The formula of ‘quiet for cash,’ on which Israeli military and intelligence officials based their situational assessments, is missing a vital component
By Zvi Bar’el, HAARETZ
The many senior Hamas leaders the IDF has killed demonstrates that Hamas isn’t some “ephemeral organization,” as many analysts have claimed. Some of these men held impressive positions — the Gaza City brigade commander, the head of Hamas’ cyber unit and missile development, the head of the projects and development department, the head of the engineering department, the commander of military intelligence’s technical department and the head of industrial equipment production. This is a budgeted, hierarchical and organized army, whose members have the relevant professional education and know-how to manage infrastructure for both survival and offensives.
It is subject to an elected political and civil leadership, which has branches in Lebanon, Turkey, Qatar and even Saudi Arabia. It has a Shura advisory council that dictates its strategic principles, a civil administration tasked with running the education and health systems, commerce, and the water and power supplies. This is an organization that largely succeeds in entrenching its monopoly on military violence, knows the limits of its military force and manages its wars accordingly.
After a decade and a half of ruling the Gaza Strip, Hamas has positioned itself as the Palestinian Authority’s competitor, and as a political organization that can determine the rules of the game for Palestinian. It has amended its charter to open the possibility of diplomatic negotiations, opted to take part in the Palestinian legislative and presidential elections and paved the way to ruling all of the Palestinian territories. Such an organization doesn’t collapse because its senior officials are killed. They have replacements.
Hamas has turned its military weakness vis-a-vis Israel into a political advantage. Its ideological positions – refusing to recognize Israel and to engage in diplomatic negotiations with it – has become an effective strategy. It leans comfortably on Israel’s own strategy of separating the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
As far as Israel is concerned, this is a necessary separation. It justifies its objection to any peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority under the pretext that it doesn’t represent all of the Palestinian people, and that it is especially incapable of reigning in Hamas. There’s no point in holding peace talks with one part of the Palestinian leadership, Israel says, while the other, the one ruling Gaza, continues its terror acts, doesn’t recognize Israel or the Oslo Accords, is supported by Iran and is well-connected to Hezbollah. Hamas couldn’t have expected a firmer basis on which to establish its status as the force that dictates the Palestinian Authority’s next moves, or any attempt to mediate between Israel and the Palestinians.
A contradictory assumption
The reciprocal conflicts between Hamas and Israel, the inhumane siege Israel imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2006 and the appalling poverty this siege has caused have turned against their creators. Instead of a civil uprising against Hamas, the weekly March of Return demonstrations have broken out on the border fence. Instead of surrender, international and Arab pressure on Israel has developed. This process has created a triangular Egypt-Israel-Hamas axis, whose tactical goal was to obtain quiet in exchange for economic aid, opening the Rafah border crossing and moving hundreds of millions of dollars from Qatar to Hamas’ coffers.
In October 2018, the three parties came to a three-stage agreement: a mutual cease-fire (with no restrictions on the Palestinians’ right to demonstrate peacefully up to 500 meters from the border fence), aide in setting up a power station that runs on gas, Qatar’s continued bankrolling of wages and aid for needy families and rebuilding the ruins of Gaza to the tune of some $600 million. In contrast to this lifeline to Gaza, an Israeli law passed three months earlier allowing the government to deduct the money the Palestinian Authority pays out to security prisoners and the families of terrorists from the taxes paid to the PA.
It seemed at the time that the balance of military deterrence between Israel and Hamas could be replaced by an agreement buying quiet for Israel in exchange for padding Hamas with funds. Israel also assumed then that Hamas had no interest in generating a new military conflict, because it could lose its economic gains and sabotage its ability to rule its people. This assumption contradicted itself. If Hamas is a terror organization that isn’t moved by damage or the death of civilians in Gaza, as Israel maintains, why should it stop the confrontation with the Israeli military, which represents a core element of its ideology? On the other hand, if Hamas needs quiet and economic development to survive, why not open the economy completely, lift the siege and let them build infrastructure in Gaza, thus considerably lowering the chances of a violent conflagration?
