A different policy is needed if a different result is to be expected.
There were positive points in this recent Gaza conflagration. The significance of the Abraham Accords, the most significant stride for Middle East Peace in decades, is now plain to see. No major Arab country was truly critical of Israel’s hammering of Hamas. Few shed any tears and many openly or tacitly applauded, as uncensored posts in Arab social media illustrated. The Shi’ites in Iran and the Islamists in Turkey, who long for the lost glory of yore, were the only ones in the region who genuinely denounced Israel. That speaks volumes.
Iran’s goal in financing and encouraging Hamas’s terrorism is to blow up the Abraham Accords – agreements that established a unified front against Iran’s ambitions for regional dominance. In contrast to Iran’s ambitions, Israel and the international community had an opportunity to reshuffle the deck in this terror-riddled region.
During the first decade of the 21st century, the IDF confronted a seemingly endless wave of deadly Palestinian suicide bombings and was able to prove that targeted killing, while minimizing unintended civilian deaths, is not only ethical but also effective counterterrorism. By using surgical targeted killings and building a security fence, Israel was able to stop suicide bombings.
A similar policy needs to be adopted against the missile capability of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. All launchers, rocket depots and those who harbor them should know that they will be targeted – during missile attacks, immediately afterwards, or before the next attempt. Zero immunity.
After years of rocket fire and mortar shelling of Israeli civilians, and ill-fated campaigns in Lebanon and Gaza since the summer of 2006, Hamas’s working assumption was that political mayhem would cause the Israeli leadership to continue to act with restraint. Israel’s restraint policy at its southern border was perceived as an endemic strategy of weakness.
Hamas was wrong.
At the technological and operational level, the Guardian of the Walls operation may turn out to be the most accurate and precise operation in modern military history. According to The Jerusalem Post, The Israel Air Force bombed more than 1,000 Hamas targets in Gaza, many of them inside residential buildings, and a vast system of tunnels – a virtual underground city – that resulted in less than 60 civilian casualties. This figure includes civilians likely killed by Hamas’s own rockets, as a third of the missiles fired at Israel fell short and landed inside the Gaza Strip. Ground forces were also able to carry out targeted strikes. That was noticed by the international community and by Palestinians.
For the first time in a long time, a wide political alliance – thanks in part to the Abraham Accords and international cooperation in COVID crisis management – was formed between Israel, the United States, key European countries and most moderate Arab states against Hamas, a terrorist organization that has taken the people of Gaza hostage while indiscriminately terrorizing Israelis.
Most responsible players in the international community are fully aware that Iran, its proxies and the militant Jihadist ideology it disseminates are a threat not only to Israel and the region but also to the entire free world. Any peace-loving country should demand Hamas be dismantled.
IF THE BIDEN administration was interested in jump-starting the peace process with the Palestinians and at the same time showing some backbone in the nuclear negotiations with Iran, it could make the return to the nuclear deal contingent on the dismantling of Hamas and other Iranian terrorist proxies. One obstacle to such an achievement is the growing animosity to sheer hatred of Israel within the ranks of the Democratic party.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York), who presented a global map without Israel; Ilhan Omar (Minnesota), who referred to Jews as the Benjamins; and Rashida Tlaib (Michigan), who had to apologize for infantile antisemitic rants, are just three particularly vociferous examples at the core of America’s pro-Hamas and pro-Palestinian “progressives.” There are many others. President Joe Biden had the opportunity to differentiate himself from these voices and from Barack Obama for that matter, but instead preferred to position himself as a third Obama administration-in-the-making and continues to appease the tyrants in Tehran.
Israel has had a knife placed at its throat for years, much like the knife placed on the United States 60 years ago when Soviet nuclear missiles were deployed in Cuba. Then, as now, the missiles must be removed. Not contained, removed. No country in the world would accept 4,000 missiles being lobbed at its civilians. Just imagine what would be left of Tijuana if 4,000 missiles were fired at San-Diego.
If the international community is committed to a real ceasefire, it might not be too late to set new rules of engagement whereby Hamas is disarmed and a sustainable truce is achieved. If this mainstay of Islamist terrorism remains capable of attacking Israel, renewed attacks by Hamas are a foregone conclusion. Alongside the unconditional return of captive Israelis and the bodies of its soldiers held in Gaza, the immediate objective of Israel and the international community must be a permanent disarmament of Hamas and groups of its ilk.
Many pundits claim that Hamas cannot be dismantled. But contrary to this conventional wisdom, terrorism can be defeated. Many and much more sophisticated organizations than Hamas have been eradicated: Peru’s Shining Path, Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers (who specialized in suicide bombings well before Hamas did, Japan’s Aum Shinrinkyo (which used chemical agents in a Tokyo subway), and of course the IRA, to name a few.
These groups were once thought by many to be invincible, yet today are history. Hamas and the smaller Palestinian Islamic Jihad are no different, other than the fact that they are backed by Iran. If instructed to do so, the IDF is fully capable of eradicating or at least dismantling these organizations. That is the duty of any responsible government that sees the security and safety of its people as its highest priority.
It was convenient but wrong to define the IDF’s mission as “Remove Hamas’s will to attack Israel.” That is unquantifiable and insufficient. Hamas’s capability needs dismantlement so that a new and long-lasting equation of deterrence will come about.
Many speculate about what would follow Hamas in Gaza. Would they be as bad or perhaps even worse? Would the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, ISIS or organizations of its ilk, viewed by some to be more radical than Hamas, take over? Would it be a cunning, mild-mannered figure like Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas? Perhaps it could be an international force?
One thing, though, is certain: The entity that ultimately succeeds Hamas will know that the last organization that terrorized Israel was defeated and dismantled. That should deter them from acting in a similar fashion.
The writers are research fellows at the International Institute for Counterterrorism in Herzliya. The opinions expressed here are their own.