An Alternative History of the Israel-Hamas War
An Alternative History of the Israel-Hamas War: What Might Have Been
In the weeks after the deadly attacks on and kidnappings of Israeli civilians and soldiers on October 7th, 2023 led by Hamas (as well other Gazan civilians who participated in the rampages), many middle eastern analysts and pundits, on air and in print, from their homes or offices in Manhattan and Washington, offered the state of Israel copious amounts of advice. Most of the guidance went along these lines: Israel should refrain from a full-scale invasion of Gaza; it should reach out to Arab states in the region to ask them to intervene; only go after the military leadership of Hamas; declare its openness to a two-state solution and the insertion of the Palestinian authority into Gaza as the sovereign. The onus of action, or more precisely inaction, was placed almost entirely on Israel. No demands were explicitly made that Arab states and the Palestinian Authority make some first moves to support Israel and show that Israel was not alone and that Hamas would not be supported in any way.
Israel, as we know, did not head any of the advice proffered but, instead, launched its ground invasion of Gaza three weeks later to decimate and topple the Hamas government and rescue the hostages. As the war has continued, Hamas has been devasted but at a great cost. Much of Gaza has been destroyed, alongside Hamas members, many innocent Gazans have been killed, and continue to suffer greatly. Much of the world has turned against Israel arguing that it has gone too far and that the war is no longer justified as self-defense. Many hostages are still being held in the tunnels below Gaza and Israel is deeply divided about the continuation of the war.
Looking back at the writing and analysis from the weeks immediately after October 7th, it is striking to note the total elision of any commentary on the actual reaction of Arab states in real time, including many with formal peace treaties with Israel. From October 8 through October 11, a number of Arab countries such as Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iraq issued statements that either did not condemn the Hamas attacks and kidnappings in any specific way or even more aggressively, blamed Israel for all the violence due to its occupation and treatment of the Palestinians. There was little if any sincere identification with the Israeli people and the trauma that they had just suffered, or any solidarity expressed with the Jewish state still in shock, identifying its dead, accounting for who was kidnapped and reeling from the collapse of its southern border defenses.
To turn then the question on its head, what would have happened if, instead of the neutral or worse reaction that the Arab world had shown to the massacres of October 7th in those first weeks, the reaction had been radically different?
Thinking in terms of alternate courses of action and the roads not taken, what would have been the fate of the people of Gaza if in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and other Arab states had declared their intention to recognize the State of Israel and normalize relations with it in the weeks ahead. What would have happened if they had also uniformly declared, in those early days, a total ban on any funding to Hamas, a public and explicit demand that the Israeli hostages be released unconditionally, the exile of Hamas political leaders and the closing of all Hamas related organizations and charities in their countries. What would have happened if in tandem with these moves, the leaders of Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority had all traveled in those weeks together to Jerusalem as well as visit the devastated towns of the Israeli south and declared their empathy and solidarity with all the victims of the massacres and brutality. Those moves, I believe, would have genuinely impacted Israel public opinion just as President Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in 1978 or King Hussein’s 1997 visit to Israel to offer condolences to the families of seven Israeli school girls who had been murdered by a Jordanian soldier who opened fired upon them at the Jordanian-Israeli border. This would have been a direct counter to the intention of Hamas and would have shown Israelis that the Arab world rejected the terrorism and ideology of Hamas in stark terms.
At that point those governments could have turned to Israel and stated that they call on Israel to once again affirm the principle of a two -state solution and commit to a timetable to begin negotiations once Hamas was dislodged from Gaza and the hostages returned. Those countries together with the Arab League and the United Nations, the US and the European Union should then have formally demanded that Hamas release the hostages and lay down their arms or an international force led by Arab nations would be sent to enforce those demands. The promise of the end of the blockade and a better life for Gazans would have starkly put into relief the choice facing the people of Gaza and the need for them to call for elections and rid themselves of the terror group that had led them to a dead end.
This could have changed the calculus for Israel and Israelis and possibly could have offered an alternative path that would have saved so many innocent livers and avoided so much destruction and pain. Yet it was the road not suggested by any writers and the road not taken by the Arab states and the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of all and especially those in Gaza who suffered the consequences of the choices during those critical weeks in October 2023.