The answer is political. It lies in the inverse relationship between broadening Gaza’s economic base and the public criticism in Israel, which will see such a move as a “surrender to Hamas” and “a concession to terrorism.” It was not just the right-wing parties, but centrist ones as well who accused Netanyahu of funding Hamas after he allowed Qatar to hand them suitcases full of money. But this formula of “quiet for cash,” on which Israeli military and intelligence officials based their situational assessments, was missing a vital component. It ignored the broader national and political context in which Hamas operates. This is reflected in two Hamas moves that took the intelligence experts by surprise: Hamas’ ultimatum that “by six in the evening” the police must remove its forces from the Temple Mount and release the people it arrested, and the implementation of that ultimatum.
Both moves not only shattered the accepted assumption according to which Israel was working, they were “astoundingly brazen.” They also made it especially clear that the divide between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and especially between Jerusalem and Hamas, existed only for Israel.
Starting the fire and putting it out
The shocked responses in Israel indicated that the magnitude of this move was similar to the surprises that shook the world’s intelligence services when the Soviet Union collapsed, when the Arab Spring revolutions erupted or when the first and second intifadas broke out in Israel. All of these developments smashed the wishful thinking that had put down roots as eternal truths, and there were clear warnings before they took place. It was as if everyone forgot that Hamas is also a religious and nationalist organization, and no less, a political group in the midst of an election it had planned to win – until Mahmoud Abbas suspended said election in April, because Israel refused to hold it in Jerusalem.
Hamas tried to mobilize Arab pressure on Abbas to change his mind. The organization turned to Qatar and Turkey, which, due to their complicated relationships with Israel, cannot influence the country’s political positions. It tried to enlist Egypt as well, but understood that the election was a lost cause.
Then Jerusalem became the perfect compensation for Hamas. The violent clashes in Sheikh Jarrah and on the Temple Mount at the end of Ramadan provided it with a unique opportunity. In one fell swoop, it conquered the central arena and made a diplomatic achievement that reinstated it as the sole entity that can start the conflagration – and then extinguish it on its own terms.
Hamas had already triumphed by creating a new identity around Jerusalem, where it mocked Abbas’ “national” rationale in conditioning the elections on holding them in Jerusalem. Hamas raised Arab solidarity against Israel from the ashes, including in countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and even the United Arab Emirates. They had no choice but to denounce Israel’s Jerusalem policy despite abhorring Hamas.
On the national level, the events in Jerusalem showed that placing the American Embassy in Jerusalem and recognizing it as Israel’s capital won’t make the Palestinian struggle for statehood disappear. Until these recent developments, it was Jordan and the Palestinian Authority who struggled for their status at the holy sites. In an internal Arab controversy between Trump supporters and those opposed to the so-called deal of the century peace plan, Hamas made it clear that there is no difference between Jerusalem and Gaza.
While Israel is making an effort toward a victory in Gaza, to topple high rises, to destroy headquarters and to assassinate senior officials, it has lost the war for Jerusalem. The city has become part of Hamas’ circle of deterrence, which was customarily limited to the communities near the Gaza border. This is not another episode in the series of periodical conflicts between Hamas and Israel, whose ending is known and expected.
The American question
The response on these events from the U.S. administration, which has yet to decide on a policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has not even appointed an ambassador to Israel yet, is also notable.
President Joe Biden’s conduct in his first 100 days in office shows his intentions to keep his distance from heated conflicts like those in Afghanistan and Syria, to focus on relations with China and Russia and not to touch the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a ten foot pole. At this point, all he has done is to resume U.S. aid to the Palestinians and renew the talks between the State Department and the Palestinian envoys – no small feat. But he cannot ignore the developments in Jerusalem, which put Congressional pressure on him.
The statement issued by the State Department on May 7 was clear and hit its target. It demanded that both sides act decisively to calm the tension, compared attacks on Israeli police to settlers’ “price tag” attacks on Arabs and denounced both. It also laid the blame directly on Israel for the Sheikh Jarrah clashes. “But again, as we have consistently said, it is critical to avoid unilateral steps that would exacerbate tensions or take us further away from peace, and this includes evictions, settlement activity and home demolitions.”
Israel fumed at the comparison between its actions and those of the Palestinians’ and especially at the statement’s incriminating tone. Washington may have stuck to the principle that Israel has the right to defend itself and its citizens, but the backing Israel can now expect for its continued military activity in Gaza is no longer as assured as it was in Trump’s era.
