Moved by the pain and anger caused by the Hamas massacre, Israeli military and political leaders have vowed to use all necessary force to end the terrorist threat of this Islamist movement. The United States, at first, supported the use of “unlimited” force that Israeli Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu had announced. A week later, the Biden Administration recommends calm and the president himself has indicated that occupying Gaza would be “a serious mistake.”
The Israeli army is ready to enter the strip, but the order is delayed.
“We have everything necessary to devastate Gaza,” explains a military analyst who prefers not to say his name because he is not authorized to speak to the press, “but what would be the point?” What we suffered on October 7 was a terrorist attack and we must respond appropriately. We do not need a war that will cause many more civilian deaths, but rather an anti-terrorist strategy. Just because Hamas loses does not mean that we win. Even if we kill all the terrorists, others will take their place. There will be no victory day. In Gaza no one will welcome us with open arms.”
Air superiority, decisive in so many wars, is of no use to fight against a militia well entrenched in an urban area. The F-16 and F-35, the surveillance and attack drones, the Apache helicopters “are useful in a remote war, but not in close combat,” adds this military expert.
Israel has assembled a formidable military force around Gaza, but the Army’s combat units number no more than 30,000 men, and they have no experience fighting an urban insurgency. The mechanized infantry will support them in the advance, but, when push comes to shove, it will be the elite commandos who will have to eliminate the Hamas guerrillas.
“Are we prepared to pay the price?” this Army veteran asks, “because it will be high.”
Israeli strategists have calculated this well. Americans too. The numbers don’t add up. It will be inevitable that more civilians will die; it is possible that Hamas will execute the hostages and spread it through the networks as the Islamic State did. The moral implications will be enormous for Israel. Its reputation as an advanced democracy will be further aggravated.
This is just what Hamas wants. He has written one of the most horrible pages in the history of Israel, seeking to overact and thus, in the face of images of devastation, force Arab countries to break relations and support the Palestinian cause.
The United States’ response to 9/11 was a colossal strategic mistake. From the ashes of Al Qaeda emerged the Islamic State. Iraq and Afghanistan are back to where they were. The financial and human cost was exorbitant because it served no purpose.
American democracy suffered and the decline of its world leadership began.
The United States hopes that Israel will learn from its mistakes and confront Hamas as a terrorist organization.
“There are two fundamental rules of counterterrorism that we must apply,” says this same analyst: “protect civilians and rescue hostages. We have to put an end to Hamas without harming the population.”
That is why Antony Blinken, Secretary of State of the United States, insists so much on opening humanitarian corridors and creating safe areas for the million displaced people who are accumulating in the south of the strip.
“If the population is safe and the fight against Hamas is presented as an anti-terrorist operation – maintains the expert -, it will take longer to achieve victory, but we will save our democracy and relations with the Arab countries.”
The problem is that Beniamin Netanyahu needs a photo with the Israeli flag in the Hamas fiefdom as soon as possible. The rhetoric has cornered him. How will he back down if he has announced that the invasion is imminent, that it will be massive and that Hamas will be crushed?
The prime minister, furthermore, has done nothing to reduce violence in the West Bank. His most radical allies, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, remain in the Government to expand the colonies and create a single State, with the Palestinian population locked in walled enclaves.
The counterterrorism strategy must combine the use of selective force against Hamas with an aggressive policy against the expansion of colonies. It must put an end to Hamas, but allow the Palestinian Authority to regain its lost prestige and expand its powers.
The easiest thing is to give the order to invade. The most difficult thing is to end Hamas.