Thoughts from Tel Aviv

On the return of the hostages

A friend recently asked me whether I thought the decisive step in getting the (living) hostages returned was the recognition of the ‘Palestinian state’ by France and the UK or the Israeli determination to bring the fight into Gaza City? Or, perhaps, the diplomatic efforts by the Trump administration?

Before answering his question, I stated that I did not expect Hamas to hand over the hostages. The fact that this happened is intensely remarkable, and is a diplomatic and military coup for which both Netanyahu and Trump deserve immense credit. On this topic, it is also worthy of note that the Israelis really care about the return of their deceased hostages. This is not a small issue for them, so Hamas has not in fact given up all of their leverage. The longer Hamas holds on to the deceased hostages and remains in power, the greater their self-perception that they have emerged victorious.

As I thought about this, a few things became obvious:

1. Hamas’ top priorities are the survival of their regime, and the destruction of Israel, which is their declared and singular purpose. As I’ve written elsewhere, Hamas’ theory of victory in the current war relied on maximizing (both real and perceived) casualties and suffering among their own population for PR purposes.

2. The strategic priorities of Hamas–and of their Iranian and Qatari sponsors have not changed.

3. Hamas does not see itself as having been defeated - Western perceptions of the wide-spread destruction in Gaza are part or their theory of victory

I actually think that the framing of the question was wrong: It conflated causality with temporal proximity. Yes, all of these things happened just prior to the hostages being returned.

But why did Hamas decide that they absolutely needed a pause to the fighting right now? Why were they willing to give up their biggest piece of leverage, all the remaining living hostages? They could have parcelled out the hostages one at a time to play for time, for instance. Why didn’t they?

Various Western states have signaled support for Palestinian statehood at various points in the past. So the actions of the UK and France are clearly not the decisive factor. Neither is sufficiently powerful for their declarations to be decisive.

And the Israelis have been fighting their way through Gaza for about two years, with two ceasefires resulting in the return of most, but not all, of the hostages. And the Trump administration (as well as Biden, previously) has attempted diplomacy before.

So what changed? I think that the decisive change was that Hamas’ authority within Gaza was being seriously challenged for the first time by independent militias owing their allegiance to local elites. Whereas the Israelis do a meticulous job of fighting in ways that are compliant with the laws of war, these internal militias within Gaza recognize no such limitations, and are in many ways a much greater and more proximate threat to Hamas’ survival.

So I think the transformative change that forced Hamas to the negotiation table was their need for a pause in fighting so that they could consolidate internal control and reassert a monopoly on violence in the portions of Gaza that they continue to control. Which is exactly what they have been doing via their immediate prioritization of public executions of their enemies. Netanyahu’s support for the local militias managed to create that circumstance, and then Trump and Netanyahu took advantage of that opportunity to get the hostages returned.

Amazing. A diplomatic coup.

Will Hamas disarm? Despite the fact that the current “deal” calls for its disarmament, for Hamas to voluntarily disarm would be for their members to repudiate their entire political-religious agenda, which glorifies fighting to the death in the cause of killing and terrifying infidels. Their members would need to accept the near-certainty of an ignominious, inglorious death at the hands of other Gazan factions, who will not disarm, and will immediately kill any Hamas members they can find. Remember what Hamas did to members of Fatah, when Hamas came to power?

And any Hamas members who decide to leave Gaza and accept amnesty overseas will need a government protecting them: There are plenty of Jews who are not inclined to forget or forgive the events of October 7’th.

The stakes are obvious to anyone paying attention.

The Trump Prize for Victory

But would Hamas’ disarmament actually result in a durable peace? Almost certainly not. The most committed Hamas terrorists would undoubtedly defect to the Islamic Jihad, or the other more extreme terror factions, taking their weapons with them. These factions will then seek to secure control over Gaza, displacing Hamas as the true representation of the Palestinian community. I doubt disarmament - even if Hamas were to agree - will produce even a lengthy pause in fighting.

Peace is a fine goal, but I’ve often thought that the pursuit of peace (and of Nobel Peace Prizes) rather than of victory causes politicians - especially American Presidents - to force our allies to end wars far too early, before victory is achieved.

Unconditional surrender often results in an unambiguous end to a war. Population exchanges and transfers also sometimes resolve wars; this is, in large part, how the linguistic and ethnic borders in Europe came to be aligned with their state boundaries. But ending wars through external pressure before the fundamental issues are resolved generally results in frozen conflicts and forever wars of terror and insurgency.

It’s worth remembering and deeply ironic that Alfred Nobel made his fortune on the invention and commercialization of dynamite.

Given that list of people who’ve won Nobel Peace Prizes, I wonder why any statesman would want one: Yasser Arafat, arguably the greatest terrorist of the latter half of the 20th century and the principle architect of his people’s suffering, was awarded one. Ahn Sang Soo Chi, who had been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, later defended Myanmar’s military from charges of having committed genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority. These are not the only examples in this vein.

Perhaps, rather than pursuing a Peace Prize, Trump should use a small part of his immense fortune to endow a Trump Prize in Western Victory. This could be awarded to leaders who generate significant, decisive political and military victories for the liberal-democratic regimes of the world.

