This afternoon I watched the news coverage of the release of the 13 Israeli women and children hostages by Hamas and the corresponding release of 39 Palestinian women and teenagers from Israeli prisons. The BBC, CNN, Euronews: all were factual in their presentations of what occurred. But none tried to make any sense out of it. Let us do that now.
As plainly as one and one makes two, the safe release of the hostages held by Hamas, and the obvious signs that all were in good health tells us something that no one is saying in major media: this is proof positive that the stated objective of the Netanyahu government to eradicate Hamas in Gaza is delusional. Why? Because notwithstanding the savage bombing of Gaza by the Israeli Defense Force which is said to have used the equivalent of two Hiroshima nuclear bombs in explosives, despite the scenes of utter destruction of residential buildings and infrastructure, the starvation, the scarcity of drinking water, the lack of electricity due to the cut-off of all aid deliveries into the enclave since 8 October, Hamas was able to keep the hostages safe and fed all this time in their underground tunnel system.
Netanyahu knows this. All talk now of resuming the onslaught after this brief pause to achieve his war aims is patently an attempt to divert attention from his real objective: to make Gaza uninhabitable and to expel the Palestinian population, preferably driving them into the Sinai desert.
Knowing this, I am obliged to revise my interpretation of the motives of the Hamas attack on 7 October which initially I saw as a way of derailing the approaching normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia brokered by the United States along the lines of the Abraham Accords.
That explanation was good but not sufficient. It left unanswered the nagging question: why did Hamas act so cruelly on 7 October, savagely murdering 1200 Israeli civilians in their homes, in their beds? That the attack was planned from the top and executed to plan rather than spontaneously by the Hamas fighters was known on the 7th. But there seemed to be no reason for the excesses.
Now we know there was a logic to it all: to incite the Netanyahu government to show its real self to the world, to move from the slow genocide of the Israeli settler violence and expropriation of Palestinian properties in the West Bank to point blank expulsion of 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza to Sinai, to the sea, to anywhere else. The objective was to electrify the Arab neighboring states and the worldwide Muslim community. And through this shock therapy to force the United States and Europe to deal with the two state solution here and now.
Yes, you may say, and the Israelis will resume their bombing and artillery attacks when the hostage exchange is concluded, they will devastate the southern half of the enclave just as they have done to the northern half; the nakba will be taken to its logical conclusion.
However, there is a point when Joe Biden will be forced to take Netanyahu out for a walk in the woods, as we say, and to force a halt to the Israeli atrocities, just as Zelensky is about to be taken out for a walk and persuaded to negotiate a peace with Moscow or face removal from power if not a worse personal fate. American foreign policy is a function of domestic policy, which is a function of the electoral cycle. Continuation of the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza will cost Biden or whoever else is the Democratic candidate the presidency. Whatever their merits from the American imperial perspective, both are very inconvenient to the incumbent in the White House at this particular moment given the way they splinter the Democratic party or heighten the destructive partisanship between the parties that is threatening the federal government’s ability to conduct its business.
In closing, I note that the brief television coverage of the negotiations in Qatar that led to the hostage/prisoner exchange put on air a short interview with the head of the political wing of Hamas who is responsible for their end of the bargain with Israel. That video clip was striking: he is sophisticated looking, well turned out, very different from the terrorist or ‘human animal’ whom Netanyahu and his defense minister Yoav Gallant would have you believe is the typical Palestinian.
As I say, whatever comes next, Hamas has won the war.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
Pardon my lengthy reply to your interesting (as usual) post, but your title seems to me to be purposefully provocative. Therefore...
The truth, or not, of your title proclamation depends wholly on what war you mean, thus it’s certainly debatable. Among the various aspects of this conflict which might be considered “the war” are the information war, the actual ongoing hostilities, and what the outcome of hostilities portends for a handful of subsequent critical practical consequences. I’m not sure these can be neatly separated for analysis as they interconnect, nor statements made conclusively, as your title suggests.
What “excesses” were committed by Hamas are still being debated since reports of IDF excesses, viz the apparent, what might be labeled “indiscriminate”, killing of both Hamas combatants, Israeli citizens, as well as, their own IDF members have surfaced. “Indiscriminate” might be inappropriate since it is being suggested that the Hannibal Directive has been implemented, in which case it’s a matter of approved doctrine. As usual, the contemporary, quick analyses are likely useful in the info war, sometimes as cathartics, typically emotional, and of course, commerce driven. I do not lump your always useful commentary amongst the rabble commentariat, still, folks earn livings providing us ready explanations. Historians will write about it later, trying to unwind the “facts” dispassionately, and disagree yet.
What Hamas has won, or not, is an interesting notion. Certainly it has provoked much, but won depends on what weight you give such stuff as geopolitical shifts, or human level chaos, and what you make of the utter destruction, upheaval, ruined lives and families, deaths, ethnic cleansing, anguish, remorse, and hate, sheer psychic chaos bestowed upon the sufferers. Hamas bears some responsibility, despite whatever just cause and long suffering it has endured. Can we just file their actions away, ignoring the easily foreseeable consequences? How malleable is Ethics; shaped as convenience requires? Or perhaps what’s true is there’s no such thing as ethical when it comes to conflict resolution. We certainly can see such a grim reality that lies beyond in the Israeli IDF reply. The cascade of hateful and genocidal talk and action.
In this case, is there a “win”? Showing Israeli and American hypocrisy, and unmasking the real demons are (even as they be significant and well due) pale wins in my estimation. A hoped for two-state solution; a mirage or now it’s gotta be? On balance (is there such in this case?), seeing Hamas as a winner or a loser still leaves humanity with yet another monumentally grotesque injustice, and indecency. This seems to be Sapiens’ calling card. Certainly so when irreconcilable systems collide.
Had there been a referendum, would Gaza have said this was a good idea, or even if all agreed that it’s a really, really bad idea, it’s still the least bad way forward? The fact is people don’t get to decide. They just get to die. Conflict resolution eventually involves that dire fact. How then to sort this out as any semblance of any conceivable idea of Good, let alone imagine what any of the multiple parties to this disaster, have gained for the better? There’s no question it cannot be done. It’s purely, and simply, and completely a failure of all.
A two state solution? We shall see what comes I suppose. It doesn’t look good to me so far.