By Romolo Tavani @Adobe Stock
“Israel Is Going to Win this War”
This week, Israel had a reckoning with Yahya Sinwar, the terrorist mastermind behind the 7 October attack on Israel. His goons beheaded men, raped women and burned babies alive. Prime Minister Netanyahu has promised, “nothing will deter him.”
Israel military attacked strategic underground complexes (tunnels) in Gaza, pushing Yahya Sinwar to flee the relative safety of the Hamas labyrinth.
“Israel is going to win this war, ” continued Israel’s PM.
Israel Not Backing Down
Netanyahu posted a pair of video statements, one in Hebrew the other in English, reports David Zimmermann in NRO.
As of Friday afternoon (Paris time), it has been reported that Hezbollah targeted Netanyahu’s home with explosive drones. No casualties have been reported. The prime minister and his wife were not at home.
With the death of Hamas’s leader, President Joe Biden is looking at this as an opportunity to end the war in Gaza.
From Joe Biden:
It’s time for this war to end and bring these hostages home,” He said he had spoken with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about how “we secure Gaza and move on.”
A Gambit to Help Harris
Based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Middle East realities, Michael Doran in the WSJ explains, this gambit is likely to fail. In a play to domestic politics, Biden is making a peace initiative irresistible to Democrat Party leaders.
If a cease-fire were achieved, Kamala Harris could celebrate it not only as a major foreign-policy achievement, but also one that benefits Israel. She could counter attacks from Donald Trump that she is inexperienced and hostile to the Jewish state.
Biden does view the war in Gaza as the key to stabilizing the whole Middle East. Biden’s approach, however, clashes with the situation on the ground.
Sinwar’s death hasn’t changed that.
Three Major Flaws in the Biden Administration’s Policy:
First, it mistakenly assumed that Mr. Netanyahu could be forced into accepting a chastened Hamas as a major political actor in Gaza. “We have to be honest … Hamas will remain in Gaza in some form after the war is over,” a Biden official told the Times of Israel last May. “No amount of fighting is going to change that.”
The White House masks its acceptance of Hamas by expressing its intention to “revitalize” the Palestinian Authority. But in 2007 Hamas expelled the Palestinian Authority by force from Gaza.
When the Israelis have asked what would compel Hamas now to cede power, the White House has had no convincing answer.
Many hope Sinwar’s death will force Hamas to negotiate a cease-fire. But in the eyes of most Israelis, the killing simply vindicated Mr. Netanyahu’s demand for “total victory,” clarifies Mr. Doran in the WSJ.
The prime minister sees a chance to break Hamas apart and negotiate individually with its pieces. He is offering local Hamas commanders a choice: Either you release the hostages under your control and receive safe passage out of Gaza, or you die.
(Joe Biden’s) effort to reach a deal with a centralized Hamas is out of date.
Second, the Biden administration has misread the connection between Gaza and the Lebanon front.
A cease-fire in Gaza that will not necessarily also lead to a cease-fire in Lebanon. Hezbollah and Iran aren’t apt to stop attacking Israel once Hamas agrees to a cease-fire.
To Israel, linking the Gaza and Lebanon fronts works to the advantage of Iran and its self-styled axis of resistance. The Biden initiative looks for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon, then followed by a period of diplomacy designed to achieve a lasting political settlement.
By contrast, the Israelis feel, correctly, that the tide of war has shifted dramatically in their favor.
Thanks to the decapitation of Hezbollah and the entry of Israel forces into Lebanon, Israel can demand far more favorable terms than American policy currently offers.
Why would Israel take its boot from Hezbollah’s neck first and then start negotiating? Doesn’t it make more sense either to require Hezbollah to accept Israel’s terms or simply to impose them on southern Lebanon by force of arms?
A Cease Fire Not Strong Enough
Security at the northern border has left Israel with little room to jockey. The tens of thousands of Israelis who have been evacuated from their homes in the north will reject returning until it is undisputed that Hezbollah will never be able to fire rockets and missiles at them again.
Third, could the Biden team be misreading the Iran-Israel dynamic? Israel was preparing to launch ballistic-missile attacks as reprisal against Iran at the time of Sinwar’s death. For Israel, asserts Mr. Doran, the reprisal is crucial to revitalizing its deterrence against Iran.
(Joe) Biden’s cease-fire initiative will likely come with a demand for even more restraint by Israel against Iran. Mr. Netanyahu may or may not heed such counsel. If he does, he will then pursue “total victory” in Gaza and Lebanon even more urgently—if only to prove that Iran and its proxies can’t use America to restrain Israel so they can shoot at it with impunity.
Michael Doran is director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East.
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