Enough Is Enough
For Israel, the war's costs have far outweighed the benefits. Now drag both Bibi and Hamas to the negotiating table, and tell them to agree to a ceasefire plus a complete hostage release
On Sunday, another tragedy unraveled in Rafah, with Israeli air strikes killing 35 Palestinians and wounding dozens more, while the displacement camps were in flames in an area Israel labeled as a “humanitarian area” and was not one of the places that the IDF ordered civilians living there to be evacuated. On social media, witnesses said they have seen graphic sights of beheaded children, people burned alive inside the tents, and heartbroken scenes of parents crying to see their kids dead from the latest attacks.
It is an event tragic and appalling beyond words. Many, including myself, share the same sentiments with Tommy Vietor, spokesperson for Barack Obama and host of the Pod Save The World podcast.
There is no justifying this, and it will be repeated again and again if the IDF continues to attack Rafah. Airstrikes on desperate families living in tents who have been displaced over and over. It won't make Israel safer or free the hostages. It's just more senseless carnage.
But as the AP has noted during its coverage of the attacks and its subsequent aftermath, it has to be placed under perspective.
The attacks came two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to end its military offensive in Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population had sought shelter before Israel’s incursion earlier this month. Tens of thousands of people remain in the area while many others have fled.
Furthermore, what happened in the days preceding the airstrikes is just repudiation after repudiation of Israel’s conduct and legitimacy in executing the Gaza war.
Under a week before the deadly strike on a humanitarian camp: The ICC issued warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant; Israel’s decision to take down the AP live feed of northern Gaza and seize its equipment was condemned by the US before the equipment was returned, Norway, Ireland, and Spain jointly announced that they are recognizing Palestinian statehood; and the ICJ ruled on the request by South Africa to order Israel to halt its Rafah offensive and withdraw from Gaza. All of this is on top of the South African case alleging Israel is committing genocide in Gaza during the Gaza War and Israel’s increased alienation on the international stage.
Back in October 2023, Biden warned Israel during his visit to the country days after the October 7 attacks, while drawing historical comparisons to a terrorist attack America faced in the past.
“Justice must be done,” Biden said. “But I caution that, while you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”
Instead of heeding the US President’s advice, Israeli society and government have been falling into the same trap of senseless revenge without consideration that has doomed the War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq as failures, and a stain in the country’s recent political and military history.
Just inside Israel, we have been learning more news about activists blocking and destroying delivery trucks bound for Gaza as humanitarian aid, another sign of how the Gaza war has warped some Israelis to a sense of complete retribution to all Palestinians, even to the innocent population. This is on top of a growing settler movement and an ultra-Orthodox population that has polarized society and grabbed the microphone of public debate, something that has consequences in and of itself as written by The Economist.
It is a bleak picture that is not always acknowledged in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. Mr Netanyahu talks of invading Rafah, Hamas’s last redoubt, while the hard right fantasises about resettling Gaza. Many mainstream Israelis are deluding themselves, too. They believe the unique threats to Israel justify its ruthlessness and that the war has helped restore deterrence. Gaza shows that if you murder Israelis, destruction beckons. Many see no partner for peace—the pa is rotten and polls say 93% of Palestinians deny Hamas’s atrocities even took place. Occupation is the least-bad option, they conclude. Israelis would prefer to be popular abroad, but condemnation and antisemitism are a small price to pay for security. As for America, it has been angry before. The relationship is not about to rupture. If Donald Trump returns he may once again give Israel a free pass.
This seductive story is a manifesto for disaster. Consider defence. The damage to Israel’s reputation could make it harder to fight on in Gaza. The long-term threat is from Iran and its proxies, including Hizbullah. Deterring this requires a military partnership with America that needs bipartisan backing, and ideally Gulf Arab support, too. The economy depends on tech exports and experts with access to global markets. And rather than making Israelis safe, permanent occupation poisons politics by emboldening the hard right and breeding Palestinian radicalism. Israelis are right that they have no partner for peace today, but they are best placed to break the cycle.
Israel’s trajectory will intensify its ethno-nationalist politics and pose legal threats to the economy. As estrangement from the West deepens, so deterrence may weaken. Firms could be blacklisted. Bosses could move high-tech businesses abroad or, if they are reservists, be arrested there.
Hence, this turns to how the international community has responded to Israel in the past several months. On the international stage, it needs perspective to completely understand how Israel’s international image has been destroyed due to its conduct in the Gaza war. The images of tragedy, death, and famine in Gaza are now seared into the minds of an entire generation. Many are supportive of Palestinian statehood and liberation, something the Israeli far-right government is obviously against. Now, even Western allies to Israel have begun their gradual support for a Palestinian state and more will join the examples of Spain, Ireland, and Norway as a form of exerting pressure on Netanyahu’s government.
