The following text was intended for publication on the Opinion & Analysis pages of Ynet, the Israeli news website. Indeed, it was sent in on 7 October and almost published soon thereafter, but the editor then opined that “I’m not sure this is right to go up with the current news.” The current news, five days hence, include the assertion by an anonymous member of Hamas that it “remains a fundamental part of the Palestinian fabric,” and the entirely unsurprising reports that their involvement in the Palestinian fabric involves “armed Hamas operatives … hunting down militias opposed to their rule.” I leave to you, the reader, to judge how much of the following text, which I explicitly intend as a warning, remains of acute relevance:
Having failed on the battlefield, Israel’s enemies are trying to negotiate it out of existence. Israel must insist on its fundamental security requirements, including permanent Israeli control of the Egypt-Gaza border and the total disarmament of Gaza.
Two years on from the sadistic massacre carried out by Hamas and allied terrorists in southern Israel, it is clear that the terrorists are in great difficulty. The IDF estimates that it can clear all of Gaza City within two months. In recent fighting, Hamas has not been able to inflict significant casualties on the IDF.
This strain on Hamas and its allies, and in essence only this, is why the terrorists have been forced to enter negotiations in accordance with President Donald Trump’s outline, which foresees the rapid return of all hostages and does not foresee an equally rapid IDF withdrawal from Gaza.
The central problem with the President’s proposal is that it is not a specific plan, but rather a vague sketch. The very first point of this sketch, declaring that Gaza “will be a deradicalized terror-free zone,” promises something that has never previously been the case, without setting out how this proposed revolutionary change is to be achieved. The fourth point, stating much more specifically that “within 72 hours of Israel publicly accepting this agreement, all hostages, alive and deceased, will be returned,” has already been breached by the terrorists.
It is worth reminding the reader that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted the proposal on the day when it was announced, 29 September. The hostages are still in Gaza, of course, because the terrorists of Hamas declared in their response that the release requires “appropriate field conditions,” which in turn require “negotiations to discuss details.” Hamas is engaging in deceit while wasting time, as is entirely common practice for criminals.
Not only has Hamas been permitted to engage in deceit, once again, but Trump’s sketch plan gives it significant rewards. Point 5 promises the release of “250 life sentence prisoners,” that means 250 hardened murderers, in return for the hostages. There are no conditions set on the future location or behavior of these murderers, and it is essentially certain that they will plan and execute more murders, most probably exceeding the number of Israeli hostages and bodies now held in Gaza. This reward for murder, and the certainty that it will lead to more murder in the future, makes the entire outline both morally and practically questionable.
That concession to terrorism is compounded by those in Points 6 and 7. The first of these stipulates that Hamas members who merely “commit” to co-existence and the decommissioning of their weapons shall be amnestied. Of course, any commitment by Hamas, or the other terrorist organizations in Gaza, or their individual members, is void of substance and of value. It is reasonable to assume that all such commitments by Gazan terrorists shall be deliberate falsehoods, and that the first action of those who make them will be to take advantage of the concession in the following point, the “entry of necessary equipment to remove rubble and open roads,” to rebuild tunnels and fortifications.
Point 13, which attempts to counteract the effects of the above concessions and secure demilitarization of Gaza by enlisting the “supervision of independent monitors” who are to oversee an “agreed process of decommissioning,” is simply fantasy. No country or entity, apart from Israel and the United States, is substantively committed to disarming Hamas. In practice, all and any ‘independent’ monitors will provide a shield for Hamas, which will never agree to a substantive disarmament process. Hamas and its allies have announced explicitly on the second anniversary of their massacre that their weapons “will be passed through the Palestinian generations until their land and sacred sites are liberated,” that is until Israel is annihilated.
All of the flaws of Trump’s outline serve to underline the key fact that it is an example of the President’s showmanship and populism, painted with the broadest possible strokes and not underpinned by any personal undertaking by the President to see it through to implementation in anything like the form in which it was publicly announced at the White House. Hence, much of the Arab and Muslim world sees that this sketch plan has halted Israel’s offensive, without committing the President to grant Israel any specific reciprocal benefit, and is treating this moment as an opportunity to force a completely different set of terms on Israel.
Israel’s enemies, who can see the gaps and hear the silences of the outline, will try to drive a coach and horses through it, in order to gain by negotiation what they failed to gain by war, namely Israel’s capitulation. They have begun this process already. Qatar, Hamas’ host, asserts that many details remain to be settled, which means that they intend to re-negotiate much of the outline. Hamas, with Qatari ‘mediators’ present, is attempting to dictate its view of the hostage release process and of Israeli withdrawal during the talks at Sharm El Sheikh.
