Can Israel lose a moral battle in Gaza and yet still win?
It gives one pause that there is an increasing risk that the Gaza war will expand. The assassination of the Hamas military leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beiruit has a particularly tough dual moment. It may start to restructure Hamas management into an entity more likely to get around a table. It may at the same time open up a serious fight with Hezbollah who are based in Lebanon.
The United States has responded to attacks on shipping in the Red Sea by Houthis with a clear warning not to do it again.
Yesterday Iran sent a warship to the Red Sea.
So this is increasingly looking like a war in the Middle East that will escalate into multiple fronts.
Each a step down into hot hell.
The inability of Hamas to find enough remaining kidnapped victims to make it worth the while of Israel to sustain the ceasefire was yet another step down into the moral morass Hamas has formed for Israel from its initial attack in October. Israel has been forced into one of its coldest calculations: continue attacking despite the likely death of its remaining Hamas-kidnapped citizens.
So Israel resumed its violence.
Israel’s resumption of attack on Hamas inside Gaza has ensured Israel has rapidly lost international sympathy across much of the world, in particular its remaining staunch defenders in the EU and US. It now seems to sustain little support outside them.
When the IDF bombing is done and the rage is ignited in another generation of young people, Israel will be brought to the same moral plane as all the Arab countries around it. This may well be seen as a moral victory by Hamas against Israel.
But this moral victory won’t be the strategic win Hamas seek.
There will come a point at which Israel believes it has done sufficient to permanently minimise Hamas.
Then Israel will hunt down Hamas leaders outside Israel, in Qatar, Turkey and Lebanon, “even if it takes years” according to Israel’s Head of Shin Bet. Which is what we saw in Beiruit I’d suggest.
Say all of that retribution is done.
Say, as a result, Israel then exists on the same moral plane as the autocrats and torturers who lead all the states around Israel, is that a strategic victory for Hamas and for all those who oppose the existence of Israel?
On the contrary.
The Arab world, unlike every other time in the 20th century, is not united against Israel. On the eve of October 7th, each Arab state had an individual relationship with Israel.
Egypt and Jordan signed peace deals decades ago, and they are holding.
The UAE normalised diplomatic relations with Israel, and that still holds.
Qatar kept its relationship with Israel informal while also hosting Hamas, and has been critical in negotiating stoppages to war and prisoner exchanges.
Saudi Arabia paused its normalisation of relationships with Israel, but on November 8th it was still “on the table”.
It is glaring that no Arab country is at maximum joining militarily on the side of Hamas or even at minimum offering to take vast numbers of Palestinian refugees. Most of them did multiple times in the previous wars.
Not a single country that has signed a peace treaty or normalised diplomatic relations with Israel has rescinded that basic relationship despite all Israel has done. All of Israel’s neighbours have massively oppressed internal minorities just like Israel: Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria all routinely oppress and torture any opponent and have done so for decades. They have taught Israel so well.
The Arab countries have left the Gazan Palestinians to their fate. They are certainly united in their condemnation of Israel’s actions. But nothing more.
The boots-on-the-ground people in Gaza actually helping people rather than bombing them are aid workers from across the world. Compare that to the direct assistance of the EU particularly Poland to the people of Ukraine.
This do-minimum approach to Gaza tells me that those Arab countries know that that the only countries that can solve any problem in the Middle East are Middle East countries. Israel will become as immune from any UN resolution as any other country in the Middle East.
The lowering of Israel to the same moral status as any other local torturing tyrant is, darkly, an advantage to Israel.
Qatar will continue to take this lead. Qatar’s actions show that they have diplomatic skill that all respect and abide by. Qatar has about the same human rights benchmark as most other Arabian states.
The military defeat of Hamas by Israel is trumped by the moral defeat by Hamas of Israel. And yet …
… it achieves for Israel two broader things: firstly it brings Israel permanently into regional moral equivalence and hence regional acceptance. That is certainly the diplomatic behaviour of all regional state actors so far.
Having done that, Israel turns that solid advantage to enduring regional peace by eradicating Hamas for all of them.
As darkness towards peace, figure that one out.
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