Hamas, Israel, and the Challenges Ahead
By Daniel Kurtzer - October 15
As
Israel responds to the savagery of Hamas’ invasion of Israel on Oct. 7,
attention needs to turn to the challenges ahead. Most immediately,
Israel is focused on two priority goals: ensuring that all the Hamas
terrorists who entered Israel have been killed or captured; and sealing
the points of entry that Hamas exploited in its attack, including
tunnels, breaches in the security fence, and utilization of balloons,
hang-gliders and the like.
As difficult as these tasks will be,
the security problems lying ahead and Israel’s priority of finding the
hostages taken by Hamas and returning them to Israel will be even more
challenging.
Four scenarios
At
least four escalation scenarios need to be considered. East Jerusalem
has been simmering in recent months, and violence there could escalate
at any moment. Israeli settler violations of the “status quo” on the
Haram al Sharif or Temple Mount, stimulated by extremist members of the
Israeli government, have enraged Palestinians. The Israeli government
needs to clamp down on actions that violate the status quo; Palestinians
need to ensure respect for the holy site by not bringing in weapons or
engaging in violent actions against Jewish worshippers at the Western
Wall. As we saw in 2021, tensions in Jerusalem fuel conflict.
The
West Bank has also witnessed an increase in violence, from both
Palestinians and Israeli settlers. Several Palestinian terrorist groups
have begun operating in the northern West Bank cities of Jenin and
Nablus, outside the purview or control of the Palestinian Authority.
So-called lone wolf terrorists, who act alone out of a variety of
motives, have attacked and killed Israelis in recent months.
On
the other side, extremist Israeli settlers have gotten out of control,
rampaging through Palestinian towns. The settlers have been protected —
perhaps even encouraged — by extremist Israeli ministers. They have also
taken provocative steps of their own, for example, celebrating the
Sukkot holiday on the main street of Huwara, a Palestinian town that has
been the site of violence and counter-violence. Israel and the
Palestinian Authority must work together to calm the situation.
A
third arena of possible escalation is Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah
is a far more capable and thus far more dangerous terrorist movement
than Hamas. Supplied by Iran, trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Corps, and battle-hardened as a result of its involvement on the ground
in support of Syria during the civil war, Hezbollah poses an extremely
dangerous threat to Israel.
Israel has been preparing for the
possibility that Hezbollah might launch the kind of combined arms
operation that Hamas undertook in Gaza. There are two constraints on
Hezbollah decision-making: First, the movement remembers that the war it
launched in 2006 by kidnapping Israeli soldiers ended very badly for
Hezbollah and Lebanon, leading its leader, Hassan Nasrallah to admit
that he would not have started the war if he knew how it would end.
Second,
Lebanon is in dire economic straits now, and a war with Israel will
sink the country into even further distress. Hezbollah would be held
responsible and presumably accountable for causing this to happen. So
far, there have been several skirmishes along the border, but no
organized Hezbollah activity. But Israel is on edge, and thus any
skirmish could escalate quickly.
The most significant potential
threat of escalation involves Iran. While it is well-known that Iran
trained, armed and equipped much of Hamas, it is not clear whether Iran
had a hand in deciding on the operation. If Iran’s direct complicity
becomes proven, the Gaza war could widen. Assessing this possibility,
the United States has deployed two aircraft carrier strike groups to the
region, to deter both Hezbollah and Iran, but also to be available if a
wider war breaks out.
Hezbollah and Iran should know that the
United States will not stand aside if war broke out as a result of
Iran’s proven role in stimulating Hamas’s operation and its ongoing role
as the most significant state sponsor of terrorism.
Looking ahead
Hamas’s
terror operation last Saturday was much more than terrorism. Whatever
else emerges from the conflict now underway, we need to recognize that
Hamas crossed a line that will be hard for other terrorist groups to
ignore. The mass murder, rapes, decapitations, taking of civilian
hostages of all ages is a depravity, a crime against humanity, against
all of us.
We need to recognize it as such and to engage the
global community in ways to prevent it from ever happening again. I
recognize that efforts to outlaw genocide have fallen short of the mark,
and this effort may also fail. But we must try.
The future of
Arab-Israeli peace — both normalization between Arab states and Israel,
and peace between Palestine and Israel — is up in the air. Many Arab
states, including Saudi Arabia, will continue to look after their own
national self-interest, but they may find the current atmosphere too
toxic now to proceed toward building full relations. Unfortunately, this
will give Hamas a victory they do not deserve.
In the Israeli
commission of inquiry following the war, in addition to the core issues
of intelligence, operational, and leadership failures, Israel will need
to grapple with its own definition of its future as a democratic Jewish
state. Israel cannot hold the occupied territories and pretend the
Palestinians will be satisfied with economic benefits but without
political rights.
If Israel wants to annex the territories, it
will have to give the Palestinians full citizenship rights. If it does
not want to do that, it must yield the territories and allow the
Palestinians to establish a viable independent state.
In this
respect, as Israel does its soul-searching after the war, the
Palestinians must do the same, even more. They need to decide who they
are and what they want. If it is Hamas’ way, they need to prepare for an
all-out existential struggle with Israel. But if it is not Hamas’ way,
then Palestinians must disgorge Hamas and its fellow terrorist groups
from their midst. The Palestine national movement must decide its future
and its ambitions, and it must decide its moral and ethical
foundations.
Immediate period ahead
Israel,
the Palestinians, and the international community — including the
United States — will be severely tested in the days ahead. In attempting
to deliver a mortal blow to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, it is inevitable
that there will be significant casualties and suffering among
Palestinian citizens in Gaza. The media will pivot to this, seeing the
horror of what Hamas did as yesterday’s news.
In this event, it
will be imperative to keep our focus: Hamas is a blood-thirsty terrorist
movement intent upon the destruction of the state of Israel and the
wholesale murder of Jews living in Israel. There are two narratives in
the Israel-Palestine conflict and peace process, but only one narrative
when it comes to Hamas and its terrorist allies.
During this
critical, evolving situation, the United States must pursue four
immediate objectives. It must reinforce President Biden’s message that
there is no daylight between us and Israel. It must work quietly with
Israel to help shape Israel’s response in a manner that avoids, as much
as possible, a humanitarian disaster in Gaza. It must continue to act
with determination to deter Iran and Hezbollah from widening the
conflict. And it must work multilaterally to plan for a post-war Gaza
from which Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been expunged and which focuses
on reconstruction and good governance.