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Why Israel must !ght

on
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is
taking a terrible toll. But unless
Hamas’s power is broken, peace
will remain out of reach

image: dpa

Nov 2nd 2023

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I sraeli forces are entering a

hellscape of their own making.
One in ten buildings in Gaza has
been pulverised by Israeli aircraft
and artillery. Over 8,000
Palestinians have been killed,
many of them children. Shortages
of fuel, clean water and food,
imposed by an Israeli blockade,
pose a growing threat to the lives of
many thousands more.

Read all our coverage of the

war between Israel and Hamas

Around the world the cry is going

up for a cease!re or for Israel to
abandon its ground invasion.
Hearing some Israeli politicians
call for vengeance, including the
discredited prime minister,
Binyamin Netanyahu, many people
conclude that Israel’s actions are
disproportionate and immoral.
Many of those arguing this believe
in the need for a Jewish state, but
fear for a Jewish state that seems to
value Palestinian lives so cheaply.
They worry that the slender hopes
for peace in this age-old con"ict
will be buried under Gaza’s rubble.

Those are powerful arguments, but

they lead to the wrong conclusion.
Israel is in"icting terrible civilian
casualties. It must minimise them
and be seen to do so. Palestinians
are lacking essential humanitarian
supplies. Israel must let a lot more
aid pass into Gaza. However, even
if Israel chooses to honour these
responsibilities, the only path to
peace lies in dramatically reducing
Hamas’s capacity to use Gaza as a
source of supplies and a base for its
army. Tragically, that requires war.

To grasp why, you have to

understand what happened on
October 7th. When Israelis talk
about Hamas’s attack as an
existential threat they mean it
literally, not as a !gure of speech.
Because of pogroms and the
Holocaust, Israel has a unique
social contract: to create a land
where Jews know they will not be
killed or persecuted for being Jews.
The state has long honoured that
promise with a strategic doctrine
that calls for deterrence, early
warnings of an attack, protection
on the home front and decisive
Israeli victories.

Over the past two decades Israel

lost sight of the fact that
Palestinians deserve a state, too.
Mr Netanyahu boosted Hamas to
sabotage Palestinian moderates—a
cynical ploy to help him argue that
Israel has no partner for peace.
Instead, Palestinian su#ering
became something to manage,
with a mix of !nancial
inducements and deterrence, kept
fresh by repeated short wars.

On October 7th Hamas destroyed

all this, including Mr Netanyahu’s
brittle scheme. The terrorists
ripped apart Israel’s social contract
by shattering the security doctrine
created to defend it. Deterrence
proved empty, early warning of an
attack was absent, home-front
protection failed and Hamas
murdered 1,400 people in Israeli
communities. Far from enjoying
victory, Israel’s soldiers and spies
were humiliated.

The collapse of Israel’s security

doctrine has unleashed a ferocious
bombardment against the people
of Gaza. The reason is an attempt
to restore that founding principle.
Israel wants its 200,000 or so
evacuees to be able to return home.
It wants to show its many enemies
that it can still defend itself. Most
of all, it has come to understand
that, by choosing to murder
Israelis regardless of how many
Palestinians will die in Gaza,
Hamas has proved that it is
undeterrable.

The only way out of the cycle of

violence is to destroy Hamas’s rule
—which means killing its senior
leaders and smashing its military
infrastructure. The suggestion that
a war which entails the deaths of
thousands of innocent people can
lead to peace will appal many. In
the past one act of violence has led
to the next. That is indeed the great
risk today.

However, while Hamas runs Gaza,

peace is impossible. Israelis will
feel unsafe, so their government
will strike Gaza pre-emptively
every time Hamas threatens.
Su#ocated by permanently tight
Israeli security and killed as
Hamas’s human shields in pre-
emptive Israeli raids, Palestinians
will be radicalised. The only way
forward is to weaken its control
while building the conditions for
something new to emerge.

That starts with new leadership for

both sides. In Israel Mr Netanyahu
will be forced from o$ce because
he was in power on October 7th,
and because his reputation for
being Israel’s staunchest defender
is broken. The sooner he goes the
better. His successor will need to
win a mandate for a new security
doctrine. That should involve a
plan for peace and reining in
Israeli settlers, who even now are
molesting and killing Palestinians
on the West Bank.

The Palestinians need moderate

leaders with a democratic
mandate. At the moment they have
none. That is partly because Mr
Netanyahu boosted Hamas, but
also because Mahmoud Abbas, the
president of the Palestinian
authority, has sidelined potential
rivals. The question is how to stop
Hamas or its successor from
seizing back control of Gaza before
fresh leaders can emerge from fair
elections.

Hence, the second condition for

peace: a force to provide security in
Gaza. Israel cannot supply it as an
occupying power. Instead the strip
needs an international coalition,
possibly containing Arab countries
that oppose Hamas and its backer,
Iran. As we have argued in previous
leaders, creating a coalition that all
sides can agree on will take
committed leadership from the
United States and a leap of faith
from the region.

And that leads back to the

condition that makes all this
possible: a war to degrade Hamas
enough to enable something better
to take its place. How Israel !ghts
this war matters. It must live up to
its pledge to honour international
law. Not only is that the right thing
to do, but Israel will be able to
sustain broad support over the
months of !ghting and !nd
backing to foster peace when the
!ghting stops only if it signals that
it has changed. Right now, this
means letting in a lot more
humanitarian aid and creating real
safe zones in southern Gaza, Egypt,
or—as the best talisman of its
sincerity—in the Negev inside
Israel.

A cease!re is the enemy of peace,

because it would allow Hamas to
continue to rule over Gaza by
consent or by force with most of its
weapons and !ghters intact. The
case for humanitarian pauses is
stronger, but even they involve a
trade-o#. Repeated pauses would
increase the likelihood that Hamas
survives.

Nobody can know whether peace

will come to Gaza. But for the sake
of Israelis and Palestinians it
deserves to have the best possible
chance. A cease!re removes that
chance entirely. 7

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the

print edition under the headline "Why Israel must
fight on"

Leaders
November 4th 2023

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That cannot last

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government

From the November 4th

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