Can a Country Live with Terrorists on its Border?

A Plan to Return the Hostages and Rid the World of Hamas

Historical analogies are all the rage now whether we are talking about Russia and Ukraine, the middle east or even the South China Sea. Paul Wolfowitz, in his interesting WSJ essay has called on President Trump to emulate Eisenhower in Korea rather than Chamberlain in Munich when dealing with Russia and Ukraine. He understands Trump’s desire for face the reality of the situation and move to peace but wants it done from a position of military strength, if not threats. When those condemn the President for speaking to the likes of Putin, people have pointed out that Nixon and Kissinger met with and compromised with the mass murderer par excellence, Mao Zedong in order to break him apart from the Soviet Union (which according to Lee Smith’s eye opening piece in The Tablet, was a relationship beyond repair anyway).

In the middle east we have a different story altogether as this is the only region where terrorist organizations and their state sponsors are threatening the existence of a neighboring state. Looking back in history it is difficult to find another situation like the one Israel has faced at least since the signing of the peace treaty with Egypt. Until then, Israel faced states that wanted to conquer and destroy it – states that had actual interests and citizens. States that had economies and foreign policies to run. The thought was that if they banded together, they could defeat Israel and rid the region of a Jewish state.

The closest they came was in 1973 with the surprise attack from Syria and Egypt – an attack the Hashemites of Jordan sat out after being burned by Nasser’s lies in 1967. It was enough that King Hussein would go down in history as the Moslem who lost Jerusalem to the Jews, he didn’t want to lose his kingdom, too. But the war ended, Kissinger separated the forces and it led to a cold peace with Egypt and a warm war with Syria. The Syrian side finally gave up after having lost 82 jets to Israel’s zero and the warm war moved to cold. At that point the fight against Israel turned to terror only. Hezbollah was formed under the support of Iran and Asaad’s Syria, Israel invited Arafat to setup a pseudo-government in what was one of the worst gambles in Jewish history and the Moslem Brotherhood of Egypt formed Hamas.

In short order, Israel now faced what no other country faced in modern times - an existential threat from non-state actors – or terrorist organizations. As much as the world tried to give the Palestinian Authority the legitimacy and tools to govern like a state and as much as Israel’s wishful thinking gave Hamas the means to operate as a state with citizen-stakeholders, neither organization gave up on the goal of destroying Israel, killing its citizens and creating chaos in the middle east. The creation of a Palestinian State with any borders at all was not something that interested the PA or Hamas. Both had state sponsors in order to pursue their goals PA had Arab oil states, the EU and the United States and Hamas had both the EU, Arab states and we now know the US State Department’s USAID (even after October 7). Hezbollah, the other non-state actor also had backers such as Iran and the EU. And they had the added value of being part of the Lebanese government, meaning they had indirect Arab, EU and US aid, too.

How to handle the Gaza/Hamas part of the problem? Israel has been negotiating with them for the last 18 months. For Israel, the negotiations focus on the release of hostages and for Hamas the concentration is on staying in power and ending the war. For both sides that is the card that cannot be played. Hamas, in my view will never give up all the hostages unless if faces annihilation – and even then it is not clear that the leaders would not rather go down with the ship than have an Arafat style escape by sea - or land of air. As for Israel, ending the war means fighting another day and that is something no one in the country expected on October 8, 2023.

The ”deal at all costs” group in Israel has two arguments – the first is that there is a greater moral responsibility for the government, for the state, to save the hostages than to protect future civilians and soldiers who could be killed in future confrontations – in Gaza or in terrorist attacks elsewhere. The second argument is that it is not possible to defeat Hamas, so we might as well get our hostages back. The former is a moral question and we won’t discuss that now. The latter is a military and diplomatic question and I would add, existential. The question is not can Hamas be defeated but rather can Israel live without defeating Hamas, and by extension all terrorist organizations on its borders or within its borders?

In previous days the answer was “no” and Israel took care of the terrorist organizations that were crossing its borders. In the 1950’s Ariel Sharon was tasked with defeating the Fedayeen, an independent terrorist group operating out of Egyptian controlled Gaza and Jordanian controlled West Bank. This is where Sharon made his name as he created unit 101 – later part of the paratroopers - and led then in asymmetrical warfare against terrorists who infiltrated and killed civilians in kibbutzim that are now, sadly, household names – such as Kfar Aza, Be’eri and Nahal Oz.

