Israel wrong in banking on military solution

Manoj Joshi

Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation

THE current events in West Asia are a bonfire of vanities — of the Israelis who convinced themselves that they had effectively contained Hamas in Gaza, of the Americans who believed that normalising ties of Israel with various Arab states without dealing with the Palestinian issue was a viable proposition, and of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whose cynical, self-serving politics ended up seriously weakening Israel and probably played a role in the Hamas gamble.

The Hamas terror attack on Israel is now accepted to have been the worst in the history of the Jewish state since it was founded in 1948; the issue now is of Israeli retaliation. Israel has cut off water, electricity and food supplies to the Gaza Strip and is carrying out a relentless bombardment, levelling certain districts as a prelude to a land invasion. Just how the Israelis will ‘de-Hamas’ the Gaza Strip is not clear, considering that Israel’s counter-terrorism strategy has gone up in smoke and it finds itself in an entirely new situation. As even its friends are suggesting, Israel needs to carefully think through its options and not let the emotions of the day carry it away.

In a similar situation, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks by Al-Qaeda, the United States declared a Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). A quarter of a century later, the accounting will show that America’s ‘war of necessity’ in Afghanistan and ‘war of choice’ in Iraq ended disastrously for the US, and tragically for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. Not that the Israeli leadership seems to care. Its tough-talking Generals say that after they have laid waste to Gaza, they will cut off all links with it. But it will still be an enclave of two million vengeful people living right next to Israel, even if separated by a new demilitarised zone.

Established on the basis of a United Nations resolution, Israel has had to contend with the anger of people whom it forcibly evicted from their land. Over the decades, it has relied on its military prowess and fabled intelligence services to defeat or pre-empt threats. As part of its security drill, it also expanded its territory in 1967 by occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, peopled largely by Palestinian refugees displaced by the creation of Israel. Forcible dispossession of the Palestinians from their land, which remains ongoing, has been very much part of the Israeli toolkit, just as terrorism has been part of the Palestinian response.

Facing threats to its borders, Israel had established a formidable intelligence network of informants and agents all through Palestinian territories, the Arab world and even Iran. It had also constructed a high-tech barrier around Gaza. But this attack inside Israel suggests that its efforts were found wanting.

Within two years of Israel ending its 38-year-long occupation of Gaza in 2005, Hamas gained control of the 45-km-long sliver of Palestinian territory wedged between Israel, Egypt and the sea. Since then, Israel has launched air and/or ground assaults on Gaza on four occasions. The first time was in 2008 when the three-week war resulted in the loss of 1,000 Palestinian lives and 13 Israelis. In November 2012, the Israelis launched an eight-day campaign in the Gaza Strip. The 2014 incursion that lasted six weeks led to another air-ground offensive, leaving several Israelis and 2,000 Palestinians dead. In 2021, an 11-day conflict broke out as Hamas launched rockets at cities and towns of Israel, and Israel pounded Gaza with artillery fire and air attacks. At least 13 Israelis and 250 Palestinians were killed. A full accounting for the latest round of fighting between Hamas and the Israelis has not yet been made. But the casualties could well reach tens of thousands this time.

There is a clear pattern here of violence being responded to by violence. Given the sheer scale of casualties that Israel has suffered earlier this month, and the existence of hostages in the hands of Hamas, Israel wants an act of revenge that will deter the Palestinians. But this has been done in the past as well. By now, Israelis should have realised that force alone will not suffice to deal with the issue.

To remove or reduce the influence of Hamas in Gaza, both military and political solutions are required. First, they need to ensure that their retaliatory actions are targeted at Hamas alone. Large-scale deaths and suffering of Palestinian civilians will only feed the cycle of violence. Israel has the right to defend itself, but holding people under siege, depriving them of basic necessities and conducting what amounts to collective punishment is a serious violation of international law. There is nothing in the current Israeli bombing campaign that suggests that it is using discriminate violence. By its accounting, Hamas is using hapless people of Gaza as a shield. The US and other Western countries must insist that Israel follow the laws of war; if not, they will reinforce the opinion in the Global South that international law is something they support when convenient and junk when it is not.

The Israelis and their main backer, the US, need to understand that West Asia of today is no longer what it was in the heyday of US hegemony. Israel’s long-term security requires it to reach out to countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and even possibly Iran, and get back onto the path of political settlement.

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