Stopping the war in Gaza is their wish.
But the future will not be easy for Israel and the theory of the Two
States.
Hamas can declare victory, although it has not won the war and
would be the forced interlocutor in the post-war.
The analysis is by Shlomo Ben Ami
, Israeli Labor Party, former foreign minister and security minister and one of his most lucid strategic political analysts.
“
These types of wars are not won
.
But in the end, if you stop now - that is the argument of Netanyahu and his people - then Hamas will remain standing and declare victory.
In order for the weak party to declare victory, he does not have to win the war.
Even if he loses, he can declare victory,” Ben Ami warned in an interview with
Clarín.
“If Hamas is not defeated, there is no way that Hamas will not be part of a new Palestinian Authority or the governance of a new Palestinian state.
There is no formula,” he said.
-What do you think is the future of this war between Israel and Hamas? Do you think this conflict can expand
?
-Yes, it has a potential for further escalation, because the view that this is a war exclusively between Israel and Hamas is a bit wrong.
Because there is a conflict here that is already underway between the pro-Iranian militias surrounding Israel.
Hezbollah in the north;
in the south are the Yemeni Houthis;
Shiite militias in Syria, even in Iraq.
What Iran has managed to do is surround Israel with militias, which have joined Hamas' war.
Israel is being attacked, bombed with missiles of different categories, since the beginning of this war and not only from Gaza, given this context.
When you say militias, well, the audience may think that we are talking here about some small groups that have a rifle in their hand, or perhaps a grenade.
But it's not like that.
Shlomo Ben AmiFormer Israeli Foreign Minister
It is true that no one is interested in uncontrolled escalation.
The war in the north with Hezbollah revolves around the border and goes no further.
Because when you say militias, the audience may think that we are talking here about some small groups that have a rifle in their hand, or perhaps a grenade.
But it's not like that.
Hezbollah has the firepower of a NATO nation-state or more, with 150,000 missiles targeting any square millimeter of Israeli space.
A conflict that surpasses Gaza
-What is the context?
-Israel feels itself in the middle of something much broader than the war in Gaza.
But that does not detract from the question you asked me about where the Gaza war is going and how it can end.
No one is interested at this moment in an all-out war in the area.
The Iranians know that would mean the Americans would come in too.
The other day the Americans attacked 85 Iranian militia targets in Iraq, Syria and the Houthis as well.
But nobody wants to go further.
-Iran?
-Iran knows very well that the moment this goes beyond certain red lines, it itself could be the target.
Iran is in a very precarious domestic situation, with internal instability, with an economy that is doing very poorly.
And what Iranians like is for others to do it.
Iran has invented a new model of empire, through “outsourcing”, through having others fight for Iran.
But the moment she herself, her own territory, is involved, it will be another story.
And nobody wants to get there.
"Iran knows very well that it itself can be the target," says Ben Ami.
Photo: archive
Now, about Hamas in Gaza, well yes, there are different opinions on how this has to end.
Americans and the Arab countries surrounding Israel would like to see an end to the war.
But that position, let's say what Biden's vision is, is very important for anyone who would like to see a peace settlement in this part of the world.
It is the vision that he says that we must end the war, deploy the Palestinian Authority, a restored, improved Palestinian Authority, better than the current one that is incompetent and corrupt, as everyone knows.
In short, reform the Palestinian Authority, so that it can take control of the West Bank and there begin the path towards the Two-State solution.
Hamas part of the negotiations
-Where is the contradiction in the position of Biden and the international community?
-The contradiction is that they do not want to see Hamas in that government of the restored Palestinian Authority.
And how can you not see it?
If Hamas is not defeated, there is no way that Hamas will not be part of a new Palestinian Authority or the governance of a new Palestinian state.
There is no formula.
-Because?
-Because Hamas has achieved, in its war with Israel, for the Palestinian cause, achievements of a historic measure.
Because the Palestinian problem was forgotten.
They took him out of oblivion and put him at the center of the international agenda.
