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It is time the US considers Hamas\u2019s survival in Gaza | Israel-Palestine conflict<\/p>\n
Three days into the four-day truce between Israel and Hamas, the agreement appears to hold and there is even talk of extending it. By Monday, 50 Israeli women and children are supposed to have been exchanged for 150 Palestinian women and children, with mediators hinting that the deal could continue for a few more days through the same formula.<\/p>\n
Although the conditions of the truce\u00a0resemble\u00a0similar ones put forward by Qatari mediators in recent weeks, Israel\u2019s war cabinet has insisted it was the result of military pressure it had exerted on Hamas. But only a few weeks ago, the government was vowing to free its hostages by force.<\/p>\n
By assenting to the terms of the release, Israel has shown that it can, in fact, negotiate with Hamas, tacitly conceding that it is no closer to eradicating a group that has gone, quite literally, underground. If anything, by\u00a0laying waste\u00a0to much of Gaza City and, with it, the institutions of Hamas governance, Israel\u2019s actions have only made the group more elusive.<\/p>\n
That much was made clear by the Israeli army\u2019s siege and raid of Gaza\u2019s al-Shifa Hospital, which failed to produce conclusive evidence that there was a Hamas-operated command centre there, as it had claimed. Instead, the operation against al-Shifa, which was anticlimactic at best, added to growing scepticism that Israel, with American backing, can uproot Hamas from Gaza.<\/p>\n
It is time this reality is recognised in the halls of power in Washington. The Biden administration must abandon unrealistic Israeli rhetoric about \u201cending Hamas\u201d and embrace a more attainable political solution that factors in the movement\u2019s survival.<\/p>\n
Proof of Israel\u2019s faltering mission can be found in the war\u2019s bloody dividends. Its air and ground assault, which Defence Minister Yoav Gallant vowed would wipe Hamas \u201coff the face of the earth\u201d, has so far failed to halt Palestinian fighters\u2019 ambushes of Israeli positions or the near-daily volley of\u00a0rockets\u00a0lobbed at Israeli cities.<\/p>\n
Now in its seventh week, the war has instead\u00a0killed\u00a0more than 14,800 Palestinians, including some 6,100 children, levelled residential neighbourhoods and refugee camps, and\u00a0displaced\u00a0more than a million people across the besieged strip.<\/p>\n
Military analysts had claimed that the massive bombing campaign would \u201csoften\u201d Hamas positions ahead of Israel\u2019s ground invasion, limiting the group\u2019s ability to wage urban warfare in the densely built enclave. But in recent weeks, some US officials, echoing\u00a0reports\u00a0in the Israeli media, have started to\u00a0concede\u00a0that Israel\u2019s unrelenting bombing has failed to neutralise Hamas\u2019s battle capabilities.<\/p>\n
Tolerance for Israel\u2019s actions also appears to be declining. On November 10, French President Emmanuel Macron became the first G-7 leader to call for a ceasefire. On November 24, the prime ministers of Spain and Belgium criticised Israel\u2019s \u201cindiscriminate killing of innocent civilians\u201d and the destruction of \u201cthe society of Gaza\u201d. Pedro S\u00e1nchez, the Spanish premier, even vowed to unilaterally recognise Palestinian statehood.<\/p>\n
In the US, the Biden administration may be standing by their Israeli ally, but public opinion is swiftly shifting in favour of a permanent ceasefire. Mass demonstrations calling for a ceasefire have been held across the country and several large US cities, including Atlanta, Detroit and Seattle, have passed resolutions echoing this call.<\/p>\n
A recent\u00a0poll\u00a0showed that only 32 percent of Americans believe their country \u201cshould support Israel\u201d in its war on Gaza. Having left little daylight between his stance on the war and Israel\u2019s prosecution of it, US President Joe Biden has already seen his\u00a0poll numbers slip.<\/p>\n
Public pressure may have encouraged not only Washington to push for the hostage exchange, but also the Israeli government to accept it. In addition to the backlash he has faced from\u00a0families\u00a0of the Hamas-held hostages,\u00a0reports\u00a0indicate that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was\u00a0pressed\u00a0on the exchange by Israel\u2019s security services and military.<\/p>\n
Although Netanyahu, Gallant, and former Defence Minister Benny Gantz, who sits in the current war cabinet, have all declared that the war on Hamas would continue, public pressure could make them walk back on this intention, too.<\/p>\n
The conflict is already taking a heavy toll on the\u00a0Israeli economy, which is losing over a quarter billion dollars a day. It is expected to contract by 1.5 percent in 2024, as the fighting has disrupted air travel and cargo and the recent hijacking of an Israeli-linked ship may even threaten sea transportation.<\/p>\n
