Eurasia Press & News
It Is Time for Netanyahu to Take Yes for an Answer
As U.S. negotiators press for an agreement between Israel and Hamas that would exchange hostages for a cease-fire before events ignite a wider war, will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accept what could be a historic strategic victory for Israel?
Had any of Israel’s 13 previous prime ministers been in office today, there is no doubt that she or he would have accepted the deal that Israel designed and the United States proposed at the end of May. Indeed, if Israel’s negotiating team—led by the national security barons whose colleagues are on the frontlines of this war—were the deciders, they would have accepted the terms of any of the deals that have emerged from the last three rounds of negotiations. These barons have been making it abundantly clear for months now that the deal on the table is the best strategic and moral option for Israel. These senior officials include David Barnea, the head of Israel’s foreign intelligence service, the Mossad; Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s internal security forces, the Shin Bet; Herzi Halevi, the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF); and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
By demanding more at each point in this process, Netanyahu has succeeded in extracting more from Hamas. The American “final plan” that Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought to the Middle East last week accepted much of what Netanyahu had been holding out for. That deal would begin with a six-week cease-fire, an exchange of a significant number of Israeli hostages for an even greater number of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, and Israel’s withdrawal from populated parts of the Gaza Strip. It would then lead to negotiations about a permanent cease-fire, full Israeli withdrawal, and the reconstruction of Gaza. Netanyahu told Blinken he would accept at least the first phase of the deal—before reversing course and telling his negotiators that he would not. Meanwhile, Israel’s recent preemptive strike on Hezbollah in Lebanon demonstrated its superior intelligence, its superior capabilities to attack (which enabled the destruction of 6,000 rockets and launchers), and its superior defenses (which limited damage within Israel from Hezbollah’s response to one chicken coop), strengthening Israel’s deterrent.
At this point, what more is Netanyahu waiting for? As strategic analysts, we typically focus on structural factors and are cautious about exaggerating the role played by individuals. But at this point, if Netanyahu continues rejecting an agreement that everyone except Hamas’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, has accepted, the only conclusion will be that the sole insurmountable obstacle to a cease-fire that brings Israel’s hostages home is Netanyahu’s fear of the personal consequences. Netanyahu worries that the end of war in Gaza will lead to the collapse of the coalition supporting him in Israel’s Knesset, triggering new elections that he fears he will lose. He also knows that after the war comes a reckoning: in a deeply ingrained Israeli tradition, a commission of independent individuals will be ruthlessly realistic in apportioning blame for the failure to prevent Hamas’s attacks on October 7, the greatest national security failure in Israeli history. The current heads of Israel’s national security agencies have publicly acknowledged their responsibility and culpability and anticipate harsh judgments. But Netanyahu—the individual who did the most to allow Hamas to grow to its monstrous size—has been silent about his role.
WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
A number of factors have created the current window of opportunity for Israel. First, it has defeated Hamas. Although the military campaign has gone on longer and been deadlier than it need have been, Hamas has lost most of its military leadership and more than half of its fighters and, assuming Israel has learned the right lessons, is no longer able to mount anything like the assault of October 7.
Second, U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration have stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel, providing arms, ammunition, and diplomatic cover in the United Nations and elsewhere. As Gallant rightly stated, Biden’s deployment of U.S. forces to the region to deter Iran is the single largest instance of U.S. military aid to Israel since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Facing challenges from a rising China in Asia and a Russia that is intensifying its war against Ukraine in Europe, the current U.S. surge to the Middle East cannot be sustained indefinitely.
Third, despite the tragic loss of life caused by Israel’s war in Gaza, the transformation underway in the most important Arab nations in the Middle East crystallized on April 13, when a U.S.-coordinated multinational air defense array defeated the largest missile, rocket, and drone attack in history. Of the more than 300 weapons launched by Iran and an additional 150 unleashed by its proxies, none hit their targets. Israel’s surgical response on April 19 destroyed Iran’s most advanced air defense system, threatened Iran’s nuclear facility, and demonstrated Iran’s vulnerability. Increasingly, the Arab nations of the region, chief among them Saudi Arabia, are coming to see Iran as a greater threat to their security than Israel. When the war in Gaza is over, Saudi Arabia, the guardian of the two holy sites of Islam, is now prepared to enter into an Abraham Accords–like agreement with the United States and Israel, recognizing the state of Israel and establishing normal diplomatic relations within the framework of U.S. security guarantees for Saudi Arabia.