They became the most popular element in the Palestinian people.
Aside from the fact that they have paid an enormous price, with thousands of deaths, with the total, practically total, destruction of their military power.
They have created a world of tunnels, twice as large as London's underground.
We are talking about almost a thousand kilometers of “underground” and all of that is being destroyed by Israel.
Hamas has achieved, in its war with Israel, for the Palestinian cause, achievements of a historic measure (...) They became the most popular element in the Palestinian people
But if you stop the war now, in this type of asymmetric wars - and look, I am in favor of stopping it... I am not one of those who say: "we are going to go to the end."
Because I don't believe that these types of wars are won.
But ask the Americans in Afghanistan or the Americans in Vietnam or even the Russians in Ukraine.
These types of wars are not won.
But in the end, if you stop now - that is the argument of Netanyahu and his people - then Hamas will remain standing and declare victory.
For the weak party to declare victory, it does not have to win the war.
Even if you lose, you can declare victory.
Now, the difference between the situation between Israel and Hamas on the one hand and let's say the United States and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the difference is this.
If the United States loses the war in Afghanistan and leaves...
-Israel cannot leave here.
-Of course, this is a contiguous territory.
The United States leaves, because nothing happens to the Americans.
They are 15 thousand kilometers away.
Here if you leave, they chase you to Tel Aviv.
In other words, the Israeli dilemma, what I am trying to explain is something more: I believe that much of the discourse of public opinion outside Israel is very simplistic, it does not understand the complexity of the situation.
Look how many years they told us that Gaza is “an open-air prison.”
Now, how can this be an open-air prison, where this military monster could have been built?
Where has it come from?
How did he get in?
So everything has gone in, except food?
-But what happens that, despite all this destruction by Israel, it still cannot beat Hamas? You say these wars cannot be won. But in any case, there is a question that we have asked ourselves from the beginning, since October 7, with the terrorist attack that Israel suffered. What went wrong in the Israeli military strategy?
-The prime minister failed more than anyone.
Because Netanyahu has built his entire career on the basis of dividing the Palestinian national movement, helping or financially supporting - with the help of Qatar - Hamas.
In order to simultaneously ignore the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and explain to the world that, “Look, we cannot create a Palestinian State.
"It makes no sense to have a peace process, because the Palestinian authority is in decline, it is useless and in Gaza we have these Islamists."
That is Netanyahu's argument and of course, he thought that by feeding Hamas, Hamas will be content with controlling the territory of Gaza and will not open a front against Israel.
And this is where he was wrong and so was the military.
-And what are they going to do?
-The military somehow followed the leader's spirit.
What the leader conveyed is that and they were obviously wrong.
Only, unlike Netanyahu, they have already declared that they are responsible and that when the war ends they will resign.
The head of the army, the head of the secret services.
Responsible people.
Netanyahu who is, I would say, a political
crook
(thief).
Netanyahu is an unscrupulous politician and he does not intend to resign.
He, given that the structure of his cabinet is with the extreme right, knows that the moment he stops the war, his government will be dissolved.
So the war is somehow tainted by his own personal interests, right?
Hostages abandoned twice
- What is the risk that the Israeli hostages in Gaza will be eliminated? Or has Israel accepted the idea that the hostages could be collateral damage in this war and in an eventual negotiation?
-I believe that the Netanyahu government thinks that the hostages are collateral damage.
It is not public opinion.
These are two objectives that collide with each other.
If you want to end the war, then you put the hostages at risk.
And if you understand that breaking the moral and civic contract between a government and its citizens, which is abandoning hostages, in my opinion that is much more serious than even losing the war.
What sense does the concept of citizen have, in a democratic society, if a government does not see itself as responsible for rescuing those that the government itself had already abandoned on October 7?
Because the fact that those kibbutzim, those communities along the Gaza border have been attacked, without there being a soldier two hours, three hours away, that is the way the government abandoned its citizens.
Well, he abandoned them once and now, he is abandoning them for the second time, if he thinks that the war must continue until the end.
