326 - Finally, Peace in Gaza, or Not?

What Needs to be Done?

Israel is much stronger than it was in October 2023 and Hamas much weaker, much more alone. Yesterday's peace deal between a powerful state and a sometime Islamic autocracy is both a great relief, for the killings and attacks may cease, and at least three of the hostages are free -- in exchange for ninety Arab women prisoners (many of whom are serving life sentences for attacks on Israelis) -- with more to come. But the Gaza war is not over. At best we have a stirring of potential peace, easily to be destroyed by internal Israeli political postoring and (not "or") Hamas' attempts to reassert its hegemony within the Strip.

Israel is withdrawing troops from much of Gaza. Many thousands of displaced Gazans will now be able to return to where they once lived, and to try to rebuild abodes, temporary or otherwise, literally from the ground up. But Israel still controls vast tracts of Gaza and has yet to agree to a full withdrawal, preventing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from returning to homes, especially in northern Gaza. Will Israeli troops ever entirely leave?

At the end of the agreed upon forty-two day truce, Hamas will still have around two-thirds of the 98 remaining hostages, including dozens who are believed to be dead. And Israel will still occupy parts of Gaza and hold high-profile prisoners. The Israelis will then have to choose whether they are willing to prioritize one of its war aims, bringing home the hostages, over another, destroying Hamas.
Perhaps 80 percent of the buildings in Gaza are destroyed. Livelihoods are gone. Gangs controlled by criminalized entrepreneurs are active, and menacing. No one, least of all Gazans themselves, should expect much of a peace dividend. Any return to something satisfactory, and something vaguely normal, will be hard won, and ripe with great. exacting, compromise.

Israel has not said how, if, or when the Strip will be reconstructed. There seems to be an Israeli assumption, or maybe just a hope, that wealthy Arab monarchies will fund, even manage, the massive rebuilding of everything in a Strip that has been flattened and made useless. Water supply lines and sewage infrastructure need to refurbished, if not re-established.

About 600 trucks filled with food aid, and water, are now entering Gaza to attempt to alleviate the hunger and thirst that been a dangerous adjunct of the fifteen-month long war between Hamas and Israel. But there essential now must be a major rethink of the distribution system for this relief, and a detailed plan to ensure that civilian families actually receive what they need. Preventing Hamas from grabbing control of distribution and using the denial of food assistance to rebuild its patronage power base within the Strip will be an ongoing battle. Already, on day one of the ceasefire, Hamas has reappeared in parts of the Strip; it police are back in uniform.

Israel is going to keep control of a strip of land between the Strip and Egypt in order to prevent Hamas from resuming its smuggling of weapons and other war materiel from easily corrupted entrepreneurs in Sinai. But whether Israel by patrolling the Philadelphi Corridor along that border can stanch Hamas' acquisition of new instruments of war is not certain. Nor is it at all likely now that Israel has any serious chance of "completely destroying" Hamas -- the official stance of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Orthodox extreme right wingers within his shaky cabinet. Itamar Ben-Gvir, minister of natonal security, has taken himself and his Jewish Power Party (three members) out of Netanyahu's government because the ceasefire in Gaza has not removed Hamas entirely. Bezalel Smotrich, minister of finance and equally to the extreme right, threatens to follow suit and bring down Netanyahu's now precarious government if it appears that the ceasefire allows Hamas to rebound.

In fact, as outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted on Friday, Israel's pounding of Gaza and Hamas has hardly reduced Hamas' appeal to young Arab Gazans. Recruitment has jumped; Hamas' losses over fifteen months have not completely, but significantly, been replaced by new recruits radicalized by Israel's successful attacks on their families, their predecessors, and by the assassination of nearly all of Hamas' prewar leadership cadre. According to Blinken, "we assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost. That is a recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war.”

Although Yahya Sinwar, Hamas' militant chief and strategist was killed, his brother Mohammed Ibrahim Hassan Sinwar has taken his place, with equal malicious intent. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich (and Netanyahu) may have hoped to have fought Hamas until it had no militants remaining. But, unlike in Lebanon, the Israeli Defense Force has had a tough time penetrating and closing off the huge ring of tunnels that gave Hamas an ability to resist total annihilation. Hamas also had and continues to hold hostages. For the next forty-two days, at least, Hamas is going to shield themselves with hostages and to drive hard bargains with Israel. Hamas has lost the war, but Israel has not triumphed.

Another important unresolved issue is by whom and how is the Gaza Strip to be administered? Who is going to be in charge? Israel has greatly weakened Hamas as a political and military force. But it has not replaced Hamas' management of the affairs and inhabitants of the Strip by putting Israelis in charge, nor by empowering the UN or some other outside agency to organize and run the Strip. Netanyahu says repeatedly that he will not permit Hamas' cadres to do so. Perhaps Netanyahu had a plan to let Palestinians or Saudis to govern the Strip, now an impossibility. Or he may have toyed with giving an administrative mandate to the UN or to the big powers in the Arab world such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Republic

But none of that wishful thinking has resulted in much beyond tactical anarchy. Unless and until Netanyahu is willing to take complete control of messy day-to-day matters in the Strip, and to provide water and electricity as Gaza restores itself, Hamas will prevail and strengthen. Eliminating the new criminal gangs who have sprung up in the absence of authority in Gaza has to be a first step. The second must be providing a civil government that works for ordinary Gazans. If Netanyahu continues to refuse to assume that basic responsibility, it is not clear that peace can ever breakout. And Gazans will still have to reply administratively on Hamas -- surely a result that is hardly in Israel's self-interest.

The only way for peace to be sustained beyond forty-two days and Hamas' power and appeal to be reduced is for Israel to cease seeking an elusive total victory to establishing a just and responsive new administering apparatus. Can Israel rise to the occasion, or is Netanyahu too contained and compromised by his legal troubles and precarious political power to be bold and strategic?

For those readers who may be interested/worried about today's inauguration, I greatly commend David Remnick's prescient column in this week's New Yorker. Some readers may also wish to consult Borowitz's witty commentaries, online yesterday and the day before.