Finally, Israeli deterrence, which collapsed on October 7 and in the early months of war in Gaza, has been gradually restored—indeed, strengthened. Successful operations that eliminated the heads of the military wings of Hamas and Hezbollah (Mohammad Deif and Fuad Shukr), the strike on Houthi targets in the port of Hodeidah in Yemen, the successful destruction of tunnels and other routes for arms transfers along the so-called Philadelphi Corridor between Egypt and Gaza, the assassination of the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, the strikes on and successful active defense against Hezbollah—all have demonstrated Israel’s commitment to and capability of maintaining superior deterrence.
From this position of strength, an Israeli prime minister who cared more about his country’s security than his own could deliver a speech to the people of Israel:
“Israel has proven its strength and righteousness. I am leading the nation on the path to victory. Hamas in Gaza is defeated and has paid a very heavy price for the crimes of October 7. The heads of its terror armies and Hezbollah’s have been eliminated, once again proving that there is no hiding place beyond our watchful eye and no place too far for our long arm. After ten months, the goals of the war have been realized. Hamas has been dismantled as an organized military arm and functioning government and cannot repeat October 7. Therefore, we are signing a hostage deal that will bring our captives home and our fallen to a proper burial in Israel.
This is the end of the war, but not the end of the campaign. I have reached an agreement with the United States that any rearmament of Hamas will be a recognized justification for Israel to renew the fighting in Gaza. I hope that the cessation of the war in Gaza will stop the fighting in the north, but we will not shy away from war if it is forced upon us by a significant response or ongoing attacks from Hezbollah and Iran. Now we are giving diplomacy a chance—to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701, pushing Hezbollah north of the Litani River. Here too, I agreed with the United States that if the resolution is not implemented, we will receive full support for deploying the IDF to push the Shiite terrorist organization away from the northern border and to weaken its capabilities threatening Israel.
At the same time, I am advancing a historic agreement with Saudi Arabia that will come into effect immediately after the U.S. elections with bipartisan support from Democrats and Republicans. Together, we will focus on the main goal I have been speaking about for 20 years: stopping Iran’s nuclear armament and weakening the terrorist arms of Tehran and its proxies in the Middle East.’’
IF NOT PEACE, THEN WHAT?
Unfortunately, rather than declaring a victory that would allow Israelis and Americans to welcome home the hostages now dying in Hamas tunnels, Netanyahu has fallen into the trap laid by Hamas and its patron Iran. If he cannot accept victory now, he will continue down the road to strategic failure.
Netanyahu’s pursuit of “total victory” would mean continuing the war in Gaza at the price of neglecting adversaries on other fronts that now pose a greater threat to Israel than Hamas does. Continuation of the current operations in Gaza will not lead to the destruction of Hamas but will drag Israel into a prolonged and costly anti-guerrilla war and simultaneous escalation in other arenas. Hostages will continue to die in Hamas tunnels; Israel’s economy will continue to deteriorate; its status in the world will continue falling to new lows; and the legal battle in international courts will intensify. In effect, the “total victory” strategy serves Iran’s purpose: bogging Israel down in an unwinnable war of attrition in several arenas at once until it exhausts itself.
This path will also lead Israel into sharper conflict with the Biden administration, which is losing patience with Israel’s failure to follow through on commitments made as part of a jointly crafted hostage deal. Washington recognizes that the pursuit of an elusive “total victory” in Gaza will likely provoke a larger regional war that could necessitate American intervention, the last thing the administration needs in the final weeks before the November 5 U.S. presidential election.
A regional war may not be what Netanyahu intends, but it is where his actions, and inactions, are leading. The prolonged war in Gaza is fueling conflicts in six other arenas—Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Yemen—that could spark the outbreak of a multifront regional war. Such an outcome is Sinwar’s (and his Iranian patrons’) dream: war in Gaza igniting and uniting those six other fronts, creating a ring of fire around Israel that causes it to collapse from within. Israel has no viable strategy for such a scenario. Moreover, the tensions and violations within Israel itself, the most important front of all, are escalating daily: from failures to enforce the law, including resistance to drafting military-age Orthodox Jews and attempts to undermine the judiciary, to breaches of IDF bases and extremist violence against Palestinians.
