Israel: Ceasefire, hostage take, escape Gaza, rest of everything

Written by Thomas L. Friedman, taken from the “The New York Times”

Israel is at a strategic point in its Gaza war and has all indications that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyah will choose the wrong path and lead Joe Biden's administration to a very dangerous and disturbing path.

It's as dangerous and disturbing as Israel's best option, when everything has been said and done, could be to leave a leadership of the ruling Hamas in Gaza.

Yeah, you read it well.

To understand why, let us look a little back.

I argued in October that Israel was making a terrible mistake by rushing into Gaza, as did America in Afghanistan after 11 September.

I thought Israel should have focused first on the return of its hostages, delegateing Hamas for his murderous and predatory rage of October 7th and following Hamas' leadership in a more targeted way, Munich, less Dresden.

That means, a military response similar to how Israel tracked its athletes' killers to the 1972 Munich Olympics, rather than how the US turned Dresden into a pile of ruins in World War II.

But I realized that many Israelites felt that they had a moral and strategic right to go to Gaza and remove Hamas “once and for all”.

In this case, I argued, Israel would need three things -- time, legitimacy, and military resources -- and others from the United States. Reason: The ambitious goal of Hamas' disappearance could not be completed quickly (if at all); military operation would end with the murder of innocent civilians, given how Hamas had entered the tunnel beneath them; and would leave a security and government vacuum in Gaza that would have to be completed by the Palestinian Authority in the West Coast, which would have to be improved and transformed to take up the task.

Israel would have to fight this war with the slightest collateral damage for Palestinian civilians and accompany it with a political horizon for a new relationship between Israelis and Palestinians, built around two national states for two indigenous peoples.

This would give Israel a chance to say to the world that this was not a war of revenge or conquest, but a war to eliminate Palestinian ethnicity that would destroy any solution with two states HINA Hamas and create political space for an agreement with the Palestinian Authority, which is still committed to a two-state agreement.

This approach would have won support, financing and, I think, the peacekeeping troops of moderate Arab states like the United Arab Emirates.

Unfortunately, Netanyahu and his army did not attend the course. They chose the worst strategic combination: militarily they chose Dresden's approach, which, although it may have ended up killing about 13 thousand Hamas fighters, also killed thousands of Palestinian civilians, leaving hundreds of thousands injured, displaced or homeless.

And as they delegated, to many throughout the world, what Israel thought was a righteous war.

And diplomaticly, instead of accompanying this war strategy with an initiative that would give Israel at least a short time, legitimacy and resources to dismantle Hamas, Netanyah refused to offer any political horizon or exit strategy and formally ruled out any co-operation with the Palestinian Authority.

A completely insane strategy.

It has ended Israel in a politically fruitless war and ended up isolating America, putting regional and global interests at risk, compromising Israel's support in the US and breaking the base of President Biden's Democratic Party.

Time is really horrible.

Biden's foreign policy team, led by State Secretary Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, have just completed processing the draft of a new strategic agreement with Saudi Arabia, including a civil nuclear programme, advanced weapons and much deeper security links.

The deal, a senior officer of the Biden administration told me, could be concluded within weeks but for an element.

It depends on normalising relations by Saudi Arabia with Israel in exchange for ending the war in Gaza, leaving the Gaza Strip and agreeing to a “road” defined for a result of two metric states clear as to what the Palestinian Authority will have to do and what time frames.

We're talking about an agreement changing the course of the game exactly the deal Iran-backed Hamas launched on October 7th to undermine, because it would have isolated Iran and Hamas.

But the war in Gaza must be ended first and Israel needs a government ready to start a two-state road.

Which leads to this tree of the road.

My preference is for Israel to change course immediately. That means, join the Biden administration in embracing that path towards an agreement with two states that would pave the way for Saudi normalisation and would also cover the Palestinian Authority and moderate Arab states to try to establish non-Hamas rule in Gaza.

You also completely forget Rafah's conquest and instead use a targeted approach to remove the rest of Hamas' leadership.

Even if Israel intends to ignore US advice, I pray that it will not try to invade Rafah and reject the inclusion of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza's future.

Because this would be an invitation to a permanent Israelite invasion of Gaza and a permanent revolt on Hamas. He would bleed Israel economically, militarily, and diplomaticly in very dangerous ways.

As dangerous as I believe that Israel would actually be better off accepting Hamas' request for a total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a ceasefire and a whole deal for all Israeli hostages in exchange for all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

If Israel does not co-operate with the Palestinian Authority and the moderate Arab states to create different governments in Gaza, and to create conditions for normalising relations with Saudi Arabia, Israel must recover its hostages, end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Please, Israel, don't go into Rafah. It's gonna be a disaster.

“Friedman, you mean you're going to let the militarily destroyed Hamas and his killer leader Yahya Sinwar run Gaza again?