In the mid to late 1960’s the now PLO raided the Jordan and Beit Shean valley from Jordan until Israel attacked forcing King Hussein to defeat and exile the PLO in the famous “black September” of 1970. When the PLO moved to Lebanon, Israel, after trying a limited operation in the late 1970’s finally engaged in a full scale war, getting to the outskirts of Beirut and forcing the PLO to the far reaches of Tunesia. The rise of Hezbollah came in the years after, followed by Oslo and now we have a situation, as stated above with Islamist terrorists on the borders in the north and south – and of course within a stone’s through of Israel’s main population centers in the Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv areas. In addition, the Islamist government of Syria is no longer in the cold war with Israel that the Assad’s lived with but are threatening to “liberate Jerusalem” after they finish wiping out their internal heretics – the Allawis followed by the Kurds, Christians and Druze. The Allawis are being slaughtered and so far the Christians are just being made to crawl on their knees before the Sunni terrorists and the Druze and Kurds threatened.

Back to Gaza. Can Israel live with Hamas in Gaza? Israel’s leaders from Rabin to Netanyahu and all in between were convinced that terror in general and Hamas in particular were not existential threats to Israel but nuisances to be managed. This was their view because they did not realize that the first job of a state is to protect its citizens – if the threat is existential or not. If that threat comes from crime within or terrorist from within or without, is of no concern to the citizen losing his life or his legs. The sum total of unrestrained terror is the breakdown of confidence in the institutions of the state by the citizenry and a defeatist attitude by the country’s military and security forces. That is what led to October 7. The governments and the military thought that they could manage the periodic rocket attacks on the communities surrounding Gaza so long as it limited the number of people who were killed with an adequate rocket and missile defense. The disenchantment and anger of the citizens affected were said to have been allayed by harsh bombing attacks on Hamas targets as the government and the army decided, collectively, that a normal life for citizens in these towns is not enough of a priority to risk a “real” war over.

That along with ignoring the 4 hostages that Hamas held for ten years – two citizens, alive and two soldiers, killed, meant that Hamas understood very well that they could continue to push the envelope until we ended up with 1,200 killed and 250 taken hostage. Of the four taken nearly 11 years ago, one Lt. Hadar Goldin has yet to be released, as the government shows the people that it is not yet learned the lessons of its failures.

This is the reality of the situation that President Trump sees so clearly. A country cannot continue to tolerate terrorists on its borders and the proposal to empty Gaza of Hamas and those who supported it – most of the Gazan residents - is a clearheaded, necessary solution to the problem Israel faces – living with terrorists on its border. It is also not possible to live with a terrorist organization holding our citizens as hostages – be they alive or not.

Even though I am convinced that military pressure and conquering Gaza would have freed all the hostages and even though I think extreme military pressure is the best way to free the hostages now, is the there another way to free the hostages and destroy the terrorist groups and their supporters on Israel’s borders? This can be done only by understanding that all agreements with Hamas are agreements with a terrorist entity that is illegal and has no legitimacy. This would have to be understood by both Israel and the parties that would be the guarantors of Israel’s promise to end the war. If you get where we are going with this, what we mean is that Israel and its main ally, the United States have to knowingly lie and agree to end the war only to start it up when the last hostage is returned and then force the Trump plan on Gaza.

It is enough that israel forces itself to play the international law game during combat, it doesn’t have to play it with a terrorist organization during diplomacy. This won’t be the first time diplomats knowingly lied and it won’t be the last. If this is what it takes to get the hostages back and to end the Hamas terror on the border, so be it. For those who say Israel (and maybe the United States) will never be trusted again in international diplomacy, the response is to stop acting and speaking like children. That is why the Trump plan to empty Gaza of most Gazan residents is both practical and moral. Israel and the US have given the Gazans enough time and money to create something other than a terrorist enclave. They have failed not because it was not do-able but because they didn’t want to. They failed because their goal all along was October 7 and then some. They crossed the line one time too many and must be held to account. The solution is not the Egyptian solution to rebuild and try again. The solution is to rid the region of the cause of the problem – Hamas and their Gazan supporters.

Trump is not a visionary but sees reality more clearly than most others – certainly more clearly than most diplomats. The problem he sees is that agreeing to anything that includes Hamas and their supporters staying in Gaza means that the war will continue in a bloodier and more vicious way. If a little not so white lie is what it takes to end this 20 year stalemate – so be it.

Its time to agree to all of Hamas’s demands with US guarantees and then to turn around and hit them with everything we have until they are gone and the Trump plan is brought to reality.

We discussed earlier how the Trump plan can be made to work. That ought to be the goal – and if a “not out of the ordinary” diplomatic lie is what it takes ….