Even if you have disagreements with the vocal pro-Palestine activists on social media and college campuses over their messaging and details of their demands (And I have written here before on the issues with this community that I reserve criticism for), the underlying concern and outrage over the mistreatment of Palestinians is valid and completely justified. For pro-Israel supporters, by now you should realize the validity that people who are criticizing Israel over its war conduct and political actions are not heresy or libel, but actual legitimate problems that need to be addressed, no matter how painful it might feel to some.
For the most egregious allegations on Israel’s conduct, proclaiming its war actions constitute genocide, Israel is presenting a weak case of defense against these accusations, to put it mildly. Despite the justices at the ICJ still deliberating the case brought by South Africa, in lament terms, it is obvious why many consider this tragedy as a genocide. Even if it is not genocide, what happened with the recent airstrikes against the displacement camp is just one more piece of evidence suggesting Israel’s conduct has a deliberate element to harming the civilian population that is in clear breach of international law. Not to mention this comes days after the ICJ ruling ordering the halt of Israel’s Rafah incursion, even as Israel is not heeding that order, the international community including many Western allies is calling for the decision and international law to be implemented.
If you are defending yourself in a case accusing you of the most egregious acts of violence and war imaginable, continuing to commit war crimes and potential crimes against humanity is not helping your case denouncing allegations of genocide.
This is all excluding the fact that Israel is not achieving the over-promised goals it has sold to the international community at the beginning of this war. Firstly, Israel’s ambitions of destroying Hamas are actively undermining its war effort. You cannot eliminate an entire terrorist group and its ideology through violence and killings alone, as the larger developments of terrorism and the Middle East can tell you. By continuing to proclaim this ambition, Israel is only sinking further into an unwinnable war in Gaza, which would inevitably end with the entire Strip reduced to rubble. Meanwhile, there is an incalculable risk that the damage and death caused by the IDF will affect many local Palestinians who might be more persuaded to join Hamas or form terror groups of their own as revenge for their loved ones who were killed directly or indirectly by Israeli forces, it is a death spiral with no good coming out of it.
Secondly, Israel has long proclaimed the war effort will promise the secure release of the hostages. Looking at hindsight, the results are at best, a disaster. Of the 112 hostages freed, only 7 have been freed personally by the IDF in Gaza by data to the end of February 2024. Not to mention, several hostages have been killed in Gaza, not because of starvation or mistreatment by their Hamas captors, but indirectly by friendly fire from the IDF. Moreover, the lagging ceasefire talks since the temporary truce in November by both Israel and Hamas have only further jeopardized the security and lives of the hostages.
All of this is set against the backdrop of at least 36,000 dead Palestinians and more than 80,000 wounded in Gaza. For those who might dismiss these figures because they come from the Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry, even if it is an overcount, there are at least tens of thousands dead, which is not acceptable in the slightest. In addition, it is very likely that these numbers are an undercount, which ignores people who were not sent to hospitals or morgues, and those who were still buried under the rubble.
As I have reiterated on this Substack, none of this means Israel doesn’t have the right to self-defense, or that fighting a war against Hamas in a densely populated area like Gaza is easy. Case in point, just hours before the displacement camp bombings, Hamas launched rockets toward Tel Aviv for the first time in 4 months. But time and time again, amidst heavy international scrutiny, Netanyahu’s government and the Israeli military have never stopped and reconsidered how to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza, and have doubled down in continuing a campaign that is disproportionately harming innocent Palestinians.
It is unjustifiable, it is appalling, it is dispiriting.
But, if there is a glimmer of hope to be seen inside Israel on their government’s conduct of war, it is the re-emergence of anti-Netanyahu protests raging on in the streets alongside families of the hostages, declaring the priority of securing the release of the hostages, calling for a stop to the war, as well as telling the current PM to step down.
Now, there is another opportunity to stop this calamity from continuing. Just the past Thursday, Israel announced it is restarting ceasefire talks with Hamas after the families of hostages released a video of several female Israeli soldiers being kidnapped by Hamas that has garnered national outrage. By the past weekend, ceasefire talks are likely to resume as early as this week.
The international community, negotiators, and allies of both parties need to force Netanyahu’s government and Hamas to negotiate a ceasefire deal. A temporary ceasefire alongside the unconditional release of the hostages who are either alive or dead. Not only do the US and its allies force Netanyahu to talk and negotiate, but so do pro-Palestine supporters on the international and advocacy level to do the same with Hamas. If there is no pressure applied on both sides, there is no real incentive for stopping the carnage.
For Israel, in the end, Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have tarnished the country’s reputation for a generation and cast the future of the two nations inextricably linked to conflict and tragedy into more doubt. Despite so many pundits and activist calling for Israel’s allies to force the country into doing the right thing, the final decision is on Israel’s hands and not its friends.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no end in sight, while so many of us just wants to see this chapter of tragedy end, and begin a new one with hope and peace.