Biden is right – the US should oppose Israel’s tactics in Gaza

Neither country is served by the blind following of Netanyahu’s plan

Joe Biden held back a single shipment of arms to Israel when, despite consistent and long-standing US objections, Israel was planning an expanded assault on Rafah. The Israeli government and its defenders in the United States (including members of Congress and Jewish organisations) roared. Abandoning Israel! Helping Hamas! Nonsense. Indeed, developments suggest Biden’s reaction was well calibrated, considering Israel apparently lacks a strategic plan for victory.

If Israel has no plan to hold and govern territory, and Hamas simply backfills areas that are vacated, Israel’s tactical moves and resulting casualties become highly objectionable. That would mean Israel is killing civilians, putting its own soldiers at risk and perpetuating a humanitarian catastrophe for no permanent gain in security.

According to CNN this week: “The Israeli military has renewed its fighting in northern Gaza where it previously claimed to have dismantled Hamas’s command structure.” As that report notes, Hamas’s re-entry in “pockets [Israel] had supposedly cleared … renews questions about its long-term military strategy”.

Veteran Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross tweeted: “One thing is clear: the fact that the IDF has had to go back into Jabalya, Zeitoun, and soon Khan Younis is a reminder that no plan existed for what would replace Hamas.” He added: “Yes, Hamas is weakened but without an alternative to it, it will fill the vacuum. And Israel needs an answer.”

The White House had presciently warned about exactly this problem. “The Biden administration does not see it likely or possible that Israel will achieve ‘total victory’ in defeating Hamas in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said on Monday,” Reuters reported.

“While US officials have urged Israel to help devise a clear plan for the governance of post-war Gaza, Campbell’s comments are the clearest to date from a top US official effectively admitting that Israel’s current military strategy won’t bring the result it is aiming for.”

US secretary of state Antony Blinken has become more explicitly critical of Israel in public. “One, you have to have a clear, credible plan to protect civilians, which we haven’t seen,” he told Margaret Brennan on CBS’s Face the Nation. “Second, we also need to see a plan for what happens after this conflict in Gaza ... is over.”

With Hamas returning to places Israel had previously cleared, Israel might “have some initial success, but potentially at an incredibly high cost to civilians”, Blinken said, and that success is “one that is not durable, one that’s not sustainable”.

Moreover, Israel “will be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency, because a lot of armed Hamas will be left no matter what they do in Rafah”, the secretary said, leaving behind “a vacuum that’s likely to be filled by chaos, by anarchy, and ultimately by Hamas again”. So far, Blinken added, the administration has seen no credible plan to address this dilemma.

US policymakers are not the only ones sounding the alarm. The Times of Israel reports: “[Israel Defence Forces] Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi tore into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during security consultations over the weekend for failing to develop and announce a so-called ‘day after’ strategy for who will rule Gaza after the war, according to a Saturday evening Hebrew news report.”

Echoing US criticism, Halevi told an Israel news channel, “We are now operating once again in Jabaliya. As long as there’s no diplomatic process to develop a governing body in the [Gaza] Strip that isn’t Hamas, we’ll have to launch campaigns again and again in other places to dismantle Hamas’s infrastructure.”

Meanwhile, the Biden administration issued an inconclusive report last week finding that “it was ‘reasonable to assess’ that Israel violated international law using US weapons in its military campaign in Gaza, but found there was insufficient information to draw a firm conclusion in any specific instances, meaning American military aid could continue to flow to the country,” The Washington Post reported. Having made its point, the White House later approved transfer of more than $1bn (€920m) in military aid, defying critics who claimed the president had “abandoned” Israel.

So, Israel rolls into Rafah with no plan for success, its tactics under severe scrutiny and the fate unknown of the hostages who, if they are still alive, are surviving under deplorable conditions. No wonder tens of thousands of Israelis take to the streets each week in protest. War for war’s sake might meet Netanyahu’s personal objective to remain in power indefinitely, but it does not satisfy the US’s or Israel’s objectives. It might also not comply with international law, which requires that any civilian casualties not be disproportionate to the military objectives obtained.

Where does that leave the administration? Biden and Blinken need to clearly articulate that, because they support Israel’s objective of dismantling Hamas, they must insist Israel present a strategy designed to attain that. Biden should continue to use all tools at his disposal to compel Israel’s conduct to align with mutual national security objectives and the laws of war.

Given the circumstances, true friends of Israel should rethink kneejerk objections to Biden’s efforts to steer Israel toward a strategy with achievable, durable results.

Blindly endorsing and supporting Netanyahu’s ill-conceived approach – one that’s increasingly objectionable to Israel’s own military – serves neither Israel nor the US. (© Washington Post)

“Yes, Hamas is weaker but, with no alternative, it will fill the vacuum. Israel needs an answer”