Garvan Walshe is a former national and international security policy adviser to the Conservative Party
Binyamin Netanyahu rose to prominence defending Israel’s war in Lebanon at the UN, when Israel’s forces, however militarily powerful, found themselves bereft of allies, condemned internationally, and accused of atrocities.
An invasion of a neighbour to root out a terrorist organisation had got stuck in a quagmire.
How he must wish his younger self was there to defend him with power, wit, and, unusually for an Israeli official, the ability to distinguish irony from sarcasm.
The bulk of Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza more than a month ago, giving their exhausted reservists time to rest and Gazans a respite from the immense destruction Israel had wreaked in response to Hamas’s October 7 massacre.
Despite half a year of war, Israel had failed to destroy Hamas as a fighting force. Its official tally is of some 10,000 Hamas soldiers killed, out of an estimated strength of 30,000. A significant blow but a better outcome, from the perspective of Hamas, than its commanders might have hoped.
Though led by a master of rhetoric, Israel’s immediate failure is one of propaganda. Specifically, the failure to understand — or to behave by the fact — that it needs a certain amount of domestic and international legitimacy to act.
It has so incensed allies like the United States and Germany by failing to even pretend to support a two-state solution, or even in Israeli political jargon, a “plan for the day after” while pulverising Gaza to an extent not acceptable to Western sensibilities (though of the same order as the Western retaking of Mosul from Isis, during which 40,000 civilians were killed).
That Israel has less room for manoeuvre than the US or France is well known to the Israeli leadership. Netanyahu has no justification for not taking it into account.
The reason he did not is that his Knesset majority depends on extremists who want to reestablish Israeli settlements in Gaza and throw as many Palestinians out as they can. They thought Hamas’s atrocities finally gave them cover, but under the Biden Administration this has not been sufficient.
Nor does Israeli society give them that cover. Hamas still holds about 130 hostages in inhumane conditions — those released tell of repeated rapes and constant torture — and most Israelis now want Israel to secure their release rather than pulverise Hamas. Hamas knows that it is only the presence of the hostages that prevents Israel from pulverising them.
This is the background to the standoff over Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city. It’s where Hamas’s Gaza leadership holed up at the start of the war and to which the population of north Gaza was displaced in the fighting. Hamas commander Mohammed Sinwar is betting that even if the hostages won’t protect him, the 1.2 million civilians above him will.
This standoff explains the progress in peace talks – Israel can’t take Rafah without killing the hostages, and, possibly, its alliance with America and the Sunni Arab states. Hamas won’t give up the hostages, unless it can get Israel to refrain from attacking it, at least for a reasonable while.
The Arab states also see a useful outcome (do not think that the authoritarian governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia care too much about the human rights of Palestinians): a chance to put non-Islamists in charge in Gaza, move towards a Palestinian state, and normalise relations with their fellow anti-Iranian neighbour. They sense Israel needs them, and are pressing their advantage.
They made their intervention known to Israelis. Israeli TV could not resist reporting that Jordan’s crown princess, who like her father, is a fighter pilot, took part in the multinational coalition to defend Israel from Iran’s recent attack with 600 missiles and drones. The big prize they’re offering is normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
But if Netanyahu agrees to a ceasefire, his extremist allies will bring down his government, ushering in elections Netanyahu is sure to lose. Itamar Ben-Gvir and Belazel Smotrich, the extremists, will also be thrashed but are young enough to have another shot at power when the political cycle turns.
Netanyahu is older and faces corruption cases that will resume once he leaves power. The walls are now closing in fast. From abroad where the Americans have withheld ammunition from the IDF. In his War Cabinet where ex-Israel Defense Force (IDF) chiefs Benny Ganz and Gadi Eizenkot want to end the war and release the hostages. In his official cabinet where Smotrich and Ben Gvir want to continue the war and end the hostages. And in the streets where the hostages’ families are leading protests and threatening to “burn the country” if the ceasefire-hostage deal is rejected.
Arnon Bar-David, the head of Israel’s powerful trade union confederation, which is well connected with industrial business leadership, hinted at a general strike, warning that “eventually we’ll likely need to lead” [Netanyahu] to call elections and “the moment we arrive at a situation in which it is entirely up to the Israeli government and it won’t seek a hostage deal, then I think we will be able to apply more pressure and there will be more chaos, both by citizens and by workers.”
Invade Rafah, and lose the Americans, the Army, and find himself at the wrong end of popular outrage. Refuse to invade Rafah and be voted out by his own coalition. Resign, and find himself in the dock at Jerusalem District Court. Netanyahu excels at indecision, but he’s running out of the time indecision requires.
The post Garvan Walshe: An indecisive Netanyahu is running out of the time for an Israel-Gaza ceasefire appeared first on Conservative Home.
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Author: Garvan Walshe
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