Israel, which ought to be consolidating as a society in order to reject the extortion of its enemies, is instead very divided, as can be seen by consulting the opinion pages of Ynet. An anonymous senior official has chosen to convey, through Avi Issacharoff, the ludicrous view that the negotiations are possibly “the last chance to bring the hostages home and end the war with tangible achievements.” Ben-Dror Yemini takes the same argument far beyond breaking point, discovering by some unknown means that “in recent weeks Israel came within a hair’s breadth of total failure.” Nadav Eyal celebrates the possibility of continued American pressure for the sake of those “seeking hostage returns and an end to the war.”
These nonsensical attitudes are an open invitation for Hamas and its friends and allies to attempt to force terms of capitulation on Israel. These would involve Israel receiving the hostages, and possibly not even all of the hostages, and nothing else at all. Gaza would not return to its state before the Hamas attack, but would rather advance into a future where Hamas would receive unlimited quantities of weapons and supplies, while shielded from Israeli attack by an International Stabilization Force (ISF) supposedly “helping secure border areas” – Pont 15 in President Trump’s outline.
In order to prevent another disaster much worse than that of October 7, 2023, Israel must insist that it will grant Hamas no concessions beyond those specifically mentioned in the outline. Hamas will get its 250 murderers, but not Marwan Barghouti or any other famous terrorist leader. Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority, busily engaged in delegitimizing Israel, must be permanently kept out of Gaza. Here, Point 9 in the outline provides every reason to do so, as it posits that the Authority must complete a reform program, which it cannot and will not do.
Most importantly of all, the IDF must not leave the Egypt-Gaza border ever again, and must maintain permanent and complete control of a substantially expanded Philadelphi corridor in this area. The Israeli army is the only force with the motive and the capacity to prevent the rearmament of Hamas, and Israel must therefore insist that the condition stated in Point 16 of Trump’s sketch, a time when “Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat,” always remains in the future, and hence the IDF will always hold the Gaza perimeter.
Whether or not President Trump’s outline will lead to any agreement, it must be clearly understood that any such agreement will not end the war, because the war will only end if Israel’s enemies are destroyed, or if Israel itself is destroyed.
Iran, intent on destroying Israel, is making efforts to restore its capacity to do so. Hezbollah, like Hamas, glories in asserting that “we will not give up our weapons.” If Israel wishes to survive, it will have to attack these enemies, repeatedly if necessary. The war will continue, and Israel can only end it by annihilating the threat that it faces.
Whether or not any person, country or international organization understands or acknowledges the fact, the world is in a state of acute crisis. Western democracies, particularly the English-speaking democracies which created the modern world by winning the two World Wars and the Cold War, are divided, enfeebled and very largely ineffective in both domestic and foreign policy.
The United States Congress cannot even agree to restore funding of the government’s day-to-day operations, as the Democrats insist on conditioning their assent on demands concerning health spending. The markets are booming, with the S&P 500 index up more than 35% since April 8, but America is in a very fragile state, entirely unsure of what course it intends to take in the next few months, let alone the coming years.
A mere 29% of Americans were satisfied with the state of the country last month, according to the monthly Gallup poll. Of even greater significance is the enduring division in the United States, with 68% of Republicans but only 23% of independents and 1% of Democrats among those expressing satisfaction. This gulf between supporters of different parties exists on a wide variety of issues, including approval of the Supreme Court. 79% of Republicans approve of that institution at present, but only 14% of Democrats. In the case of the court, this is the widest gulf between supporters of the two parties ever recorded.
These specific differences in opinion can be ascribed to temporary phenomena, namely the fact that a Republican is now President and the Court has a conservative majority at present. That is a superficial view. The divisions reflect very different views as to what any President and any Court should do, and why. These deep disagreements, in turn, deeply affect the ability of the United States’ to function, let alone to exercise influence abroad.
America is a very prominent example of a nation divided, but far from the only. The national politics of France have become a repulsive farce a long time ago, performed by such vile characters as the left-wing extremist Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Yet, the farce is now turning into tragedy, as one government collapses after another, while former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe calls on President Emmanuel Macron to leave office soon.
There is absolutely no chance of the present crisis in America, in France, or elsewhere subsiding for a long time to come. Those Israelis who think any kind of deal with Hamas will mean the end of their troubles are completely deluded. The world crisis will spread, intensify, and take on new forms. Those who do not wish to understand this reality and to address it will find every passing day worse than the one before.
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