This will be just a few comments, predicated on the basic facts about the situation. It won’t be an in-depth treatment. It is imperative to focus at the macro level and understand where this problem-set is now.
It’s not in a new static condition. It’s very much fluid. Israel has major laurels to rest on, but no leisure to do it.
In the coming days, the biggest threat to Israeli security is the continued urging of Western nations and the UN to get an outside consortium of purportedly well-intentioned nations into the big middle of the geopolitical sets known as “Gaza,” “Lebanon,” and the “West Bank.”
Others have made a point – which I agree with – that slashing the infrastructure and power of Hezbollah and Hamas leaves Iran without a lurking proxy veto on the level of Israeli audacity in countering Iran.
The more Israel whittles down the power of the terrorist organizations, the less of a potential veto Iran has. The cross-border risk to Israel is declining significantly. Israel’s latitude to react effectively to Iran is expanding.
That is a dynamic condition, however, and what can be done to reconstitute earlier, more threatening conditions – i.e., bring bigger threats back to Israel’s perimeter – will depend on how far down the power of the terror groups is taken, and what happens afterward in the territory where they’ve held sway.
It continues to matter where the terror groups have established themselves, and what happens there next. Israel’s influence in Lebanon, in particular, will be largely indirect and more limited than in Gaza and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).
That said, foreign governments, including America’s, will be doing their best to insert themselves in post-combat arrangements for the latter: Gaza and the Wet Bank.
One way we know that is that the Biden administration’s disastrous but tenacious temporary-pier caper was a prolonged effort to establish an American foothold in Gaza, one that would justify intervention by a U.S.-backed consortium in the province’s post-combat arrangements. (See my earlier articles here, here, here, here, and here.)
The other major indicator, however, is the unceasing refrain of media, the Biden administration, the EU, and the UN that “post-combat” needs to effectively start as soon as possible with a ceasefire, and its use should be to advance a “two-state solution” that imposes a pre-drawn scheme on Israel rather than respecting Israel’s right to negotiate any such enterprise. (See my earlier links, above, for development of all the comments in these paragraphs.)
As I’ve observed numerous times, the “ceasefire” leading to “two-state solution” is a solution in search of a problem. It’s a pushed narrative. It’s not analysis. It’s not self-evident in 2024 that it’s the answer to any question or problem
In cold fact, the conditions it would be executed in would shape it into something it pretends not to be. All a “two-state solution” would do, on the terms proposed, is shift the veto-holder over Israel from Iran and its proxies to an outside consortium favored by the Biden administration – which we can readily see would have significant Iranian influence admitted to it.
There would still be a veto-holder on Israel’s perimeter, putting Israeli security at risk. It would just be a different set of front-men as the collective veto-holder.
A few observations about this. One is that a condition of major significance going into this timeline was altered in 2020 with the introduction of the Abraham Accords. It’s not 2014 anymore, much less 2009 or 2006. It’s certainly not 1973. There is no unified Arab coalition seeking to invade and eliminate Israel in 2024. Rather, there is an accord among Arab nations and Israel that recognizes both the regional threat of Iran and the desirability for members of the accord of working together.
That accord group, including key nations that haven’t (yet) joined it, sees more than Iran clearly. It accurately sees favoritism for Iran in the U.S. and EU. It sees, for example, how the inexplicable U.S. restraint in response to the Houthi threat to global shipping from Yemen favors Iran. It sees how the constant demand for a ceasefire that allows Hamas to find ways back into Gaza serves Iran’s interests, but not those of regional stability or Israel. It sees how sanctimonious posturing about Judea and Samaria, and against Israel’s security measures there, extends the same effect from Gaza to the West Bank.
Recall that back when the pier was occasionally floating perilously, in one or two pieces, off the Gaza coast, waiting for the next round of three-foot waves to sideline it, there was considerable discussion in U.S. media of a consortium proposition for Gaza. When Israel was advancing on Rafah, and then operating in it, the proposition centered on who would hold the Philadelphi Corridor going forward.
That was the hook for big plans: for multinational and UN schemes to move in and basically take over administration of Gaza from Israel. Egypt was suggested as the nominal nexus of the consortium – a prospect manifestly nauseating to Egypt. But it was clear that the U.S., some amount of the EU, and Qatar, at a minimum, would chip in to be involved. (Qatar had early been involved in security ashore for the U.S. pier, reportedly funding the civilian contractors for it.)
Listening to an interview with Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, aired Saturday night on TBN’s Rosenberg Report, I heard him speak to the issue of who controls the Philadelphi Corridor in a ceasefire or post-combat period. Yingst (who does great work) has written about it in his new book, Black Saturday, and he addressed the specific question of a major dispute over it between Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Netanyahu, he said, had more of a political view of the matter, insisting that Israel must retain control of the Philadelphi Corridor because of geopolitical priorities.
Gallant, speaking to Yingst for the book, has what Yingst characterized as a practical military view. Gallant thinks it would take quite a while for Hamas to reconstitute its smuggling infrastructure in the Philadelphi Corridor, and that that corridor doesn’t need Israel’s active occupation during a ceasefire.
But Netanyahu is right: the geopolitical view has to prevail, because outside powers are seeking a way to prevent an evacuated IDF from ever getting back in to resume control of the Philadelphi Corridor.
Hamas isn’t the security problem during a ceasefire. The security problem is the outside powers that want to hijack Israel’s security perimeter out from under it, by inducing Israel to relinquish the territory.
It’s clear to me that Netanyahu sees that. He has made equally clear his strategic intent, by what he won’t stop doing. He won’t stop clearing Gaza of Hamas, or Lebanon of Hezbollah’s key leadership and infrastructure.
I believe, in fact, that his critics have missed the mark in criticizing him for not confronting the Biden administration months ago and summarily repudiating any efforts at gaining a ceasefire. What Netanyahu bought Israel by playing along throughout the sorry “negotiations” charade was time.
Earlier and more abrupt rejections would have been untimely and ultimately worked against Israel. Netanyahu has made the best of a bad situation to bring Israel to where its situation is today, with Hamas all but extinct as an effective force in Gaza, and a sizable chunk of Hezbollah fleeing Lebanon for its life, as Israel continues to beat down the remains of its command structure and its material resources.
Team Biden imposed its inertia on itself by pushing a counter-factual narrative about Israel for months. It’s been claiming Israel is running behind, playing whack-a-mole, being ineffective, has no strategic plan, and therefore needs to be supervened with high-handed outside maneuvers.
Team Biden was, and is, wrong.
Netanyahu is where he needs to be: inside the OODA Loop. He’s not back panting behind it, still litigating the extent to which Israel wouldn’t lose from letting a ceasefire restore some breathing room for Hezbollah and Hamas. He’s moving faster than Biden, the EU, the UN, the media, and Iran, by not stopping his execution of the main effort.
Netanyahu, the IDF, and Israel should see it through. They should not negotiate from a position of anything but strength, and control of the territory Israel needs for its security, and for a stable core in regional stability. That core requires a secure Israel, and an affirmative absence of unstable territory for Iran to exploit.
{Reposted from the author’s site}
