This Cease-Fire Is Not A Good Deal
By
Leonard Zwelling
As I understand the proposed cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, over the next 6 weeks, Israel will withdraw from Gaza, Israeli (and American) hostages will be gradually returned to Israel, and a larger number of Palestinian prisoners will be released from Israeli custody. It is not clear to me where these prisoners will go, but I fear it will be the West Bank sooner or later. Every one of the released prisoners capable of being a combatant, will be again. None of the hostages released by Hamas will likely join the Israel Defense Force.
This is a lousy deal.
On October 7, 2023 Hamas was in control of Gaza. Today, once Israeli troops leave Gaza, Hamas will undoubtedly seek to regain control of the decimated enclave, a truly terrible outcome. At the cost of over 40,000 dead, Hamas wins. As far as I know, there is still no delineation among the dead between civilians and Hamas—probably because Hamas embedded itself among innocent Gazans.
As far as I can see, Hamas, despite its former leadership being decimated, got what it wanted. Israel only gets the hostages back. Maybe. The dead civilians in Gaza was the price Hamas was willing to pay. Some leadership!
Following the October 7, 2023 invasion, Israel really had only two choices with regard to a response.
Either, Israel could have done nothing, enlist the help of the world, including some of the Gulf States to get the hostages back, and insist that it will not attack as long as all of the hostages were returned in 24 hours. Unfortunately, there had to be an “or else” at the end of that demand. Let’s face it. Gaza got the or else. And so did Hezbollah.
Or, Israel could have done what it did. And here we are.
Israel has been at war with the Arabs that co-occupied the former territory known as Palestine (Palestinians) since 1948. In subsequent rounds of engagement, in 1948, 1967, 1973, and additionally since, Israel has had to fight to keep its territorial integrity and population safe while trying to figure out what to do with the territory captured in 1967, but not yet annexed as Israel proper, including Gaza. Many on the right in Israel want that annexation to happen. They believe the West Bank is Judea and Samaria, parts of Biblical Israel, and it belongs to the Jews. Surely the “settlers,” 700,000 Israelis living on disputed land in the West Bank, want to be living in Israel. Many in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s coalition think the settlers already do live in Israel and the Knesset ought to get on with making it official.
Then came October 7. To grasp the importance of this date fully, you must equate it to September 11, 2001 in the United States. We too, like the Israelis decided to strike in retaliation. That really got us nowhere. The Israelis actually had a better outcome in the destruction of many of the Iranian proxies who were Israel’s enemies.
Just like 9/11, 10/7 was not really an act of war of one sovereign nation upon another. It was a criminal action, by a group of thugs. It was just a big one. As such, it is not likely that the traditional tools of diplomacy to end wars are going to work in Gaza.
It is best to think of Hamas as a criminal organization like the Mafia. Like the Mafia, just cutting off the head may not be enough as more leaders just rise to make more trouble.
The only correct ending to the Gaza War is to rid the land of the pestilence that is Hamas and begin rebuilding for the people who live there. Nothing less. All the hostages come home. If Israel chooses to release some Palestinians, that’s a gesture of good will.
Now I am not saying that Mr. Netanyahu ought to get a pass on this. It was his coddling of Hamas that allowed it to grow more powerful in Gaza while the existence of Hamas in Gaza prevented any reconciliation between Gaza and the Palestinian Authority that nominally controls Palestinian life in the West Bank. It was Netanyahu who sat over a government that allowed defenses to wither such that October 7 could even happen. That’s a reckoning for the Israelis.
But this deal will not improve life for the Gazans because there is no plan for who will have authority there now. If Hamas is left to stand, it will grow again. It will arm again. It will attack again either from Gaza or from the West Bank or both. We have seen the Hamas flags in the Ramallah refugee camp for ourselves. Furthermore, the Iranian influence has not been conclusively dealt with.
The only real solution is for Hamas to be gone, for a third Sunni Arab party to run Gaza, and for serious discussions about the West Bank to take place. This latter piece will be hard because the Israeli public wants nothing to do with an adjacent Palestinian state after October 7. Who can blame them?
This deal will get none of that. If it gets the hostages back, that’s a good thing, but this deal could have been had months ago. The argument is that Israel had to decimate Gaza and kill over 40,000 people to get to where we were on October 7.
Everyone could have done better. Perhaps Mr. Trump still can.
Now is the time for bold initiatives. This deal is not that.
