Hamas Attacks Are the Beginning of the End for Netanyahu
His strong suit was security. He ended up presiding over a disastrous failure.
By William A. Galston Oct. 10, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a confident address to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 22. The skeptics were wrong, he said; Israel reached the Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco without a peace agreement with the Palestinians. These accords herald “the dawn of a new age of peace” in the Middle East, which will be capped by an accord between Israel and Saudi Arabia. When this happens—Mr. Netanyahu said “when,” not “if”—the Palestinians will be “more likely to abandon the fantasy of destroying Israel and finally embrace a path of genuine peace with it.”
Fifteen days later, Hamas mounted a surprise terror attack that killed at least 1,000 Israelis, mostly civilians, and wounded at least 3,400 more. The Saudis could have responded with a forthright denunciation of these murders, committed by an organization whose ideology places it squarely in the camp of Saudi Arabia’s enemies. Instead, the kingdom’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement noting its “repeated warnings of the dangers of the explosion of the situation as a result of the continued occupation, and deprivation of the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights, and the repetition of systematic provocations against its sanctities.” The Saudi message to Mr. Netanyahu: Do not imagine that we are free to set aside the Palestinian issue on the path to normal relations.
Yet whatever this may mean for Palestinians on the West Bank, Hamas is a different matter. There can be no peace between Israel and Hamas, because Hamas from its beginning to now has been sworn to Israel’s destruction.
Don’t take my word for it—read the organization’s statement of “General Principles and Policies,” issued in 2017. Palestine, the document says, extends from “the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west.” It is an “integral”—that is, indivisible—territorial unit. More, it is a “sacred land” at the heart of the Arab and Islamic community and enjoys a “special status.”
Hamas says that the “Zionist project,” which is “racist, aggressive, colonial, and expansionist,” is wholly illegitimate, as are the Balfour Declaration, the British Mandate, and the U.N. Palestine Partition resolution. The establishment of Israel is “entirely illegal.” The document continues: “Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded” and that there must be “no recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity.”
Hamas insists that its quarrel is with Zionists, not with the Jews and their religion. Its founding charter, issued in 1988, undermines this claim. Article 7 of this document quotes a saying of the prophet Muhammad: “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ‘Oh Muslims, Oh Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’ ”
How do you deal with an implacable enemy sworn to your political and physical destruction? Israel has long relied on deterrence and defense; both have failed. It now faces a new situation. The initial response has been massive airstrikes plus a total blockade of Gaza. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced that “there will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed.”
This is just the beginning. I believe Mr. Netanyahu has decided on an all-out land invasion of Gaza and that, faced with these circumstances, any Israeli leader would do the same. In a briefing Monday, retired Israeli Maj. Gen. Noam Tibon, a widely respected counterterrorism expert and vigorous supporter of a two-state solution, said, “We must push the war as much as possible into Gaza.” He insisted that “Hamas has to pay” and that Israel has no choice other than to win a “decisive victory.” He acknowledged that this invasion will be brutal and ugly and could lead to the execution of the hostages Hamas has seized but suggested that these dreadful consequences shouldn’t prevent the operation.
Now is not the time for recriminations, but they will come. After the operation in Gaza ends, there likely will be a commission of inquiry, as there was after the Yom Kippur War half a century ago. It is too soon to know what the inquiry will reveal, but reports, which the government has denied, suggest that it ignored repeated warnings from Egypt. Aharon Ze’evi Farkash, an Israel Defense Forces former head of intelligence, has charged that the government diverted troops from the defense of Israeli towns near Gaza to operations in the West Bank. There clearly was a massive intelligence failure, and the IDF’s response to the invasion was painfully slow.
Wars change nations. Throughout his career, Mr. Netanyahu has portrayed himself as the leader best able to ensure Israel’s security. The events of the past few days have undermined this claim. I suspect that his political career will end soon after the war does, setting the stage for profound changes in Israeli politics.
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