Israel’s Catch 22: to fight on is mad, but to end the war now is also mad

Israel is caught up in a Catch-22 situation. The superior firepower of the IDF has so far failed to recover the hostages and there is as yet no sign of Hamas being defeated. So to fight on under these conditions seems mad, but equally, it would be mad not to fight on while Hamas still holds on to the hostages.

The hostages are at the core of the Israeli dilemma. Their detention, starvation, abuse, torture and murder in conditions of unbearable cruelty is an ongoing criminal act of the worst order. This should be the focus of anyone with humanitarian values. Instead, there is a growing movement to recognise a putative state of Palestine, seen at once as a rebuke to Israel and a triumph for Hamas. Such a move would bring peace no nearer and would, if anything, exacerbate the conflict.

It should be obvious by now that the continued bombardment of Gaza is becoming counterproductive. The notion of interminable warfare is alienating vast sections of the dispirited Israeli populace. Hamas, meanwhile, gloats over what it sees as a victory. Having failed in its efforts to mobilise Iran and Hezbollah in a joint attack to deliver a fatal blow to Israel, it is now luring that country into a war of attrition.

Hamas employs every means at its disposal to amplify and distort accounts of the resulting carnage by means of an orchestrated propaganda campaign which has succeeded in attributing to Israel total responsibility for every casualty in a war of its own making. Consequently, a cloud of guilt has settled over Israel, Zionism and the Jewish diaspora, and a mass movement, fanned by antisemitic hysteria, chants for ‘Palestine’, by which, of course, they mean the end of Israel.

Hamas will never surrender to anyone, let alone Israel. With the advent of terrorism, the dream of a white flag being waved and documents of surrender being signed has long since disappeared into thin air. At present, the only conceivable outcome to the conflict is an uneasy truce, such as that which exists between North and South Korea. But in the current climate of hostility towards Israel, even that outcome is unlikely. Hence the Catch 22 conundrum.

Israel has few allies and many enemies. Its people are weary and it is a nation divided. The cry, “Never again!” Has an increasingly hollow ring and now haunts Israel with its antithesis, the prospect of a war without end. As for the determination to ‘go it alone’, this may have a certain emotive appeal as a rallying call but, like the slogan “Never again”, it flies in the face of reality.

Isolated states can surround themselves with a ring of steel but within that protective shield life becomes increasingly oppressive and limited, and sooner or later a polarised mindset seeps into the fabric of its society.

So what is the way forward? Eradicating Hamas is like performing an operation on a malignant growth which has spread too deeply into the organism to be cut out. The best outcome to be hoped for is one in which other Arab states twist the arm of Hamas into releasing the hostages and agreeing to a truce, but so far, there is little sign of this happening.

Meanwhile, Western governments continue with their policy of appeasing Hamas by dignifying it with political and diplomatic status. The images of tormented and dying hostages are fading, when it is their plight which should be at the heart of any effort to bring about a peaceful solution.

In a time of peace, any act of hostage taking would be relentlessly pursued to a conclusion. In the case of the Hamas crime, there are justifiable grounds for launching an international rescue operation but in the present climate that is inconceivable. It is strange that the barbaric actions of Hamas have failed to galvanise any country into joining Israel in a combined operation. Instead, with much hand wringing, Israel is again being left to ‘go it alone’.

Israel is torn between maintaining its humanitarian ideals and resigning itself to a cycle of killing or being killed. The Catch 22 deadlock can only be broken by a third party forming an alliance with Israel in its lonely campaign to defeat Hamas and its Jihadi allies. Until that day arrives, we are doomed to watch the interminable cycle of madness.