Israeli military victories and achievements often result in battlefield victories but not political gains.
The Gaza war changed that paradigm.
It produced neither a military nor a political victory.
Adding fuel to the fire, Israel has abandoned the idea of scholar Joseph Nye that soft power is as important as hard power. Nye recently warned that “it is a strategic and analytical mistake to ignore or downplay soft power.”
“In the short term, the sword is mightier than words, but in the long term, words guide the sword,” Nye said.
Israel did not follow that advice, and as a result, it is losing two wars in Gaza: the war itself and the battle for hearts and minds.
All Hamas needs to do to declare victory is survive.
By insisting on destroying Hamas militarily and politically, Israel has enshrined on its altar a concept that works for most non-state actors fighting conventional military forces.
The problem for Israel is that Hamas would likely survive even if it killed its Gaza leader, Yahya Sinwar, Israel’s most wanted man, who has eluded Israeli forces since war broke out in October last year.
Israel also failed to achieve its other war objectives: rescuing hostages held by Hamas and ensuring that Gaza does not remain a base for Palestinian resistance.
Palestinians killed 10 Israeli soldiers this weekend, the highest daily toll since January, while Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Daniel Hagari acknowledged that Israel is unable to militarily free all 116 remaining hostages, 41 of whom are believed to have been killed in captivity during the war.
“We can’t send everyone home like this,” Hagari said.
In the battle for hearts and minds, Israel quickly destroyed any initial sympathy for Hamas’s October 7 atrocities that led to the deaths of more than 1,100 Israelis and foreigners, mostly civilians, and the kidnapping of another 250.
Most of the more than 100 hostages released since Oct. 7 were released in a prisoner swap with Hamas in November. Only seven have been rescued by Israeli forces.
Israel’s self-inflicted defeat in the war for hearts and minds may have more significant consequences than its failure to crush Hamas on the battlefield despite dealing a serious blow to it.
In just a few months, Israel has gone from a country that was able to hold the moral high ground to one that has been indicted for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and whose leaders are at risk of having arrest warrants issued for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
Israeli attack on the West Bank city of Jenin on June 13, 2024. Photo credit: Xinhua
Winning the battle for hearts and minds would have been an uphill battle no matter what, given the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed and injured by Israeli forces and the physical destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure, along with Israel’s intensifying crackdown on the West Bank and tacit approval of vigilante settler attacks on Palestinians and aid convoys heading to Gaza.
Israel appears adamant about ending the war while maintaining its pariah status in much of the world by preventing the free flow of humanitarian aid needed to address the consequences of the cuts in food, fuel, water and electricity and the destruction of Gaza’s medical sector.
To add fuel to the fire, Israel has shown no sympathy for the plight of innocent Palestinians or acknowledged that they have rights. Instead, Israeli leaders have repeatedly made genocidal rhetoric and obstructed efforts to achieve a ceasefire.
To be sure, Hamas has displayed similar insensitivity, but this has no impact on Israel’s global standing.
Israel’s denunciation of the massive anti-war protests around the world as anti-Semitic and its ignorance of opinion polls showing Western public opinion turning against Israel only deepens the divide it finds itself in.
That’s a tough hole for Israel to get out of.
To make matters worse, Israel’s actions in the Gaza war and its conflicting public relations stance, as well as its West Bank settlement policy and other policies, are hardening both sides’ positions and making the Israeli-Palestinian conflict increasingly difficult to resolve.
This risks spreading Hamas’ belief that a long-term ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, and more broadly between Palestinians and Israelis, is the only thing that can be achieved.
The hole Israel has dug for itself will strengthen Hamas’ argument that a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires a long-term “hudna,” or ceasefire, rather than Palestinian recognition of a Jewish state.
Israel argues that Hamas’ idea of a long-term “hudna,” or truce, rather than Palestinian recognition of a Jewish state within a two-state framework, demonstrates the group’s determination to destroy Israel and preserve its right to armed resistance.
Unlike the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) recognition of Israel in the 1980s as a precursor to the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, Hamas’ revised 2017 charter envisions two states living side by side without recognizing each other and probably without maintaining full diplomatic relations.
The charter rejects any rights of Israel, as well as all UN resolutions and other international agreements that recognize equal statehood for Israelis and Palestinians, and states that “the legitimacy of the Zionist state is not recognized…Without renunciation of any rights of the Palestinian people, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem, along the lines of June 4, 1967, to be the formula of national consensus…Resistance and jihad for the liberation of Palestine will remain the legitimate right, duty and honour of our people and all the sons and daughters of our Ummah (the worldwide community of Muslim believers).”
Since then, some Hamas officials have sought to backtrack on their claim to the right to wage armed struggle.
Ceasefire negotiator Khalil al-Hayya suggested in April that Hamas would agree to a ceasefire of more than five years, lay down its arms and transform into a political party if an independent Palestinian state was established along the pre-1967 borders.
Recent opinion polls have shown a dramatic decline in Palestinian support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Hamas’ position is likely to gain increasing support among Palestinians, even if Israel rejects it outright.
A survey this month by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that support for two states in Gaza had nearly halved, from 62 percent in March to 32 percent in June, but remained steady among a third of the West Bank’s population.
Azam Tamimi, a 69-year-old scholar and journalist with close ties to Hamas, suggested that a long-term hudna, rather than a peace deal, “is the only way to break ties and achieve a real ceasefire.”
Tamimi argued that Hamas’s view was “de facto recognition of the status quo, but not de jure recognition.”
Tamimi asserted that she would “never accept the legitimacy of the occupation of my mother’s house in Beersheba,” adding, “I would accept, and I think most Palestinians, represented by Hamas, would accept, the idea that this conflict is not producing the results either side is hoping for, and therefore it would not be a bad idea to stop fighting and withdraw for 10, 15 or 30 years… During that period, people can rest. After that, a new generation will emerge and future generations will decide what they want to do about this conflict.”
Hamas and Tamim’s ideas may resonate with Palestinians, but they are certainly not going to bring Israel closer to the negotiating table.
Aside from its goal of destroying Hamas and the Netanyahu government’s rejection of a two-state solution, Israel has insisted for decades that any Palestinian counterpart must legally recognise the Jewish state and renounce armed struggle.
It also demanded that the Palestinians agree to prioritize Israel’s security concerns, even if they have legitimate concerns as well.
Indeed, two historic Palestinian states, whether in law or de facto, would be similar to India and Pakistan, which came into being through partition in 1947 and are still at odds 77 years later.
Still, many Western countries share Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s view that Israel has fallen into a trap set by Hamas to isolate it. “It seems to be working,” he added at the G7 summit this weekend.
Expanding on Meloni’s ideas, former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy argued that “this indiscriminate use of force is a huge self-destruction for Israel, saying from day one that it will cut off all food, fuel, water and electricity to the civilian population of Gaza. Reputationally, morally, legally, economically… This changes the balance of power… Hamas becomes stronger and Israel becomes weaker… And this is Israel’s own doing.”
