided over what is clearly the worst security blunder in Israeli history. Should he step down?
EB: I’m not sure that this is the right moment or the appropriate arena to discuss it in detail. In any normal country, he would have resigned on the morning of Oct. 8. In the United Kingdom, if he would not have done it, his ministers would have invited him to a lunch in some club, and at the end of the lunch he would have announced his decision to resign. Israel is not fully normal in this regard after too many years of his control.
In polls run in the last two weeks, 80 percent of the public see Netanyahu as the main person responsible for this unprecedented blunder in the history of the country. Seventy percent of the people expect him to resign. A little less than half of them expect him to resign immediately. And a little bit more than half expect him to resign at the end of the war. But in Israel, war is mentally connected to a very short time span. The Six-Day War was one week, the 1973 war—the toughest war we had in 75 years—took 20 days. Another clash with Hamas from five years ago took less than two months.
Benny Gantz, one of two opposition leaders and the former chief of staff, was added to the war cabinet and said it’s going to take many months, probably a year or more. If it spreads to the north, it will take a year or years. It’s a very long haul, and Netanyahu has lost the trust of the public. The mechanics are not simple to translate into political facts, but I predict that it will happen. In the coming weeks or two months at most, there will be a huge wave of rage. Even now, Netanyahu cannot go easily into a hospital to shake hands with the wounded or meet with the families of those who were slaughtered in this event and be accepted.
RA: You mentioned that President Joe Biden was very supportive of Israel, but in recent days, there has been a shift in tone. America is very concerned about the growing civilian casualties in Gaza. It is very concerned about Israel’s approach. I’m wondering whether you and other Israelis worry about a loss of support from the United States, and also about a loss of soft power around the world. How concerned should Israel be about the mood around the world?
EB: I’ve known President Biden for 40 years now. He’s probably the greatest friend of Israel in the last generation who has sat in the White House, and he immediately responded with whatever he could in order to deter Hezbollah and send a signal to Iran. We highly appreciated everything he sent. Even his speeches were so moving to Israelis who are not used to hearing emotional expressions of empathy from their own leaders, let alone others.
From day one, behind closed doors, I have no doubt that Biden and [Secretary of State Antony] Blinken or [National Security Advisor] Jake Sullivan are telling Israel they will back them, but expect Israel to bear in mind that within a relatively short time, probably within a few months, they will have to shape the day after. America is leading the free world and is committed to today’s international law and expects Israel to be committed.
We know that within a week or two we will probably lose the support of public opinion in many parts of the free world, and within another two or three weeks we might lose support of many of the governments in the free world. I think that America will still be with us, but it will be more and more complicated for them to stay behind us.
What the Americans are focused on is the need to arrange something with Gaza’s neighbors, which is not easy. I’ve watched the eruption of demonstrations in both Cairo and Amman after the fake news that Israel bombed a hospital. If we and the Americans need them to suppress these heavy eruptions of sentiments in their own backyards for months to come, they have to know, at least in private channels, that Israel is ready to consider things that it was not ready to consider in the past. For example, how to discuss the political process toward two states, because otherwise they cannot justify for their own people why the hell they support Israel or sit idle. It’s very sensitive.
It’s very complicated even within our government. I’m confident the only viable vision for the future of Israel is a two-state solution. But the government in Israel thinks differently. They want to do whatever they can to block the option of a two-state solution. They are an extremist, right-wing, racist, messianic party.
On the other hand, the United States cannot intervene in the political processes in Israel. It should emerge from within. It’s not easy. We now have to focus on the fighting. All the leaders of the armed forces and secret services admit that they are responsible for the biggest failure of their services. But they are focusing on fighting. Netanyahu was never able to admit that he is responsible in any way for what happened in the country, and as a result of it, the loss of trust in Netanyahu is deepened. But this doesn’t hit the soldiers on the ground. They are fighting and united.
RA: Given all your criticisms of Netanyahu—not only in terms of the intelligence failure but also clearly the failures of politics and the failures of diplomacy—can he actually accomplish the things you’re describing Israel needs to accomplish in the next few weeks?
EB: The act of adding the opposition leaders, which included two highly respected generals, both of them now politicians but in the last decade, they commanded the armed forces and one of them was even minister of defense. They are highly respected for being sober, cool-headed, and dealing with the issues on the table, not with political manipulation or personal interests. They made most of us, including myself, much quieter about the responsibility these decisions require. Beyond that, we have a very capable supreme command and intelligence service that failed dramatically on Oct. 7, but the public still trusts them to be able to lead.
Hypothetically speaking, the public would trust a government led by anyone else—by [Defense Minister Yoav] Gallant, Gantz, [legislator Yuli] Edelstein, or [opposition leader Yair] Lapid. But that’s not the reality. If we want it to change, we have to find enough public and political support to change it through the processes and practices of a living democracy. Netanyahu’s attempt to turn Israel into an illiberal democracy or a de facto dictatorship failed. We are still a democracy, and only democratic processes can lead to a change of command at the political level.
RA: Do you think Hezbollah might get more involved than it currently is? Is Israel taking enough measures to prevent that?
EB: Within 48 hours, we ordered the mobilization of 350,000 reservist soldiers beyond the regular standing army in order to have enough both in the south and in the north and be ready for the case that fighting is required on both fronts. It might be longer, more grave, more painful, but there is no existential threat to Israel. Israel will win, even if the war spreads.
We have no interest to open a second front, and I would not recommend it to Hezbollah, either, because of the damage that might be inflicted upon them, but it’s beyond our control. The Iranians, in spite of the American signals, could prod them to join, especially if we are struck with heavy losses. It’s possible that some people within Hezbollah think it is the right moment. Even if both Israel and Hezbollah are not interested in letting this develop into a full-blown war, it might cascade. In recent weeks there has been a deteriorating situation along the northern front with each side going deeper into the other side’s territory. It can easily deteriorate into a full-scale war.
RA: Can the Abraham Accords—Israel’s peace accord with countries like the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain—survive this current conflict?
EB: I hope it can survive. The faster we reach our objective and the lower number of civilians killed, the higher probability that it will survive.
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