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IIsrael ended months of terrified speculation Monday night when its tanks moved to the Rafah checkpoint between Gaza and Egypt. By morning, the army took control of the crossing and the operation near the town of Rafah began.
The move seems ill-advised. Israel’s allies have warned that an attack on Rafah would lead to another disaster for the more than one million Palestinians who are sheltering there. On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden announced that he would cut off arms supplies necessary for a full offensive, representing the greatest American threat to Israel’s interests in decades. And while Israel says it needs to enter Rafah to destroy four Hamas battalions there, even Israeli experts doubt the operation will change the game: It could be “tactical at best,” according to a former Mossad, and once it’s over, Hamas will creep back in as in other parts of Gaza.
Why, then, did the government of Israel preempt? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did repeatedly insisted that the attack on Rafah was essential to achieve “Complete victory”. The elusive term is understood to mean the destruction of Hamas’ military and governance capacity and the return of hostages to Israel held by Hamas. But if Israel chooses this path, it must recognize what the “total victory” strategy has meant so far in practice.
To date, the government’s prosecution of the war did not destroy Hamas. The IDF estimate that it killed 10,000-14,000 fighters is considered exaggerated; and may include any dead male of the relevant age. Hamas still controls the fate of the hostages, who deteriorate and die in captivity.
The government’s policy of “total victory” caused the most significant global isolation in Israel’s history. Before Biden’s announcement, Canada and Italy did announced the termination export of new weapons to Israel. Colombia severed diplomatic ties, and Turkey announced a trade ban, which may still stop, but the threat is an economic and diplomatic bombshell. Israel is accused of genocide in the international court and the specter of arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court.
The world spirit of the times defines Israel as a pariah, which is manifested in campus protests sweeping the US, UK and Europe or demoralizing boos for the Israeli singer, Eden Golan, at Eurovision. Israeli scientists are pushed out of international forums. Airline cancellations make travel difficult, increasing feelings of isolation.
At home, more than 100,000 Israelis are still displaced. War cuts into people’s incomes and mental health, and every day more families are bereaved as soldiers die in Gaza for a “total victory” that never arrives. The goal of destroying Hamas as a military threat to Israeli civilians and sovereign territory may have been justified in itself; but the government has yet to demonstrate that it can achieve this goal. The evidence points to failure.
There is an alternative path. Last week, a hostage/ceasefire deal seemed achievable again. But the talks failed mainly because of Hamas’s steadfast demand for a complete end to the war.
There is nothing easy about this path. Hamas is an abomination to its people and a death cult that should not feel the satisfaction of victory. But ending the war cannot be reduced to the pain of coming to terms with Hamas; it would also bring a long list of gains for both Israelis and Palestinians. For Israel, the agreement to end the war will above all save the lives of the remaining hostages. A majority of Israelis want this: 62% prefer a hostage deal to a Rafah operation. according to a survey by the Israel Democracy Institute last week, while only 32% prioritized an attack on Rafah. In another poll on Channel 13, 52% of Israelis do not believe that the operation will achieve “total victory”. and a Israeli Public Television poll found that the vast majority – nearly half of Israelis – supported a hostage deal involving the release of all hostages in exchange for “a complete end to the war and the release of thousands of terrorists”.
Internationally, an end to the war would save Israel’s relationship with its closest ally, the United States. It is hardly insignificant that an end to the fighting in Gaza would reduce the threat of an escalation with Hezbollah in the north – an extremely dangerous prospect.
Ending the war would also require Israel to come up with realistic plans for the day after Gaza, in cooperation with a number of Western and Arab allies. This could include the grand Saudi normalization deal that America is pushing for, and a more sustainable, multilateral deal for a true paradigm shift in Israeli-Palestinian relations, including independence and self-determination for the Palestinians.
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The harsh truth is that for most Israelis the lives of the Palestinians are an afterthought at the moment; but the exact truth is that their destinies are intertwined. Nearly 35,000 Palestinians have been killed; more than 14,000 were children. Ending war means saving those lives going forward; and every innocent life saved is a victory for all.
But there is another fact that should worry Israelis: video footage from Rafah shows Gazans pulling small children from buildings limp and dangling like melted rubber; children with flayed skin and children’s hands sticking out of broken cement. Observers can find this documentation online, but Israelis in Gaza will have witnessed horrors without looking. In addition to PTSD, they will suffer from their own injuries, psychologists found moral damage in conflict – from inflicting such things. Israelis are no different than American soldiers in Iraq, and avoiding that fate should be an incentive for everyone.
Israelis may be internalizing the grim scenarios ahead. Recently research commissioned by the Jewish People’s Policy Institute found a frankly extraordinary drop in the share of Israeli Jews who are certain of victory, from 74% in October to just 38% in early May. More than 40% of Israelis are no longer sure Israel can win. But maybe some of them worry about the cost if it does.
Israel can choose a different path: one of saving hostages, saving Palestinian lives, saving Israel’s global relations, and preventing the deterioration of its soul that is inevitable in a perpetual war. It is the fetishized commitment to total victory that becomes Israel’s total defeat.
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