Published in the Jerusalem Post, 11 June 2024
It now seems clear that on October 7 Hamas, no doubt urged on by Iran, bit off a good deal more than it could chew.
Its leaders in Gaza (Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif), together with its leaders-in-exile living in luxury in Qatar (Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Meshaal), may have been led by Iran to expect a widespread uprising of the Arab world in support of their massive killing spree in Israel. They may have envisaged their invasion advancing into the country supported by uprisings in the West Bank, an invasion by Hezbollah in the north, perhaps joined by Syrian troops up in the Golan, irregular Jordanian fighters in the east and even Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood militias from the west. Perhaps Iran already had in mind, and promised them, a crushing blow on Israel by launching a direct aerial attack, reversing its long-standing policy of using only proxies in its anti-Israel operations.
This scenario, mouth-wateringly tempting for Hamas, simply failed to materialize. Action of some sort did manifest itself, but on nothing like the scale or with the coordination that would have been politically or militarily meaningful.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, informed of Hamas’s plans only half an hour before the attack began on October 7, soon dissociated himself from the assault.
Immediately after October 7 the Houthi rebels, ensconced in areas of west Yemen, declared war on Israel. Then, responding to a call by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, they initiated a program of harassing international shipping in the Red Sea. On May 29 the official Iranian news agency confirmed that Iran has supplied the Houthis with Ghadr rockets, described as Iran’s first anti-ship ballistic missiles.
In response American and British fighter jets and US ships have hit a wide range of underground facilities, missile launchers, command and control sites, a Houthi vessel and other facilities. The Houthis cannot long sustain all-out combat with combined US-UK forces.
Meanwhile on April 13 Iran decided to ratchet up Hamas’s flagging effort by launching a first-ever direct aerial assault on Israel. Around midnight it sent some 170 drones, over 30 cruise missiles, and more than 120 ballistic missiles the 1,000 kilometers toward Israel. The Iranian leadership no doubt expected a massive military and propaganda triumph. In the event the operation was a miserable failure. To supplement Israel’s Iron Dome defense, America and Britain sent jet fighters to help shoot down the missiles. At the same time, surprisingly, Jordan refused to allow Iran to use its air space for the operation, while several Gulf States, among them Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, passed on intelligence about Iran's plans. As a result about 99% of the aerial armada never reached Israel.
By June 1 reality must surely have begun to dawn on both Iran and its proxies. They were, in the time-honored phrase, on a hiding to nothing. Like the sorcerer’s apprentice. Hamas had conjured up a situation way beyond what it had expected or could control. All but four of its 24 battalions had been dismantled, and the four remaining battalions, “completely operational” according to the IDF, are in the southern city of Rafah, and are now in the IDF’s sights.
So the announcement by US President Joe Biden on June 1 of a ceasefire proposal that could lead to the end of the war must – whatever the public posturings may indicate –be under serious consideration by Hamas. The four-and-a-half page plan had been sent to Hamas for review the previous day.
Biden said the plan encompassed three phases. The first, which would last for six weeks, would include a "full and complete" ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from "all populated areas" of Gaza and the "release of a number of hostages including women, the elderly, the wounded in exchange for release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners."
Biden added that in this phase, Palestinian civilians will return to their homes, while humanitarian assistance will increase to 600 trucks carrying aid into Gaza every day.
For Hamas a guaranteed breathing space of six weeks would come as a welcome relief, especially since Israel would be withdrawing from populated areas at the same time. However also built into the first phase is the obligation for Israel and Hamas to undertake talks designed to get to the next stage of the proposal.
The possibility of the talks stalling has been built into the plan.
"The proposal,” said Biden, “says…the ceasefire will still continue for as long as negotiations continue," adding that the US, Qatar and Egypt will ensure that talks continue during this period until "all agreements are reached" to start the second phase.
Of course, Hamas could decide to stick with the “temporary“ ceasefire indefinitely. But if they did, they would forego the second phase, which would see Israeli forces withdraw completely from Gaza accompanied by the release of all remaining hostages who are alive.
"As long as Hamas lives up to its commitments,” said Biden, the temporary ceasefire would become the permanent cessation of hostilities.
n the third phase, said Biden "a major reconstruction plan for Gaza would commence,” and the remains of hostages who have been killed would be returned to their families.
In the deal to rebuild Gaza, Arab nations and the international community will participate in a "manner that does not allow Hamas to re-arm," said Biden, or as he put it earlier: “without Hamas in power.” That suits Biden as much as it does Israel, for he knows that Hamas will have no truck with the two-state solution that he espouses so fervently.
Hamas initially said that it viewed the proposal "positively", but by June 4 the media were reporting that Hamas was apparently stalling.
Doubtless the Hamas leaders have their own “day after” aspirations. They may reconcile themselves to losing the governance of Gaza, but probably envisage basing themselves elsewhere and continuing the fight from there. It is morally certain they have no intention of abandoning their core objective of overthrowing Israel and eliminating the Jewish presence from the Middle East.
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