Damned if you do

A German version of this article first appeared on the website of the Austrian think tank Mena-Watch.

The most common form of anti-war sentiment may also be the most peculiar. The Western consensus has been that, yes Israel has a right to defend itself, but an immediate end to the fighting in Gaza is paramount. While the demands for ceasefire have been quite concrete the lip service paid to the concept of self-defence has been more in the abstract.

One exception was the US proposal of targeted attacks instead of a full-blown invasion. It has been put to the test recently by the targeted strikes against Hezbollah military leader Fuad Shukr in Beirut, which Israel has claimed, and presumably Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Teheran, in which Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement. To no one’s surprise, this form of self-defence was not received well by the international community either.

Indeed, 3 of the most criticised events in the war have been targeted strikes, textbook examples of what the US was recommending:

• Arguably the most important was the July 13 strike against a Hamas compound in Al-Mawasi, killing military chief and October 7 mastermind Muhammad Deif along with Khan Younis Brigade commander Rafa’a Salameh and dozens of gunmen. Hamas claimed 90 victims without distinguishing between civilians and combatants. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres rushed to pronounce he was “shocked and saddened by the loss of lives”.
• On May 26 the IDF struck two senior Hamas officials with precision guided small diameter bombs – the smallest munitions usable by Israeli aircraft – in Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood. A nearby tent camp housing displaced Palestinians caught on fire reportedly killing 45 people. EU’s foreign policy director Josep Borrell immediately said he was “horrified” and condemned the attack “in the strongest terms”, before an IDF investigation had time to disclose an intercepted Palestinian phone call indicating that a secondary explosion due to a hidden weapons cache may have sparked the fire along with aerial images of a nearby rocket launcher lending further credence to the theory.
• On August 10 the IDF struck an active Hamas and PIJ command room – again using precision guided small diameter bombs – which was set up in a mosque inside a school complex in Gaza City’s Daraj neighbourhood. Gaza’s Government Media Office claimed over 90 deaths swiftly denied by the IDF, which accused the Hamas-run agency of inflating casualty figures. Josep Borrell was once again “horrified” and tweeted “there’s no justification for these massacres”. As of the time of this writing, the IDF has named 31 Hamas and PIJ operatives that it says were killed in the strike.

Evidently, the US solution was not to anyone’s liking either. Other suggestions have been few and far between. We might perhaps infer from the UK Labour government’s internal discussion (echoing similar discussions elsewhere) on whether to withhold offensive weapons sales, that it envisions self-defence more along the lines of securing borders and altogether avoiding armed conflict outside of Israeli sovereign territory which would require offensive capabilities.

Such a view may have been bolstered by the relatively low success rate of terrorist rocket attacks in recent years, largely due to the highly effective Iron Dome missile defence system. Of course, the October 7 invasion demonstrated the cost of any mistake, miscalculation or misconception in the implementation of such a passive defence strategy and the war against Hezbollah in the north has demonstrated the vulnerabilities of Israeli air defences to drones and anti-tank guided missiles.

But even if Israeli borders were unassailable and its air defences were infallible, a passive defence strategy would be economically unsustainable. Hamas deployed Qassam rockets are estimated to cost somewhere between $300 and $800, while Iron Dome interceptor missiles are estimated to cost $40,000-50,000 a piece. From the terrorists’ point of view this represents roughly a 100-to-1 return on investment. For the meagre sum of $300 million – less than 0.1% of Iranian GDP or 3% of its annual military expenditures – Iranian proxies could cause economic damages amounting to Israel’s entire $30 billion defence budget.

Additionally, Israel can point to several achievements that would not have been possible following US or UK suggestions. The most significant is the destruction of Hamas military infrastructure including weapons manufacturing sites, smuggling routes into Egypt, rocket launchers and up to 35% of the tunnel network (as of May).

Capturing Hamas data centres probably yielded important intelligence which together with interrogations of Hamas captives apprehended during operations in Gaza led to the successful elimination of Deif’s deputy Marwan Issa in March. Two rescue missions – ironically also heavily criticised targeted operations – leading to the release of 6 hostages as well as the recovery of at least 23 bodies – 5 in Jabaliya in December, another 7 in May  5 in Khan Younis in July and another 6 just this morning – would not have been possible without similarly acquired information.

We may never know how many – if indeed any – hostages would have been released in November were it not for the military pressure created by the ground invasion of northern Gaza. We do know, however, that on May 5 US negotiators described hostage talks to be “nearing collapse” due to unreasonable Hamas demands. A day later Israel initiated its invasion of Rafah at which point Hamas “accepted” the ceasefire proposal (although it was quickly exposed to be a counterproposal with extensive revisions). The latest breakthrough came in early July when Hamas dropped its demand for an upfront commitment to a permanent end to hostilities after senior Hamas officials inside Gaza urged the political leadership in Qatar to accept a ceasefire deal citing heavy losses on the battlefield.

More recently there has been a shift back to placing blame for failing hostage talks on Prime Minister Netanyahu. Though it is difficult to interpret his posture as anything other than an attempt at sabotage for personal political gain, it is nevertheless worth pointing out that none of his new demands are unreasonable: Hold the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border to keep shut the smuggling routes, hold the Netzarim Corridor separating north from south to preclude the return of armed militants to northern Gaza, retain the power to veto the release of security prisoners to prevent the worst terror leaders from returning to the West Bank and igniting another front in this war.

It is only because of the confidence of the IDF in its ability to regain lost ground that these terms are even negotiable. All of them would serve to secure the past 10 months of considerable progress, largely attributable to Israel’s active defence strategy. Diplomacy can be a powerful tool, but only when wielded in concert with appropriate military strength, which can achieve what ivory tower phantasies of an immaculate war never could.

With full-blown war looming in Lebanon, we can only hope that Israel’s allies will draw the lessons from 10 months of obvious misapprehensions.