Hamas declared war on Israel with its savage attack on the country 17 weeks ago on Shabbat.
Seventeen weeks of soldiers fighting and dying, of hostages rotting in Hamas captivity and their families suffering unimaginable agony, of tens of thousands of Israelis in the South and the North uprooted from their homes, of a nation mourning and grieving.
Seventeen weeks of the country on a tense and anxiety-ridden war footing that has taken a massive toll in terms of lives lost and resources expended.
Nevertheless, the country remains overwhelmingly determined and steadfast to continue waging this war, convinced that it is a just war of no choice that, if not decisively won – meaning that if Hamas is not roundly defeated and its capabilities degraded in a manner that everyone in the region sees and internalizes – then a precarious future awaits. And who wants a precarious future?
So the war grinds on: slowly and methodically, apparently according to a plan stipulating that it is better to act unhurriedly and surgically rather than swiftly with indiscriminate power that might end the war sooner but endanger more IDF soldiers as well as Gazan noncombatants.
In a Channel 12 poll this week, 32% of the respondents said that a state commission of inquiry should already be established to investigate the October 7 catastrophe that caused this war, while 61% say this commission should be established after the war, and only 3% said there was no need for such a commission.
Regardless of when this panel will be set up and who eventually sits on it, one question that will loom large is why Israel waited so long to wage this type of battle to destroy Hamas.
Hamas has been in control of the Gaza Strip since 2007, and since that time – in the full sight of Israeli intelligence – has been building an underground fortress unprecedented in its scope. It has also been arming itself to the teeth.
Plus, it’s not as if Hamas hid its ideology and Israel had any illusions about what it wanted or stood for: the destruction of the Jewish state. It was written in black and white, and its leaders and adherents were never coy about their intentions.
So why wait 16 years to finally make the decision to destroy the organization, which means – since it is not possible to wipe out an ideology – depriving it of its capabilities to carry out its threats and of its ability to rule Gaza?
The answer is simple: legitimacy, both domestic and international. Sadly, it took the Hamas attack 17 Shabbatot ago, and the full brutality of that attack, for Israel to get the domestic backing and international legitimacy it needed to carry out this kind of war.
Had Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mobilized the reserves and sent several divisions into Gaza to dismantle Hamas in, say, 2015 or 2020, the country would not have been behind him, and the world would have stepped in to stop it.
Many in the country would have blamed Netanyahu for taking this type of action for political reasons – especially since Israel goes to elections so often, and there always seems to be an election right around the corner.
Such a military move would have been perceived widely as a play for right-wing voters, there would not have been the 150% mobilization by reserve soldiers that we saw in October, and there would have been loud voices by mothers of soldiers – voices we have not heard this time – shouting: “Why is my son risking his life for Netanyahu’s war in Gaza.”
Also, the world – specifically, the US – would have said that Hamas’s constructing a booby-trapped underground fortress and stockpiling rockets does not justify a full-blown invasion. Washington would have demanded a halt; it would not have provided vital diplomatic cover at the UN and elsewhere, and would not have airlifted munitions to Israel, enabling it to continue waging the war.
It took the brutal attack 17 weeks ago – the murders, rapes, mutilations, and kidnappings, and how Hamas relished it all – to give Israel, at long last, both the wall-to-wall domestic backing and the international legitimacy it needed to pound Hamas.
Israel stands divided 17 weeks into the war with Hamas
NOW, AFTER 17 weeks, the country stands at the cusp of monumental decisions regarding the continuation of the war, the ransom to pay to win the release of hostages, the future of Gaza, and the price Israel might consider paying (a demilitarized Palestinian state?) as the West is talking about engineering some grand design for a post-Hamas Mideast.
Israel is now facing those pivotal decisions with the parties increasingly at odds within the national emergency government established on October 12 with the inclusion of Benny Gantz’s National Unity Party.
Adding to the complexity, recent polls overwhelmingly indicate that a coalition consisting of the parties that formed the government before October 7 would be clobbered in an election, and that the nation has lost confidence in the prime minister.
The Channel 12 poll on Tuesday showed a Netanyahu-led Likud getting trounced, were elections held today, by the National Unity Party, 37 seats to 18 (Maariv’s weekly polls consistently give Gantz an even more significant margin of victory).
Perhaps even more tellingly, when asked who is more suitable to be prime minister, 41% of the respondents said Gantz, and 23% said Netanyahu. This, too, has been a fairly persistent pattern in polls over the last few weeks. In other words, critical decisions are now in the hands of an emergency government increasingly feuding among itself and a prime minister with meager approval ratings.
Why does that matter?
Because Netanyahu and others in the government are also reading those polls, and, carefully following the public mood, Netanyahu has to continuously worry about whether his policies will drive Gantz from the national emergency government or whether they will drive Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit or Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party out of the coalition.
If he moves too far to the Right on how he envisions the “day after” scenario inside Gaza, he will drive Gantz out, but if he doesn’t move enough to the Right, he will – as Ben-Gvir made abundantly clear this week – drive him and Smotrich out.
This scenario is less than ideal during wartime and with Israel on the brink of having to make significant decisions. As a result, several trial balloons were released this week, seeking ways to improve the situation.
One would have Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party given significant portfolios, including the Justice Ministry, to enter a national unity government, and the other would have the parties agree to a date for early elections.
The goal of both proposals is to remove the threat of the imminent collapse of the government from the decision-making process so that Netanyahu can decide what type of administration to put into place in Gaza without worrying that this will drive Ben-Gvir and Smotrich away, and that he can accept or reject a possible deal for the release of the hostages based on what is good for the country and not out of a fear that one decision or another might chase Gantz out of the government.
The idea is to remove possible political considerations from the decision-making process to the greatest extent possible, trying to ensure that the decisions being made – critical decisions – stand on their merits and not because of a concern over coalition politics.
However, even if the government were expanded, or a date were set now for elections, that might ensure coalition stability in the short term, but it would not remove politics from the equation, as the decision-makers will be looking at how their decisions will play with their political base. According to Channel 12, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant proposed holding elections six months after the end of the war or two years from today, whatever comes first.
In a perfect world, policy-makers’ decision-making during war should be free of political considerations. One would hope that decisions on life-and-death matters would not consider what is good or bad for one’s own political fortunes.
Indeed, one of the main points of criticism of Netanyahu being whispered in Washington these days is that Netanyahu is making decisions – or not making them – out of concern for his political future. Ironically, however, US President Joe Biden is acting similarly.
Four days after three US service members were killed in Jordan by a drone attack carried out by an Iranian-backed militia, Biden has not yet responded. He said he would respond, but if he does so, any US action will be seen through the prism of the upcoming elections in November.
The question will be asked, for instance, whether he did not respond more aggressively because he wanted to appease the progressives in his own party. Or, perhaps, is he responding at all because he wants to attract independent voters who don’t want to see attacks on Americans go unanswered?
In theory, decision-makers should make wartime decisions without an eye on how it will affect their personal political fortunes. The reality, however, is a lot messier.