The “day of battle,” as the Israel Defense Forces described it, when 124 rockets were fired at the Gaza border communities last week and were largely greeted with a governmental and public shrug, illustrated yet again the stagnant thinking that has overtaken successive Israeli governments, the security establishment and most of the defense analysts. While there is broad agreement that “the situation cannot continue this way” – even though it has been continuing this way for nearly 20 years – two options are always presented.
The first is that the only answer is to , oust Hamas and Islamic Jihad from power and destroy their weaponry, and then… Who knows? Either Israel will have to control Gaza or else the weak and crumbling Palestinian Authority will take over. The second option essentially amounts to being ready to accept “the situation,” which means more of the same: a lull of several weeks or months, broken by and then a moderate or harsh response from the air force.
The “day of battle” erupted after Islamic Jihad initiated rocket fire without Hamas making any effort to prevent it. The rockets were fired following the death of the hunger-striking Khader Adnan, seen as a leader of Islamic Jihad, in an Israeli prison. Although Israel classifies security prisoners as terrorists, in reality it grants them a certain autonomy in prison and has also shown some flexibility toward them in the past.
In Adnan’s case, the defense establishment appeared to be motivated purely by belligerence. From its viewpoint, every tactical incident becomes a fateful issue. This attitude attests to a fixed mindset that prevents the system from seeing a broader picture. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world had the Shin Bet security service and the IDF allowed Adnan to be released in order to save his life. The rocket fire on Israel’s south could have been averted, too.
But it’s still not too late to discuss the third option, which no one dares utter aloud: to attempt to hold negotiations with Hamas.
During the Gaza war in the summer of 2014, indirect negotiations took place between Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the Israeli government, with the mediation of Egyptian intelligence. Understandings were reached and four principles were set: a cease-fire and calm for five years; economic rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip that was supposed to include construction of a seaport under international supervision, construction of an electric power station, water desalination plants, and more; a deal to return the bodies of two Israeli soldiers held in Gaza in exchange for the release of a certain number of terrorists (This was before two Israeli civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham Al-Sayed, crossed the border into Gaza of their own accord); and the demilitarization of Gaza.
These contacts had another, more secret dimension. Former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo and then-Military Intelligence chief Aviv Kochavi secretly flew to Jeddah, where they met with Bandar bin Sultan, the head of Saudi intelligence. The aim of the talks that took place with the approval of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to obtain a broader political accord with the Palestinian Authority, which would also have ushered in full diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and most of the Arab countries. Netanyahu, as usual, got cold feet at the last minute and halted the talks with the Saudis. A rare opportunity for a peace agreement was missed.
The talks with Hamas also reached a dead end, and for almost nine years there have been repeated rounds of fighting between Israel and Gaza. There is no chance that Gaza will be demilitarized. Hamas will never agree to that.
But it is still possible to try to reach understandings on the rest of the principles from 2014. Israel needs to muster the courage to renew negotiations with Hamas. Israel can call Hamas a terrorist organization another million times, but it won’t change the fact that it is also the political and military entity that runs the 400 square kilometers of the Gaza Strip. It is a government no matter how you look at it.
Admittedly, this will not be a popular proposal, because Israel will have to pay a price for such an accord. The Israeli right-wing will label it as feeble policy and surrendering to terrorism. The Palestinian Authority, which according to the 1994 Oslo Accords is supposed to be the sole interlocutor with Israel, will be very angry. But the PA is slowly dying, in no small part due to Israeli policy, and on this matter there is no real difference between Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.
We also need clarity about the government’s position on a prisoner swap deal. If the goal is to carry out the deal as part of a broader accord with Gaza whose main conditions are a long-term cease-fire in return for rehabilitation of Gaza, Israel will have to agree to release terrorists. Hamas can be expected to insist on the release of hundreds of terrorists before it would agree to such an accord. If Israel is not prepared to release terrorists, the prisoner swap will have to be excluded from the accord (even if this infuriates the families of the fallen soldiers and the abducted civilians).
This kind of accord certainly does not have an easy cost, but the perpetuation of the present situation also has a cost, which is repeatedly being paid by the residents of Israel’s south. Without an agreement, these Israelis will continue to feel like second-class citizens whom their government doesn’t care about and who are essentially hostages of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. We will only see more cycles of Israel responding rather than taking the initiative, and especially of Israel showing that is unable to think outside the box.