“No one starts a war – or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so – without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.” Israel and the United States would do well to heed the wisdom of this quote from the Prussian philosopher of war Carl von Clausewitz. In fact, if the Biden Administration can align political and military objectives in the Israel-Gaza War, it will have a once in a generation opportunity to shape the Middle East.
Military Strategy
The Israelis and their American backers face serious challenges. Hamas’s vicious attack on Israeli civilians included some of the most inhumane acts the international community has had the displeasure to witness in the 21st century. When combined with the extraordinary scale of the operation, these atrocities transformed Hamas from a threat that Israelis thought they could manage to one which they cannot tolerate. Even temporary peace and stability requires the defeat of Hamas. However, that is easier said than done.
The Israelis began pummeling Gaza from the air almost immediately after the attacks. On October 20, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant outlined a three phase strategy. First, the Israeli military would destroy Hamas in a ground campaign. Second, the Israeli military would hold Gaza and eliminate “pockets of resistance.” Finally, the Israelis would install a “new regime” that will allow Israel to hand over responsibility for governing the Gazans. Israel then appeared to delay its ground invasion to reassess its plan, but it has released few details about what, if any, changes were made.
Many of the details of Israel’s strategy remain vague, but the objectives of defeating Hamas and eventually turning over the territory to someone else are likely still in place. No one knows what that new regime in Gaza will be or how it will keep the peace. Will it include the Palestinian Authority? Will it be internationalized? Even the more straightforward aspects of Israel’s strategy will be incredibly difficult to execute. The type of urban warfare campaign that would be necessary to destroy Hamas could be long and costly. Hamas has constructed a labyrinth of tunnels which it will use to hide, launch ambushes, and plant improvised explosives. Israel will likely suffer high casualties and may even kill Israeli civilians being held hostage in Gaza. Even if the Israelis are disciplined and only fire on military targets, large numbers of Palestinian civilians will be present in the combat zone. Some are undoubtedly being used as human shields. Most of Gaza’s population descends from refugees, who fled what is now Israel in 1948 and were not permitted to return. They fear a similar fate if they leave and are, therefore, loath to flee to safer areas either in Gaza or outside of it.
A catastrophic event with mass civilian casualties could put immense pressure on Israel to end its campaign before it can defeat Hamas militarily. That would be a devastating outcome for Israel. Thus, based on a purely military and strategic logic, the Israeli military needs to do everything in its power to avoid civilian deaths. Even without such a catastrophic, mass casualty event, the diplomatic costs for Israel and its American backers continues to grow as the body count climbs and many in the international community insist on a cease fire.
A Political Solution
A tried-and-true method for strategists to deal with the high cost of war is to increase the value of the political objective they are fighting for. This way, the value of what they will achieve remains higher than the price they pay in terms of blood, treasure, and diplomatic standing. Thus, Woodrow Wilson brought the United States into World War One not only to defeat Germany, but to reshape the world along the lines of his “Fourteen Points.” Creating a world “safe for democracy” made the war worth the heavy cost. In World War Two, the Atlantic Charter played the same role as Wilson’s fourteen points. In a smaller, regional conflict, George H.W. Bush announced a “new world order” to sell the Gulf War. It was not enough to save Kuwait. The war was only worth the potentially high costs if it could help forge a new, post-Cold War international system. The Bush administration kept Arabs states in its coalition by promising that a push for peace between Israelis and Palestinians would be part of its new world order.
As the current war in Israel and Gaza drags on, both Israel and its backers in Washington are coming under increasing pressure to support a cease fire that leaves Hamas in position to continue attacking Israeli civilians. A clear plan to address the Palestinian issue politically will make the war worth fighting for many in the United States and the international community. Thus, it will alleviate some of the pressure on Israel and its American backers so they can achieve the necessary goal of defeating Hamas in Gaza.
Addressing the Palestinian issue will require dealing not only with Gaza but with the West Bank too. Over the past decade, Israeli leaders have shown no interest in changing the status quo in the West Bank. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalitions have included strong backing from Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Moreover, Israelis worried that if they withdrew from the West Bank, it would turn into Gaza or Southern Lebanon, which were both taken over by terrorists and became launching pads for attacks on Israel following the withdrawal of the Israeli military.
Hamas’s brutal attack on the morning of October 7 broke the political deadlock that has gripped Israeli politics over the past half decade. No one knows what type of political order will emerge after the war. Yet, for the first time in decades, a small window for change has opened in Israel. Early in the war, polling in Israel showed, “An overwhelming majority of 86% of respondents, including 79% of coalition supporters, said the surprise attack from Gaza is a failure of the country's leadership.” Netanyahu and his ministers are being met with spontaneous protests when they dare to appear in southern Israel, and even pro-Netanyahu Israeli news channels have aired fierce criticism of the Prime Minister by victims of Hamas’s attack.
