Hamas’ brutal and unexpected Oct. 7 attack on Israel has been rightly compared to the American experience of 9/11. The aftermath of the explosion at al-Ahli hospital on Oct. 17, in which hundreds of Gazans were killed, evokes another consequential historical parallel: Israel’s errant mortar shell, launched in response to Hezbollah fire, that killed over 90 women and children at a U.N.-protected compound during its 1996 incursion into Lebanon. That explosion halted Israel’s military operation, and the fiasco contributed greatly to then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres’ loss to Benjamin Netanyahu in the May 1996 election.
In that case, there was no question that it was an Israeli mortar shell but there was a strong belief in the Arab world — and elsewhere — that Israel had deliberately targeted the compound. For what it’s worth, Israel’s contention that it was a failed Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that struck the hospital in Gaza on Oct. 17 seems persuasive to me, a non-expert in missiles 7,000 miles away. However, whatever forensic proof the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) can muster, it is highly unlikely to diminish the immense and growing anger in the Arab world over Israel’s bombing of Gaza. Nor is that anger likely to have much effect on Israel’s campaign, fueled, as it is, by Israelis’ equally immense rage over the Hamas attack and the hostages still held in Gaza, now estimated as at least 199.
Walking a knife-edge path
Though it has mobilized 360,000 reservists, the highest number since its 1982 invasion of Lebanon, in pursuing a large-scale ground invasion of Gaza Israel risks unprecedentedly high casualties of its own and massive condemnation by both the Arab world and the West if Palestinian deaths, already reported as exceeding 3,000, rise to multiples of that figure. The impact on Arab states, as well as on choices made by Iran and Hezbollah regarding whether to open a second front on Israel’s northern border, may hang on that. The Biden administration’s decision to station two carrier strike groups in the eastern Mediterranean is a clear sign of the U.S. concern and possibility of military involvement. Presumably the strike groups are there to deter Hezbollah and Iran from getting involved in the conflict, but if deterrence fails, it may be assumed they will assist Israel in suppressing the reported 150,000 missiles and rockets in southern Lebanon that Hezbollah has pointed at it.
Israel’s oft-repeated contention that it must destroy Hamas’ war-making capacity to protect itself is not persuasive. Competent warning systems with less reliance on high-tech sensors should have been sufficient on Oct. 7; now, we can be reasonably sure that a fox will not be able to leave Gaza without Israel tracking it. Israel’s main fear, however, is just as important but less tangible: the loss of its single most potent weapon, deterrence. Not only its enemies but also its new friends in the Arab world have determined their own alliances based in part on Israel’s well-earned reputation as a military powerhouse whose creativity, ruthlessness, and determination, let alone competence, can be relied upon. Thus, Israel will have to walk a knife-edge path to provide convincing evidence of success in destroying, at the least, Hamas’ offensive capability, while also appearing to display due regard for the laws of war to an extremely skeptical Arab world, as well as the somewhat more sympathetic West, at least for the time being. Navigating the information war will require as much skill as succeeding in the kinetic one.
“Now we fight; then we investigate”
Besides the West and Israel’s neighbors in the region, Prime Minister Netanyahu will be keeping a close eye on another potentially hostile factor as well: Israeli public opinion. After nine months of massive weekly protests asserting that his government’s judicial overhaul plan constituted a coup against democracy, his popularity had already taken a severe hit well before Oct. 7. That was nothing, however, compared to the fury of much of the Israeli populace, most of whom lost relatives, friends, or other loved ones that day — and all of whom knew many who had.
The combination of a massive intelligence failure and an equally grave operational one is blamed by many ordinary Israelis on the government’s single-minded focus on its political goals, a repeated refusal to listen to security chiefs who, it assessed, opposed it politically, and an over-concentration on the West Bank’s volatility as opposed to Gaza’s. It is no secret that the two most prominent cabinet members, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (also a minister in the Defense Ministry with responsibility for the West Bank), are doing everything they can to increase the settler population and provide them with protection. Thus, three IDF battalions normally stationed on the Gaza border were transferred to the West Bank right before the Hamas attack.
In the wake of the Oct. 7 calamity, there is universal agreement on the mantra “now we fight; then we investigate.” Even a leader as self-obsessed as Netanyahu must realize that his political career will likely be over at some point after the war ends, as will his carefully cultivated reputation as a guardian of Israel’s security, which, along with the hoped-for normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia, were to constitute his long-term legacy. Now, the best he can hope for in the history books, after the blame that will be pinned on him by many for Israel’s unpreparedness, is a coda that at least he directed this war with distinction. Should that in fact turn out to be the case, he will have to share what praise there is with his hated rival, former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, with whom he is now working in a small, newly-constituted war cabinet, effectively bypassing his discredited far-right coalition partners. And the Gaza hospital debacle, even if it is not Israel’s fault, demonstrates the unpredictability of intense warfare and the possibility that the U.S., for all of its apparently full-bore support for Israel, might withdraw it before Israel feels its job is done.
The risk of escalation and wavering aims
The greatest danger in entering upon this process, besides the ever-present possibility of an even greater humanitarian catastrophe, is that it could spark a multi-front regional war. Missiles have been going off on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border with increasing frequency in recent days. Amos Harel, Ha’aretz’s military correspondent, writes that, “[U]nder normal circumstances, it’s likely that Israel would have already embarked on a full-blown campaign in Lebanon in response to Hezbollah attacks.” Hezbollah is trying to deter Israel from attacking Gaza, while Israel is maintaining its focus there, Harel writes.
Israel’s definition of its aim has wavered between “destruction” or “decapitation” of Hamas and simply removal of its threat. All of these are very vague — and barring Israel overlooking a missile battery that suddenly comes to life, it will be Israel’s prerogative to declare victory when it chooses. Assuming its own casualties and those of Gazan civilians can be spun as “not excessive” — obviously an elastic definition — that point is largely in Israel’s hands.
Prospectively, Israel’s hardest task will be to decide what to do with Gaza once it determines it is done. Presumably no one connected with the Hamas government can be left in charge. However, after 16 years of Hamas government, it is hard to imagine who would have the experience or credibility, let alone the political reliability from Israel’s point of view, to lead any sort of effective government. The obvious choice should be the Palestinian Authority (PA) but it is probably at the lowest ebb in the three decades of its originally “temporary” existence. Its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is 87 years old, in the 18th year of a four-year term, and universally regarded as ineffective and unpopular. It is hard to imagine Egypt, or any other Arab country, or the U.N. for that matter, being willing to accept some sort of trusteeship over Gaza after Israel concludes its military campaign. And the last thing Israel wants is to take over Gaza’s administration on its own, putting it right back where it was when then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pulled Israel’s army and 8,000 settlers out in 2005.
The best — and most unlikely — option is that Israel will take the opportunity afforded by the current catastrophe to rid itself of the remaining baggage of the Six Day War of 1967, and remove the stain of the occupation once and for all. However, even if the far-right government may be discredited, it is very hard to imagine Israel swinging all the way to the other extreme and accomplishing what its now threadbare left has tried — and failed — to do for decades. There are too many decision points between now and then to speculate how Israel will extricate itself from Gaza, including securing satisfactory assurances that Hamas can never again pose a threat. Presumably President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in their conversations with their Israeli counterparts, will have made clear the difficulties inherent in successfully bringing about political change.
Paul Scham is a professor of Israel Studies at the University of Maryland, a former director of its Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies, and a Non-Resident Scholar at MEI.
Photo by GIL COHEN MAGEN/AFP via Getty Images
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