Netanyahu’s War Strategy Doesn’t Make Any Sense
By Foreign Policy - Anchal Vohra - APRIL 5, 2024, 4:20 AM
Even on their own terms, Israel’s plans don’t add up.
In November, I met Hamas-held hostage Liri Albag’s father, Eli Albag, in Tel Aviv. As he sat in the middle of Begin Road holding a picture of his 19-year-old daughter, he said he backed the government’s military campaign to put pressure on Hamas. “Do you think Hamas would let go of hostages on their own?” But Albag seems to have run out of patience. In late March, in an ultimatum to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he told the local press that the families would no longer hold rallies but gather on the streets, joining an expanding anti-Netanyahu protest movement.
The trouble is that while hostages’ families see the return of their relatives and Hamas’s removal from their neighborhood as victory—in that order—many have long known that those two war aims have been at odds. But Netanyahu has deliberately prioritized the elimination of Hamas over the release of the hostages since the beginning of the military campaign without actually having a coherent plan to achieve either.
The prime minister increasingly stands accused by military analysts, and a growing portion of the Israeli public, of merely reacting to events while lacking a vision that could end the war, free the hostages, and usher in any semblance of peace.
Yet he remains indignant. In response to the protests, Netanyahu said that in “the moment before victory,” early elections would “paralyze” the country and only benefit Hamas. He has now set his eyes on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where more than a million Palestinians have sought shelter. Any such attack will not only cause international outrage but make negotiations with Hamas much harder.
Soon after Hamas rampaged through Israeli towns and kibbutzim on Oct. 7, 2023, and killed 1,200 people and abducted more than 250, Netanyahu declared war. The underlying message to hostage families was that the bombing of Gaza would pressure Hamas into releasing its captives and at the same time eliminate the group.
But he skirted more fundamental questions over exactly how he intended to eliminate a group that has massive public support not just inside Gaza and other Palestinian territories but also bases in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and elsewhere. According to an annual threat assessment compiled by U.S. intelligence, Israel could face years of resistance from Hamas, an assessment backed by two senior Israeli security officials who spoke with Foreign Policy.
Even if, after years of counterinsurgency operations, Israeli security forces manage to destroy the group in Gaza, what about future reincarnations? Even if the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) destroy Hamas’s offshoots over an even longer period of time, how would Netanyahu eliminate the idea of armed resistance without a political solution on the horizon?
“We have destroyed 18 out of the total 24 battalions of Hamas, but how far are we from eliminating the group? That is a big question,” a senior security official told Foreign Policy on the condition of anonymity. “We can eliminate Hamas, but we don’t have a timeline, and, yes, other groups can emerge.”
Israel’s military operations inside Gaza have significantly damaged Hamas’s infrastructure and military capabilities, but they haven’t guaranteed peace. The fact that Israel’s world-renowned defense forces and security services haven’t managed to nab the two masterminds of the Oct. 7 attack—Mohammed Deif and Yahya Sinwar, who are still hiding somewhere in Gaza’s crevices—is telling of the country’s limitations and the support that Hamas’s leadership still receives.
In February, when Netanyahu finally announced the outline of a plan, it was scant on details, quickly dismissed as a “non-plan” by an Israeli expert who described it as “untethered from reality,” and more than anything else sounded like a road map to reoccupy Gaza.
Netanyahu said he wants “security control” of Gaza for the foreseeable future and will only allow reconstruction once the area has been completely demilitarized. He wants Palestinians to be deradicalized and has ruled out recognition of Palestinian statehood. Any agreement, he said, would only be reached “through direct negotiations” between Israelis and Palestinians, but he hasn’t offered any timeline. According to reports, the plan circulated states that the civilian administration in postwar Gaza would be run by non-Hamas nonhostile local elements.
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At first glance, it makes sense to Israelis who are understandably terrified after Hamas’s brutal attack and want to live in safety. But on closer scrutiny, it doesn’t add up. For starters, Netanyahu hasn’t clarified if he is going to depute Israeli boots on the ground for an indefinite period or wants unimpeded Israeli access to the strip as and when required. The former would amount to reoccupying Gaza and the latter to its de facto control. Both options have yet to be presented to the Israeli people and Israel’s international partners.
Even if Netanyahu agrees to a multinational force composed of Israel’s newest Arab allies to take over security in Gaza, there are questions over how such a force would gain credibility among Palestinians. Demilitarizing all of Hamas’s battalions might be a short-term task but to fight its remnants, and reincarnations, will take years, maybe decades. Tackling an insurgency is still a more manageable task for security forces than monitoring an antagonistic proto-state, but it will inflict heavy costs on Israeli forces. It is unclear whether the costs will be worth it since Israel’s heavy-handedness could either discourage Palestinian attacks inside Israel or encourage them.
The goal to deradicalize Palestinians, a former Israeli security official said, was more in the direction of lasting peace. “Deradicalization is key because we need to change the perception of Palestinians that we are a transient phenomena and sooner or later would crumble under pressure,” said Eran Lerman, a former Israeli deputy national security advisor. Deradicalization programs in schools and mosques would be aimed at those who do not “accept Israel’s right to exist.”
But Palestinians say it’s yet another Netanyahu tactic to delay a two-state solution. After all, Palestinians aren’t merely opposed to Israel due to Hamas’s propaganda. Many have been victims of dispossession by the Israeli state and settlers—and that’s before the suffering imposed by the current war. Netanyahu hasn’t revealed any plans for how to shape Palestinian ideas of self-determination in a more productive fashion.
Netanyahu’s suggestion that locals will be handed eventual civilian control also seems disingenuous. Who exactly does he have in mind? One Israeli security source said locals beholden to Israel-friendly Arab nations of the Abraham Accords—particularly the United Arab Emirates—would pass the test. But any such leaders would be seen as Israeli puppets who may lack standing among Palestinians. They might become just as much a subject of ridicule as the subdued Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.
Netanyahu’s campaign to decimate Hamas, demilitarize Gaza, and deradicalize Palestinians in effect amounts to the strip’s reoccupation. Even if reoccupying Gaza is not what most Israelis are comfortable with, that’s where Netanyahu’s non-plan is headed. “Israelis don’t want to use the O-word, but they don’t have any choice,” said Jonathan Conricus, a former spokesperson for the IDF.
Last month, the United States abstained from a vote at the United Nations Security Council that called for a cease-fire. Gaza’s reoccupation will further widen the rift. Netanyahu’s strategy, in other words, may be headed for a pyrrhic victory in the form of responsibility for Gaza and its 2 million inhabitants, an increasingly alienated U.S. government, and growing international isolation.
Anchal Vohra is a Brussels-based columnist at Foreign Policy who writes about Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. She has covered the Middle East for the Times of London and has been a TV correspondent for Al Jazeera English and Deutsche Welle. She was previously based in Beirut and Delhi and has reported on conflict and politics from over two dozen countries.