Then there are the tens of thousands of Israelis\u00a0displaced\u00a0from areas along the Gaza and Lebanon borders as well as all the families of the hostages calling for all to be released. The ongoing truce has demonstrated that Israelis held captive can be easily freed without firing a shot. This could help sway Israeli public opinion \u2013 which so far has been overwhelmingly in favour of the war \u2013 towards a ceasefire.<\/p>\n
Some Israeli analysts are already\u00a0noting a shift favouring a truce extension. Indeed, continuing on the path of negotiations would limit the country\u2019s mounting economic losses and safeguard the lives of both its captives and soldiers. The Israeli military has admitted to the deaths of 70 soldiers since the start of the ground invasion.<\/p>\n
Another problem with the Israeli government\u2019s insistence on continuing the war is that it has not actually laid out an endgame that is acceptable to its allies, including the US.<\/p>\n
Apart from the declared goal of \u201ceradicating\u201d Hamas from Gaza, Israeli officials have also indicated that they wish to expel the Palestinian population into Egypt\u2019s Sinai Peninsula.<\/p>\n
Pressure from Arab allies quickly quashed US support for this idea\u00a0as well as\u00a0for Israeli\u00a0plans to claim indefinite \u201csecurity responsibility\u201d in Gaza. The Biden administration\u2019s alternative \u2013 for the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority to assume control of the enclave \u2013 has been roundly rejected by both Israel and Hamas, which, in the absence of Israeli reoccupation, would remain the only power broker in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Instead of recognising this, the US has stubbornly refused to float any policy proposals that factor in Hamas\u2019s survival. In that wilful blindness, Washington is joined by a chorus of pundits who continue to\u00a0put forth\u00a0\u201csolutions\u201d that presuppose Hamas\u2019s destruction. But given the still-fresh memory of Afghanistan, US policymakers should know all too well that eradicating a homegrown resistance movement is, ultimately, impossible.<\/p>\n
More possible would be to build on the example of the current hostage deal, which showed that both Israel and Hamas have the political will to negotiate. By working with mediators Qatar and Egypt, the US can help move the conversation around Gaza beyond the disastrous \u201cwith us or against us\u201d rhetoric that characterised America\u2019s war on terror and into discussions about a long-term ceasefire, one that would need to be brokered through Hamas\u2019s political leadership-in-exile.<\/p>\n
There is precedent for this. Recall that, in December 2012, Israel allowed Hamas\u2019s then-leader Khaled Meshaal to\u00a0return\u00a0to Gaza as part of a negotiated truce after that year\u2019s eight-day war. Whether current exiled leader Ismail Haniyeh can moderate the position of his Gaza counterpart, Yahya Sinwar, who is widely believed to have masterminded the October 7 attacks, will depend on Haniyeh\u2019s ability to secure international relief and reconstruction funds.<\/p>\n
Just as important will be a US commitment to rein in Israel\u2019s extremist policies, including its siege of Gaza and backing for settler violence in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Once such a de-escalation happens, it will become critical for the international community to uphold its commitment to Gaza\u2019s reconstruction and development, easing the desperate conditions that helped give rise to the October 7 attacks.<\/p>\n
To be sure, no vision for a peaceful future can abide the murder of civilians. But finding a way out of the current crisis means reckoning with the reality laid bare by this war\u2019s first seven weeks: There is no way to wipe Hamas \u201coff the face of the earth\u201d that does not take untold numbers of Palestinian \u2013 and Israeli \u2013 lives with it.<\/p>\n
If Hamas\u2019s long-term survival strains the imagination, the risks of simply avoiding the thought are even more unimaginable. Although this is clearly not a widely held sentiment in Israel right now, some Israelis, like former government advisor and Bar-Ilan University professor Menachem Klein, are coming around to the idea. Speaking to Al Jazeera after the first Israeli hostages were released, Klein conceded that it is \u201cimpossible to totally destroy Hamas by force\u201d. The path forward, he argued, should include the group in renewed negotiations around a Palestinian state.<\/p>\n
Given the horrific suffering endured by the people of Gaza, growing international and domestic pressure to end it, and the still-looming prospect of a broader regional conflict, the US can no longer insist that eliminating Hamas is the only path to ending this war.<\/p>\n
The views expressed in this article are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera\u2019s editorial stance.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u0627\u0644\u0645\u0635\u062f\u0631<\/a>
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