It is still too early to say who has won or lost in Israel’s war against Gaza, especially since the ceasefire has not yet begun. But at least if the first phase of the deal goes ahead, it can be said that Israel has not achieved its war goals.
Israel has failed to achieve its stated goal of annihilating Hamas by military force and returning its prisoners.
More importantly, its unstated goal was to eliminate the Palestinian presence in Gaza, which was not achieved. Despite all the destruction and carnage inflicted by Israel during the 15-month war in Gaza, Palestinians continue to cling to their land.
Palestinians took to the streets of the Gaza Strip after the cease-fire agreement was announced, celebrating their survival as a people and as humans against Israeli aggression. These scenes show that Israel has failed as far as Israel is concerned.
Nor can we talk about the victory of the Palestinians. With perhaps more than 50,000 Palestinians murdered, most of them women and children, and cities left in ruins in a manner never before seen in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, any talk of victory is far from reality. It seems to be loose.
But if the goal of the Palestinians was a kind of “sumud,” or unyielding perseverance, then they have achieved this goal.
Why did Prime Minister Netanyahu agree now?
It is difficult to know exactly why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to accept the deal, which has been under consideration since May 2024. Pressure from Donald Trump may have played a big role, but Netanyahu also has problems within Israel.
His coalition has weakened significantly, with all opinion polls showing a majority of the public supports a deal that would release about 100 Israeli prisoners in exchange for an end to the war.
According to recent opinion polls, the current coalition government will win 49 of parliament’s 120 seats in the re-election, losing a majority of almost 20 seats in the process.
Therefore, agreeing to the first stage of the hostage deal could help Prime Minister Netanyahu regain support among centre-right voters, while also promising a harder-right right to renew the fight later on. do not have.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had previously rejected the deal mainly for political reasons. His far-right allies, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, have threatened to overthrow the government if he stops the war.
Such threats still exist. But Netanyahu had other, more serious reasons for refusing. He feared that once the war ended, the Palestinian issue might come back to the negotiating table.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dedicated his political career to preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state, so such an incident could undermine his legacy. Nevertheless, forced by President Trump and Israeli public opinion, he agreed to a ceasefire.
Is there any chance of a permanent ceasefire?
Win or lose, the Israel after the signing of the ceasefire will be very different from the Israel it was before the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023. The attack caused a trauma from which Israeli society has never recovered. The destruction in Gaza was an attempt to heal that, but the trauma remained.
On October 7, the idea that Israel could “manage the conflict” with the Palestinians collapsed. Researchers at the Regional Thinking Forum, an Israeli think tank that focuses on Middle East issues, recently explained how and why this idea failed and how it led to the catastrophic outcome of October 7th. revealed.
Having failed to “manage” the conflict, Israel instead turned to eliminating Palestinians in the spirit of Smotrich’s “Definitive Plan,” a manifesto to reserve all of historic Palestine for Israel. . The destruction of Gaza was also part of this plan, but it now appears that this route also failed.
Smotrich and Ben Gvir still think this goal is achievable. They are therefore demanding a commitment from Prime Minister Netanyahu to restart the war with the stated goal of Israel fully occupying the Gaza Strip and minimizing humanitarian aid.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains vague about the possibility of restarting the war, but a restart seems very difficult for several reasons.
It is not yet clear what kind of pressure President Trump has exerted on Prime Minister Netanyahu so far, but he does not want war in Gaza and aims to restart some sort of political process in the Middle East. That’s clear. A return to war would go against his wishes.
President Trump will not stop arms shipments to Israel or lift America’s veto at the United Nations if Israel returns to war, but Prime Minister Netanyahu will not take over the White House. Trump will probably not want to confront him in the first few months.
A renewed war could also strain relations with Egypt, which helped broker the deal.
But the main problem will be internal. Returning to war would mean giving up the lives of the 66 hostages not included in the first phase of the deal. Such a move would be seen as a betrayal by many Israelis.
According to a poll released Friday, 73 percent of Israelis support the release of all hostages in exchange for an end to the war. If the war resumes before they all return home,…
The government’s demonstrations, already large, could become even more intense and violent.
Most Israelis want a return to normalcy. If the war resumes under relatively small pressure from the far right – Mr. Smotrich and Mr. Ben Gvir have 14 seats in parliament, but opinion polls show their number is even lower – Israel Society could become even more torn than it is today.
Returning to combat will be difficult from a military perspective. The Israeli army is already exhausted. The soldiers no longer know what is expected of them and where this war is going. The proportion of reservists serving in the military is decreasing.
If the conditions of the first phase are fully implemented, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians will return to the northern Gaza Strip, making it once again an extremely dangerous area for Israeli forces to fight. This will be a big issue because it won’t happen. It is densely populated.
Hamas’ ability to rally has already been demonstrated, as evidenced by the killing of 15 Israeli soldiers in Beit Hanun in one week. After 42 days of ceasefire, Hamas will definitely be ready.
It is therefore reasonable to assume that the second phase of the ceasefire will come into effect, that all hostages will be released, and that a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will take place.
Impact on Israeli society
Most Israelis want to return to the pre-October 7 era, a kind of internal Jewish settlement between centrists, moderate rightists, and center-leftists, and continue to ignore the Palestinian issue.
The same was true of the Bennett Lapid administration that preceded the current Netanyahu administration.
But after the trauma of Oct. 7 and a devastating 15-month war with the Palestinians in Gaza that failed to yield results, it will be difficult to put the Palestinian genie back in the bottle. On the international stage, the Palestinian issue is in a completely different situation than it was on October 6, 2023.
From university campuses to foreign ministries around the world, this issue has become a pressing issue, perhaps the most pressing of all. It is now much less likely that the international community will let Israel “manage” the Palestinian issue as it wishes.
A new force may emerge in Israeli society. Some of the political and social forces that sparked mass demonstrations in 2023 against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s general judiciary and protests demanding the return of prisoners may realize that they can no longer ignore the Palestinians.
Not from a moral point of view, but because October 7 and the war that followed showed them that it is impossible to live a normal life in Israel unless this problem is resolved by force.
It is still too early to tell whether such a new political perspective will emerge after this war ends, but Israel’s history tells us that it is possible. After the 1973 Middle East war ended, many Israelis felt that the conflict had been won. Still, the trauma of defeat in the first few days continued to haunt them subconsciously.
Six years later, Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt and withdrew from all occupied territory in the Sinai Peninsula in 1967.
This situation 50 years ago is reminiscent of the situation today. It would be optimistic, perhaps too optimistic, to think that such a scenario could be repeated after the recent war in Gaza. But new possibilities seem to be opening up.
Source: Middle East Eye