A new security architecture

So what does a security architecture that serves the interests of the United States look like in the Middle East, given the fact that the United States must focus on the threat from China if a war in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea is to be prevented? The Israeli war against Iran and its many proxies points in a new direction.

Israel has demonstrated a fundamental new principle in their neighborhood: The technological and military superiority of Israeli arms and society is so serious that the Israelis can actually act, with relatively modest US support, as a regional hegemon. With money and market access in the US, the Israelis can handle their hostile neighbors. As long as the US acts to reinforce Israel’s qualitative edge and technological superiority over their neighbors, this situation will endure.

And the Israelis do something else that is of immense value for the United States: They demonstrate what it means for a multi-ethnic, liberal-democratic regime to win their wars. We haven’t done that in the US in a very long time, not since Grenada, and we have a lot to learn from the Israelis. They’ve also got an entire generation of battle-proven military and defense startups and technologies that the United States and its allies are going to need.

The upshot of the last two years is that the other regimes of the Middle East have realized that they only exercise sovereignty to the extent that they restrain their hostility to Israel. The United States could now turn our attention to the Pacific and to Ukraine, and let the Israelis deal with the Middle East.

Specifically, what might a regional order founded on an Israeli hegemon look like?

• Iran will not control their airspace, and the Israelis will continue to hit their nuclear, anti-aircraft, and ballistic missile production facilities as needed for the foreseeable future. The regime may survive or may be overthrown, depending on what the people of Iran decide to do. At a minimum they will remain an economic basket-case.

• The southern part of Syria will remain the site of constant airstrikes, and will in effect be at least partially a demilitarized zone so that the Druze minority will survive in the midst of a genocidal regime.

• Until such time as the Lebanese military disarms Hezbollah, Lebanon south of the Litani will, similarly, be a buffer zone where heavy weapons cannot be deployed without an immediate Israeli response.

• Turkey will likely be forced to withdraw from Syria and likely continue to devolve into an economic disaster.

The United States should seek to create an imbalance of power in the Middle East, with Israel aligned, formally or informally, with the United States and with those Arabic states that rightly fear the influence of Islamist tendencies.

The Gaza: What Now?

With regard to Gaza, there is a profound dilemma: What does a future security architecture look like? Geographically, Israel has occupied buffers on three sides of Gaza, which have been cleared so that they can be used to ensure no repeat of October 7. But who will govern Gaza?

It would be madness for the Israelis to accept any form of international force: A U.S. based force would be a target, with a future change in administration resulting in hostility toward Israeli goals in Gaza. An European force could be relied upon to be both hostile and incompetent, and would serve as cover for Hamas in the same way that UNFIL served as cover for Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. And a force from the Muslim world–Indonesia, Egypt, Qatar, etc.--would have similar sympathies. Perhaps the Egyptians could re-occupy Gaza, but if they did it would create immense problems for the current Egyptian government, which is justifiably afraid of Hamas and of the Muslim Brotherhood as an existential threat to the Egyptian regime. I do not believe that the Egyptian military is plausibly up to the task of maintaining order or disarming the population in Gaza without resorting to massacre.

Certainly the Israelis have no desire to occupy Gaza; to do so would result in IDF soldiers being killed every day for the foreseeable future.

The experiment of allowing the Gazans to govern themselves was conducted already, for about 20 years. It resulted in the institutionalization of a terror state, the construction of thousands of miles of tunnels, and October 7. Turning Gaza over to Hamas, or to one of its rival terror organizations, even if their capabilities were reduced and a geographic buffer were established, isn’t an attractive option.

Is it imperative for the United States that Gaza have a government, or that Gaza be rebuilt? The answer to that question is emphatically ‘no.’ The United States has no clear interest in Gaza having a functioning government or in Gaza being rebuilt.

Until a government comes to power in Gaza that acknowledges Israeli sovereignty and enforces full civil rights for their own citizens, including women, why should the international community make any effort to rebuild Gaza? Such an effort will result in funds lining the pockets of the Hamas elite, with most of the international aid being diverted into tunnel construction, smuggling of contraband, and building up another local arms industry and terror army.

I would propose that until and unless a true demilitarization occurs and civil rights are guaranteed, the Gazans should be invited to solve their own problems. The GHF demonstrated that food aid could be distributed without the need to reinforce Hamas’ power, and this could continue. I believe that the West and Israel should provide backing for non-Hamas factions within Gaza to contest power with Hamas and other extreme Islamist factions. If the Gazans want peace, freedom and reconstruction, they can earn it by cleaning their own house and putting a truly moderate government in place.

Hamas has demonstrated that this is the thing they fear the most. Once local militias, loyal to local elites, exercise a monopoly on violence in portions of Gaza, they can be partners for suppressing and disarming the Islamists, putting the leaders of Hamas on trial, and (perhaps) de-radicalizing the population over the course of the next 50-100 years. Perhaps the answer is not a single Gazan government, but instead several local governments competing for outside resources. The project of de-radicalization is one that would require a profound change in local values and strategic culture, and is either very difficult or actually impossible.

In the absence of that, Hamas can be defeated militarily, Gaza can be ringed with a geographic buffer, food can be sent in, and the Gazans can live with the consequences of their government’s actions for the foreseeable future, until and unless they decide that they are prepared to overthrow the Islamists and support a materially different government.

In a world of bad options, this seems to be the least-worst answer for Israel, the United States and the West.