The cynicism at the heart of the 11-day Israel-Hamas conflict
The adage “in war, truth is the first casualty” is apt for the 11-day IsraelHamas conflict that ended last Friday. The doublespeak of its protagonists – from fighting terrorism to resisting the occupation, from right to security to the right to freedom – cynically conceals ulterior motives.
The strongest impetus for the hostilities that started on May 10 were two elections — for the Israeli Knesset held on March 23 and the Palestinian elections after 15 years, but postponed on April 30 by President Mahmoud Abbas, citing Israeli obstacles. It was also the end of Ramadan – when young Palestinians frequently confront Jewish hardliners and Israeli police over access to the holy al-Aqsa mosque complex. It was the verdict day (also postponed) for the controversial court case to evict several Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem by Jewish settlers. May 10 was Israel’s “Jerusalem Day” followed on May 15 by the anniversary of Israel’s founding in 1948 – which Palestinians mark as “naqba (catastrophe) day”.
For Israel’s Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, the fourth polls in two years were a disappointment as he failed, again, to put together a majority coalition. Losing the job would also take away his legal immunity – opening him to a possible jail sentence in an anti-corruption case. Donning the mantle of defender of Israel by going on the offensive against the rocket-firing from Gaza served his objectives. Israel’s military too wanted a free hand to “degrade” the asymmetric capabilities of Gaza-based Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). And regional geopolitics was conducive as the few remaining backers of Hamas and PIJ were either preoccupied or enfeebled or both.
The Palestine Authority (PA) had to contend with intensified Israeli settlement activity in West Bank and four Arab countries normalising ties with Israel. Meanwhile, a call for PA elections after 15 years had revived the dormant contest between the mainstream and moderate al-Fatah, ruling West Bank, and the radical Hamas, ruling the Gaza Strip. Al-Fatah has gradually lost its cohesion and popularity since the death of its iconic founder Yasir Arafat in 2004. It is currently riven by dissidence against the leadership of Abbas. The elections offered Hamas an opportunity to launch an electoral campaign of sorts for West Bank by launching a salvo of its Qassam rockets from Gaza into Jerusalem on May 10.
Among the players outside the immediate theatre of conflict, Egypt and the United States (US) are the most important. The military regime of Egypt – the only Arab country with a land border with Gaza – has no love lost for Hamas, which was closely allied to the Muslim Brotherhood it ousted. While it did not mind Hamas being pummelled, it also had to be seen as not letting the Gazans down. Egypt rendered some humanitarian assistance and helped mediate a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.
The US labels Hamas as a terrorist organisation. While the Joe Biden administration had initially kept its distance from Netanyahu, it leveraged the hostilities to ingratiate itself to Israel and the domestic pro-Israel lobby by supplying weapons and ammunition and maintaining frequent and closer contacts “to de-escalate the conflict”. It also stonewalled any anti-Israel moves at the UN Security Council giving the Jewish state’s military time to “sanitise” Gaza. Similarly, it leveraged the crisis to re-engage with some influential Arab leaders whom it had hitherto kept at arm’s length.
The humanitarian tragedy in Gaza has embarrassed some moderate Arab regimes, particularly those which had recently signed the Abraham Accords, though their respective overtures towards Israel were based on the pursuance of their individual national interests and are unlikely to be reversed.
To rationalise the ceasefire, a new wheel of cynical calculus has to be spun. On its part, Hamas is certain to claim having won the war by merely surviving it. Having defanged Hamas and PIJ, their martyrdom status is not in Israel’s interest; it would only lead to the preponderance of the hardliners in Ramallah either within al-Fatah, or through a Hamas takeover. And so just as cynical calculations led to the conflict, a cynical synergy in objectives has led to its end, for now.