And that is at this moment what divides Hamas and Israel in the face of the Qatari-Egyptian proposal for the exchange of prisoners and hostages.
Because the proposal, what Hamas demands, which does not accept the proposal as it is, is that there will be an exchange only if Israel agrees to end the war and even withdraw from Gaza.
- Great Britain, the United States and the European Union warned that they are willing to accept the recognition of a Palestinian State, to reaffirm the two-state theory and find a solution to Netanyahu's desire to stay in Gaza after the war. What is Netanyahu's objective today and how long will he be able to resist international pressure not to accept the two states?
-It is possible that the British will do it.
Some countries in the European Union may do so.
I have doubts whether the United States will do it.
The United States, of course, aims, sees as its objective, Biden's vision is to reach the two-state solution.
But I doubt that he will make that recognition, which is mostly symbolic and will not have a real effect on the ground.
So and even more so in the face of elections in the United States, with a congress that is not necessarily anti-Israel, the congress has a Republican majority, I believe that it is not something that Biden will do, without there being a real process that leads to the creation of a Palestinian state.
Furthermore, many countries had declared that they support or recognize the Palestinian state.
But it is something virtual.
Because, what is that state?
Where are your borders?
Who recognizes a State that does not know exactly who governs it and where it is?
Saying we now recognize the Palestinian State seems almost a joke to me.
Because, where is it?
Who forms that state?
What is your border?
I don't see the point.
I see more sense in pushing for the parties to begin negotiating an agreement for a political solution.
Of course, even putting pressure on Israel, from the United States, from the European Union, everything seems fine to me.
But saying now we recognize the Palestinian State seems almost a joke to me. Because, where is it?
Who forms that state?
What is your border?
To say that this is a State on the borders of 1967?
Well, look, maybe in the negotiations another formula will be reached.
Because I see it as difficult, difficult, if not impossible, for an Israeli government of any political color.
Today the left of the type that I was part of in our government, in which I negotiated with the Palestinians, that left no longer exists in Israel.
And much less now, as a result of the war with Hamas.
The speech of the Israelis
-How is the speech?
-The Israelis, not only those who vote for Netanyahu, but also the centrist majority of the country, let's say, say the following: this is the speech.
People can accept it or not accept it.
One, we have offered the Palestinians in the past what the Spanish call “the gold and the moro.”
It has been offered on the borders of '67 and the partition of Jerusalem has been offered.
Settlement dismantling has been offered and Palestinian sovereignty on the Temple Mount has been offered and they have rejected it.
And that radically moved the Israeli population to the right.
A formula for a Jordanian-Palestinian State, for example, may emerge from these negotiations.
That is a formula that, by the way, in the last interview that Henry Kissinger gave, days before his death
Two other elements in the Israelis' speech are: “Let's see.
Every time we withdraw from a territory, that territory becomes a platform for war against Israel.
We withdrew from Lebanon in the year 2000, there is Hezbollah firing missiles.
We withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Hamas is there.
People have to see the complexity.
This is not: "we are going to declare the Palestinian State" and, boom!, we are going to have it. No, it is much more complicated. A formula for a Jordanian-Palestinian State could, for example, emerge from these negotiations, for example. For example, that is a formula that, by the way, in the last interview that Henry Kissinger gave, days before his death, he talked about that, about the Jordanian-Palestinian solution.
-Are you in favor of this formula?
-I am very much in favor of the Jordanian-Palestinian solution.
In my latest book, I have a whole chapter on the topic, which creates a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation or federation.
Well, there are different formulas.
What we must do is put an end to this war.
Biden's vision seems correct to me.
It is the way to make an agreement with the Saudis, a normalization of relations.
A solid anti-Iran regional environment will be established, which can also give some security to the Saudis as well as the Israelis.
And, within that regional context, negotiations can begin to find a Palestinian solution.
It could be a two-state solution and it could be something else.
But we should not launch symbolic statements that lead to nothing.