Yeah, for a while. Like I said, this is not my favorite choice. That is because Netanyah has left Israel without a choice.

He refuses to have Israeli troops rule Gaza and will not bring the Palestinian Authority.

This leaves only two options: Gaza become a gang similar to the Somalis in the Mediterranean; or Gaza be held together with a weak Hamas government.

If I were Israel, I would take a weakened Hamas over Somalia for two reasons.

I have no illusions that the morning after the start of the truce and the exit of Sinwar, some will bitterly cheer on Israel for its hurt. But morning after breakfast, Sinwar will face brutal questions from locals: Where is my home, where is my job, who gave you the right to expose my children to death and destruction?

It's the best punishment I can imagine for Sinwar.

Let him possess all the afflictions of Gaza that made Israel so unwise.

Only Palestinians can delegate Hamas, and even though it won't be easy, and Hamas will kill anyone to hold power, this time we won't talk about just a handful of dissidents.

Amira Hass, the well-informed Haaretz reporter for Palestinian issues, recently wrote a story based on phone interviews with Gaza residents, titled “People are constantly cursing Sinwar”.

For the moment, if it happens, when Israel leaves Gaza and has its hostages, the Biden team is already talking to Egypt about close co-operation with the US and Israel to ensure that Hamas can never again smuggle into the types of weapons he made in the past under the Egyptian-Gaza border.

Israel could say that any amount of food and medicine Gaza residents need will be handed over, as well as the sacks of cement for reconstruction from countries that may want to help.

But if it is found that these will dig new attack tunnels, rebuild rocket factories or resume missile attacks in Israel, borders will be closed.

Again, let Sinwar deal with this dilemma.

The second reason is that it will not be just Gaza residents who will follow Sinwar and Hamas.

Many Palestinians realize that Sinwar cynically launched this war because he was losing influence over the most moderate factions in Hamas and his main rival, Fatah political movement, which leads the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.

He was also afraid of this possible agreement between Israel, Saudi Arabia and Palestinians.

As Hussein Ibis argued, an expert at the Washington Institute of Arab Gulf States, who has given some of the most clear analysis of this war since the beginning, in a recent essay at The Daily Beast, Hamas wanted to provoke a massive Israeli response to October 7th in part in the corner of Fatah.

A growing nationalist sentiment and common anger over the mass killings and suffering of 2.2 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza overwhelmed nationalist leaders like President Mahmoud Abbas by publicly acknowledging Hamas' surprising cynicism”, he wrote.

But now, Ibish notes, gloves are being removed: When Hamas complained about the Palestinian Authority's decision to appoint a new prime minister, without Hamas' contribution, Fatah responded with a statement noting that Hamas did not consult anyone before launching “an adventure on October 7th that has led to a nakbe that is heavier than the 1948” Nacbe. (Nachba means disaster. )

Ibis concluded that, if these charges are repeated as safely as they should be on a daily basis, if not every hour they can create the permit structure for ordinary Palestinians anywhere, and especially in Gaza, to start sincerely wondering why Hamas acted without taking into account the influence over Gaza people or by making any preparations for ta”.

This dynamic is the only way to marginalise Hamas and Islamic Jihad from Palestinians themselves who discredit these groups for what they are: mad representatives and assassins of Iran, whose leadership is ready to sacrifice endless Palestinian lives to pursue its own aspirations for regional hegemony.

If Palestinians can't or won't do this, they will never have a state.

Just a few words about Iran. As I feared, Israel played beautifully in its hands from Tehran's perspective. Grasping Gaza saw a morning plan, while also occupying the West Coast, Israel is now lying militarily, economically and morally, while turning its attention away from the fact that Iran is accelerating its nuclear program and expanding its influence as the greatest invading power in the Middle East today.

Iran indirectly controls a large part of five Arab states or territories (Libania, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and a part of Gaza), using local representatives ready to sell their people for Iran's benefit.

Iran has helped maintain the war of any failed Arab entity.

To reprove “kolonialism” of Israeli settlers in the West Coast and ignore “colonialism” of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps at five centers of Arab power is completely unfair.

The leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Israel killed in Syria last week was not there on tourist visas.

President Biden has a plan: Reaching a six-week ceasefire and releasing hostages. After which, as part of the Saudi normalisation package, the president will come up with a bold peace initiative -- what Israeli peace expert Gidi Greenstein called “more for more” more security and normalisation with Arab states than has ever been offered to Israel.

And more Arab and American aid to Palestinians to achieve citizenship than they've ever experienced.

Hopefully, such an initiative could push everyone to make the permanent ceasefire and further marginalise Hamas and Iran.

I have read all the articles on how a two-state solution is now impossible. I think it's 95 percent accurate. But I will focus on the possibility of 5 percent of them making mistakes, and the possibility that bold leadership makes them wrong.

Because the alternative is a 100 percent safe and eternal war with larger and more accurate weapons that will destroy both societies.