Biden isn’t planning to cobble his own deal of the century, and isn’t likely to engage in shuttle diplomacy to advance talks with the Palestinians. He learned that lesson well from his term with Obama, and from the experience of presidents before him who tried to swim in the region’s murky waters. But if the paradigm of human rights he is already applying to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey is extended to Israel and the Palestinian territories, Israel may need to find a new definition for the term “an appropriate Zionist response.”
With friend like Haaretz, Israel has no need for more enemies!
Gaza Islamists produce NOTHING to sell except terrorism!
Here we can find a suite of Ha Aretz lies ” The inhuman siege Israel imposed on the Gaza strip 2006 ” really are you kidding ? Barel does not mention that the Gaza strip was consigned to OLP a partner of Israel and that Hamas eliminated OLP presence in Gaza in a massive clash in 2006 – 2nd lie by omission : Zvi Barel forgot to mention the daily delivery by Israel of tons of medecine-food-basic staples- cement bags – 3rd lie . Barel forget to note the cement bags are used to build the tunnels Hamas uses to import arms under the southern Egypt border , and to infiltrate murderers under the Israeli border-
Then Barel turns its writing into a lewd critic of Israel assumption of the Qatar-Israel deal ” cash for Gaza ” . This deal – which worked for at least 5 years and helped Hamas reconstruct the damaged infrastructure after the 2014 war , collapsed not because of Israel or Qatar , but because of Hamas , who raised up its political scope to issue an ultimatum to Israel to get out of Jerusalem Al Aqsa compound ( a lunatic invention approved by Barel ) and to link it to the judicial eviction of 8 arabs unlawful occupiers in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood . Said in other words , Barel does not recognize that Israel annexed east Jerusalem in 1967 and analyze the contemporary situation as if Israel is without rights in Jerusalem . Then comes the grandiose approval of the Palestinian narrative by Barel : The so-called fight for statehood won’t disappear by the USA moving its embassy to Jerusalem . Who can forget that Hamas is not looking for Statehood , but only for war and further destruction of Israel ? Who can write such delirious theory that once a State is given to Hamas stability and harmony will follow ? Only such Hamas puppets as Zvi Barel . Ha’ Aretz reminds more and more the Vichy puppet regime the nazis maintained in occupied France from November 1942 to June 1945 . This Vichy regime had a wide range of french newspapers which claimed the nazis were necessary to avoid bolshevism and USA-British domination of France, exactly as Zvi Barel lies are used to prop up the ” necessary ” existence and success of Hamas . In both situations this submissive behavior to the enemy should be named and punished as treason .
@ peloni1986:
Ohana who is the Minister that the Police report to has not a clue what he is doing and is simply a political appointment.Just watched him on TV and he does not know when to shut up. He has no relevant experience for this position.
@ Bear Klein: I agree completely.
@ Bear Klein:
Very true. Where would we but for the obstinacy of Smotrich in his precient objections to include the Muslim Brotherhood in the gov’t.
Also I see that they Ben-Gvir called for the resignation of Police Commissioner Shabtai who responded by declaring that Ben-Gvir was inciting a “Jewish intifada”. Meretz MK Golan is using the statement of Shabtai to try to strip Ben-Gvir of his committee asignments.
This on Jpost from yesterday:
This article sounds like Zvi Barel is a ghost writer paid by Hamas
Israel has not lost the war for Jerusalem, as it has not moved one inch. There certainly is a battle going on for it.
What this war with Hamas and the Arab Israeli terrorists on the streets of the mixed Jewish-Arab cities has shown is that if we thought Arab Israelis could be trusted that no longer holds any truth. Yamit wrote about this all the time on Israpundit and he was correct 100 percent. People bad mouth Smotrich and Ben Gvir but they are correct.
Reminds me of the Kapos during the Holocaust.
The following is an AP (Associated Press) report, published by Google press app. as their lead story this morning. It shows what we are up against in the propaganda front of the war.The “story” is filled with lies and misinformation.
Notice that the article neve even mentions that Hamas started the war by launching a massive rocket attack on Israel without provocation.
…The many senior Hamas leaders the IDF has killed demonstrates that Hamas isn’t some “ephemeral organization,” as many analysts have claimed…
This is a budgeted, hierarchical and organized army, whose members have the relevant professional education and know-how to manage infrastructure for both survival and offensives…
Two contradictory statements in one concise paragraph… Obviously a Haaretz article…