Israel cannot survive if it is engaged in endless, unwinnable wars with its neighbors.
Historically, Israel has understood that wars of attrition undermine its strength (decisive power) and highlight its weakness (endurance). It must return to its proven security doctrine: short wars on enemy territory, victory in every campaign, superpower support from the United States, a regional coalition to counterbalance the extremist axis, and concentration on nation building, economic recovery, and the overall Zionist enterprise. This strategy requires the defeat of adversaries and the removal of the threats they pose in a sequenced, prioritized manner.
What divides the prime minister from his negotiators? What specific terms in the agreement for a cease-fire in Gaza and exchange of prisoners are Israel’s national security barons prepared to accept that Netanyahu is not? The main difference is over the withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza. Since Israeli troops first entered Gaza in response to the October 7 attack, they have constructed and fortified two corridors to prevent Hamas from importing arms from Egypt or moving arms between areas in Gaza: the Philadelphi Corridor along the border between Egypt and Gaza and the Netzarim Corridor, which separates Rafah and the rest of southern Gaza from the north. Both are under constant surveillance by Israeli intelligence and patrol by IDF troops. The heads of the Mossad, the Shin Bet, and the IDF, as well as Halevi and Gallant, have all agreed that Israel could withdraw from the two corridors without compromising its security. Yet Netanyahu rejects this consensus. At a recent Sunday meeting of the government, tensions became so heated that at one point the prime minister reportedly accused his negotiators of being “weaklings.” In a weekly meeting with the families of hostages, he has repeated that Israel would not leave either the Philadelphi or Netzarim Corridors.
One possibility is that Washington would insist that this deal represents a take-it-or-leave-it offer for both Israel and Hamas. For Netanyahu, this would be a win-win scenario: if Sinwar takes the deal, it would bring all the benefits for Israel mentioned above. If Sinwar rejects it—a very real possibility—Netanyahu would emerge with reinforced U.S. support for continued action against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
ISRAEL’S UNCERTAIN FUTURE
After his failure to do so in the three months since Biden outlined his current plan, why is there any reason to hope that Netanyahu will choose the victory on offer now? He is, first and foremost, a brilliant political animal who knows how to survive, which has enabled him to become the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history. He should recognize that rather than continuing down the road to ultimate defeat for himself and his country, it is in his interest to accept the first stage of the deal now, bringing home the hostages in exchange for a six-week cease-fire—and take his chances that as other pieces on the chessboard move in response, his options will improve.
The Knesset is on recess until October 27, which means that the two far-right blocs that have threatened to abandon and thus destroy Netanyahu’s coalition would be unable to do so for almost two months. If the first-stage cease-fire were to break down, prompting IDF forces to renew fighting in Gaza, those parties would likely rejoin Netanyahu’s coalition. But if the deal succeeded in dampening regional tensions (ensuring that neither Hezbollah nor Tehran opts for further retaliation), brought Israeli hostages home, and allowed normalization with Saudi Arabia to proceed, Netanyahu’s standing in the polls could be strong enough for him to declare victory and call another election that he would have a good chance of winning. (The approaching U.S. presidential election adds another variable that could open new options for Netanyahu.)
Israel has always been, and will remain for the foreseeable future, an embattled nation. As former Prime Minister David Ben Gurion wisely stressed, the country’s “fate depends on two things: its strength and its righteousness.” He recognized that without a strong and effective defense against the threats that surround it, Israel would be erased from the map. Yet he also recognized the necessity of upholding the values of justice and freedom that are the foundation of Israel’s identity and legitimacy as a Jewish democratic state.
Whatever peace Israel is able to make with the seven million Palestinians with whom it shares the land from the river to the sea, as well as the hundreds of millions of other Arabs and Muslims that live in the region, will always be an armed peace. But Israel cannot survive if it is engaged in endless, unwinnable wars with its neighbors—especially while facing the possible existential threat of a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Iran. Its survival requires not just a powerful deterrent but also a willingness to create political conditions under which its neighbors will find living with Israel preferable to fighting it. The choice facing Netanyahu today is ultimately a choice about taking a major step toward that future.