One of the many scandals surrounding Israel’s failure on the morning of October 7 is the accusation that half of the military forces that were meant to secure the border with Gaza were instead protecting settlers in the West Bank. And of course, some Israeli politicians connect this failure to the far right, pro-settlement members of Netanyahu’s coalition. Even centrists like former Prime Minister Yair Lapid have refused to join the emergency government partly because Netanyahu refuses to dismiss what Lapid calls “extremists” from the government. In the wall-to-wall Hebrew news coverage in the week following Hamas’s attack, viewers regularly saw commentators discuss the need for changes in Israel’s policies toward Palestinians not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank as well. If these narratives gain traction, changes in Israel’s West Bank policies could come at the expense of the settlers and settlements. Moreover, if the Israelis manage to install a new regime in Gaza that allows them to withdraw their military forces, why could that regime not also control the West Bank, allowing for a withdrawal from that territory too?
Savvy Israelis also realize that for all the talk of eternal American support for Israel, a groundswell of anti-Zionism and antisemitism is sweeping through Europe and the United States. It appears strongest among the youth and especially at elite universities. Biden and Western European leaders have held the line in this conflict, but Israel cannot count on similar support in ten or fifteen years as today’s youth become tomorrow’s leaders. This conflict might be Israel’s final chance to shape an outcome in line with its own interests.
Those inside and outside Israel hoping to find a political solution to the Palestinian issue after the war will have an important point of leverage. The Saudis are waiting in the background and with them the promise of a new Middle East. Israel’s war in Gaza is deeply unpopular in the Arab World. Even Arab leaders who have good relations with Israel have been forced to distance themselves. Saudi Arabia is no exception. In the short term, that means peace is much less likely. However, senior Saudi leaders have at least partially blamed Hamas for the current conflict and have even accused the terrorist organization of being un-Islamic. Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Muhammad Bin Salman is no humanitarian. There is little evidence that he cares for the plight of Palestinians. Yet, the issue remains salient among the Saudi masses, and he has made clear that the Palestinian issue will need to be addressed for him to sign a peace deal with Israel.
The current war has forced bin Salman to put the peace process on hold, but Saudi interests remain the same. The Saudis want access to Israeli technology and innovation. Even more importantly, they want to solidify an anti-Iran bloc in the region. This war has further demonstrated the imperative to do so. In a call on October 24, bin Salman and Biden both “affirmed the importance of working toward a sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians as soon as the crisis subsides, building on the work that was already underway between Saudi Arabia and the United States over recent months.” For Israelis, a deal with Saudi Arabia along the lines of the Abraham Accords would transform their geopolitical position. Their 75 years of isolation in the Middle East would be over. But this transformation would require a political solution to the Palestinian issue.
A Symbiotic Relationship
Optimism in the Middle East is often the prerogative of fools, and a political solution is far from a foregone conclusion. The Palestinians may prove ungovernable and intractable. The lesson that Israelis take from Hamas’s attack might be that more security is needed, and that West Bank Palestinians need to be kept under even tighter control.
However, Biden’s support for Israel in the war has developed unprecedented trust and political capital in Israel. It is likely that he is more popular in Israel right now than any Israeli politician. Moreover, the Americans are providing the weapons and diplomatic support that Israel needs to conduct its war. Washington has never had more leverage in Israel. Throughout this crisis, Biden has repeatedly supported a two-state solution. For the first time in recent memory, this is not idle talk. The dangling carrot of a Saudi peace deal, pressure from the Biden Administration, and the growing recognition in Israel that the status quo in Gaza and the West Bank is untenable creates the best opportunity for advancing peace in decades. That does not mean it will be easy. Indeed, peace in the Middle East may remain beyond reach. Yet, a hazy outline of a grand bargain is visible for the first time in a generation.
This type of political solution cannot be separated from the military strategy. The military strategy to defeat Hamas and the political solution to the Palestinian problem are best understood as symbiotic. A failure to defeat Hamas militarily will make any political solution for the Palestinians impossible. A cease fire might temporarily stop the bloodshed, but it cannot lead to peace, or prevent even more suffering in the future. At the same time, the more attention that Biden and his administration give to finding a solution, and the better that solution is for the Palestinians, the more it will help prevent Israel from losing desperately needed political and diplomatic support to defeat Hamas.
Samuel Helfont is Associate Professor of Strategy and Policy in the Naval War College program at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
