An American 'war on terror' by Israel is doomed to fail
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
On November 27, Qatar announced that the four-day humanitarian truce between Israel and Hamas will be extended by an additional two days. The agreement, struck hours before the original deal was scheduled to expire, will no doubt be welcomed on both sides of the Israel-Gaza border. Assuming the extension is implemented, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will see more Israeli and foreign captives released by Hamas. In turn, civilians in Gaza will be able to go about their lives a few more days without Israeli airstrikes and ground combat.
The possibilities of a further extension will depend in part on how many prisoners Hamas is willing to release. It’s vital, however, to be crystal clear about what this development is – and, just as importantly, what it isn’t. The pause will allow the combatants to take a breather for a few more days, and humanitarian workers will use the extra time to speed up aid deliveries into Gaza. But the war is bound to resume eventually. It’s only a matter of “when,” not “if.”
Speaking to Israeli troops in Gaza over the weekend, Netanyahu reiterated that while returning every single hostage was a priority for his government, “we are continuing until the end, until victory. Nothing will stop us.” While the PM left the word “victory” undefined, Israeli government statements indicate that nothing short of Hamas’s full and utter destruction will suffice. Less than a week after the October 7 terrorist attack, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told a news conference that Hamas was for all intends and purposes a dead organization walking: “Hamas – the Islamic State of Gaza –will be wiped from the face of the earth.” Ditto Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who suggested in a November 3 New York Times op-ed that Hamas could be permanently eliminated.
What if Israel’s overall objective is unattainable? Some may ignore the question or choose to focus instead on tactical issues pertaining to Israel’s military campaign. Yet all of these discussions are side dishes to the main course: in embracing such a maximalist goal, Israel has likely set itself up for disappointment.
What does destroying a terrorist organization mean? Based on Israel’s broad interpretation, it appears to encompass the overthrow of 16 year-old Hamas government in Gaza, the killing of its leadership structure, the elimination of the group’s extensive tunnel system and eliminating their ability to threaten Israelis. The first three objectives on the list are manageable, in part because they’re also quantifiable. The Israelis have killed a number of mid-level and senior Hamas commanders in Gaza, the latest being Abu Anas al-Ghandour, who led Hamas brigades in Northern Gaza. Thousands have Hamas fighters have been killed (although nobody has an accurate estimation) and countless tunnels have been discovered. Hamas’s government is in effect already toppled, even if the shooting continues.
It’s that last item on the list – eliminating Hamas’s capacity to inflict violence against Israelis – where the plan runs into problems. In essence, eliminating Hamas’s capacity for violence would require the total elimination of Hamas as an entity, which taken to its most literal definition would entail the killing of every single individual who happens to consider himself a Hamas member. Braving such an expansive definition would turn the Israeli offensive against Hamas from a months-long operation to a virtually unending one, consisting of continuous Israeli ground operations, the establishment and nurturing of an alternative Palestinian administration in Gaza as well as the very resource-intensive occupation so many Israeli officials would prefer to avoid. An occupation, in turn, would simply create more terrorists than it aimed to destroy. The result is a circuitous, perpetual feedback loop that Israel would be unable to extract itself from.
The United States experienced a similar phenomenon.
Less than two weeks after the 9/11 attacks, then-President George W. Bush addressed a joint session of Congress and vowed the total and complete annihilation of Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda terrorist network on the road to the complete destruction of global terrorism in general. “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there,” Bush told the nation. “It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”
However well-meaning, this expansive objective would sow the seeds for a war on terrorism Washington continues to fight to this very day. US military operations in pursuit of Al-Qaeda’s extinction would not only push the US into a colossally expensive, two decade-long social science experiment in Afghanistan but inject such fear and panic into the US foreign policy establishment that it invaded and occupied a country – Iraq – that had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks. There are more terrorist groups in operation today than there were before the US launched the war on terror. The US still hasn’t learned its lesson: despite the Islamic State (ISIS) degenerating into a low-grade rural insurgency in Iraq and Syria, US policymakers continue to hype up the “enduring defeat” of ISIS as if this is remotely achievable.
If Israel isn’t careful, it could trick itself into blindly following Washington’s footsteps at a significant cost to its foreign policy and overall reputation. Terrorism, like crime, poverty and bad weather, is unfortunately going to be with us until the end of mankind. The best states can do is manage the problem, address the political, economic or social lubricants of terrorism and keep expectations for success realistic. Otherwise, you risk creating a trap of your own making.
