It has been more than a month since US President Joe Biden issued his address to the nation, in which he presented a three phase Gaza ceasefire proposal. Washington attempted to force the ceasefire onto Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, alleging that the proposal was an Israeli one to begin with. Despite all of the political maneuvering, distortions and outright lies, Tel Aviv seems to have finally killed any hope at securing a deal, which will inevitably lead to an expansion of the conflict to other arenas.
One of the biggest takeaways from the recent attempt by the US Biden administration to force a ceasefire proposal upon its Israeli allies, has been its utter weakness and inability to maneuver through a complex political terrain. For those seeking an analogy, watching the US government’s train wreck in the Gaza ceasefire negotiation process was almost identical to what we witnessed this Thursday during the Biden-Trump Presidential Debate.
While Joe Biden had delivered his speech on May 31, laying out what he presented as a viable and rather simple three phase ceasefire proposal that he said was Israel’s own plan, it quickly emerged that a difficult process of political maneuvering was afoot.
Hamas immediately addressed the Biden announcement “positively”, while still holding to their demands that this ceasefire must bring about a permanent cessation to hostilities and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. Yet, when it came time for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to comment on a proposal that was supposedly put together by his own government, he gave the same tired response as we had seen to all other past proposals, however, without outright rejecting it this time.
On May 6, Hamas had actually accepted a ceasefire proposal that was almost identical to the one drawn up by Israeli and US intelligence agencies, touted as a “strong” deal by US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, during his visit to the region at the time. In response, Israeli officials issued differing statements, some outright rejecting the ceasefire and others indicating the proposal was not sufficient but that they would still negotiate over some details mentioned. The jumbled Israeli rhetoric was quickly overpowered by the statement delivered on the ground, however, as the Israeli military was suddenly ordered to invade southern Gaza that same day and seized the Rafah Crossing between the Palestinian territory and Egypt.
It was clear at that time that the Israelis had ordered the invasion of Rafah, which they had been threatening since February, in reaction to the Hamas proposal. The US government had just spent the weeks prior attempting to blame Hamas for the continuation of the war and were promoting their newly drawn up proposal as the only way forward, but it was clear that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was having none of it. Netanyahu, who had been saying since February that without an invasion of Rafah, Israel would “lose the war”, was adamant that the invasion of the southernmost city of Gaza would take place, which he said would occur with or without a ceasefire.
What is important to note here is the language employed by Benjamin Netanyahu, when he speaks about a ceasefire, he always makes sure to indicate to his own population and government coalition partners that the war will continue. Although it has been clear for months that Netanyahu has not been interested in a real ceasefire and has only intended to secure a temporary pause that would enable him to extract the Israeli prisoners, before restarting the war again, it wasn’t until May 23 that this message was delivered so clearly by the Israeli Premier.
At this time, the Israeli military has admitted that it cannot destroy Hamas completely and is pivoting to Lebanon in order to confront Hezbollah instead. Yet, a war between Lebanon and Israel will be no walk in the park and Tel Aviv understands this, which is why they have spent the past few weeks distributing emergency packages to their people and warning them of the potential scenarios they may face. An estimate offered by the former head of Israel’s National Assembly, Eyal Hulta, even warned that 15,000 Israelis would likely be killed in the event of an all out war with Hezbollah.
According to an Israeli report that was put together over a period of three years and published by Reichman University’s Institute for Counter-Terrorism, the potential outcomes of a future war with Lebanon are extremely bleak. The report included the participation of some 100 senior Israeli military and political officials and claims that:
“After about three weeks of fire and blood, the unprecedented scale of damage in Lebanon and Israel will lead to the end of the conflict in a stalemate, amid pressure from the international community.”
Without going into the details of the report itself, it suffices to say that it was taken as a “worst case scenario” analysis by the Israeli government itself when presented to them late last year. At this point, it appears that Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to achieve such a stalemate after launching a war and keeping the conflict limited.
If we are to accept this approach to reading the strategy of Netanyahu, he is essentially seeking to completely distract both his own population and the international community with a war in Lebanon and will be willing to sacrifice huge numbers of Israelis in order to do so. At this current point, after Hezbollah has launched around 2,200 operations against Israeli targets since October of last year, these attacks have dismantled the Israeli intelligence gathering, monitoring equipment, and air defense capabilities in the north. This has blinded the Israeli military along the Lebanese border, while the Israeli army is currently suffering from a major crisis in motivation and has been stretched thin in Gaza and across the West Bank. In other words, Netanyahu will be throwing his forces into a meat grinder if he dares send them over the border against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Yet what the Israeli government will gain from a conflict with Lebanon is the ability to distract from its failure in Gaza, providing a way forward to end the war and then perhaps to pivot towards annexing land in the illegally occupied West Bank afterwards. Closing the war with Lebanon in a stalemate will not rescue Netanyahu’s image, but it will silence those criticizing him for being silent about the beating that Israel is taking in the north. In addition to this, sealing a deal with Gaza to end the war and the return the Israeli captives will be less controversial after a devastating war with Hezbollah.
However, there will be those seeking the image of “victory” over the Palestinians, which can only be achieved through a major military campaign in the West Bank, combined with the annexation of territory. Why does annexation seem so likely you may ask? Well, Israel’s richest billionaire, Miriam Adelson, has just donated $100 million to the US Trump campaign, requesting only that Donald Trump allow the illegal Israeli annexation of the West Bank.
If Netanyahu wants to annex land inside the West Bank, it will be what is known as “Area C”, where there are only tens of thousands of Palestinians living due to Israel imposing its full military control over the area that constitutes roughly 60% of the entire territory. Area A and B of the West Bank are where some 3.2 million Palestinians live and where the Palestinian Authority has partial control of the territory. To annex these areas would cause major chaos that Israel may not be able to contain. An annexation of Area C would also mean that the majority of the illegal settlements and settler outposts would be officially annexed also, along with the most fertile agricultural land and water resources in the West Bank.
In order to appear like Israel has fought a tough battle to expand its territory, they would then likely launch a brutal military operation to target Palestinian armed groups based in Area A and B, such as in Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem, and elsewhere. This would result in the loss of Israeli soldiers, but would likely turn out as a similar “success” to ‘Operation Defensive Shield’ in 2002.
Although this may seem like the natural way forward for Benjamin Netanyahu, at best this will lead to tens of thousands killed on both sides, but at worst could bring about a situation in which hundreds of thousands are slaughtered and entire states are brought to the brink of collapse, with the possibility of nuclear weapons being fired. There is also the possibility that Israeli domestic internal divisions will come to the forefront of the conflict and cause major instability, even a civil war type conflict.
All of this could have been prevented if the US Biden administration was not asleep at the wheel and had the backbone to stop the Israelis from going so far. This war could have been stopped months ago, but has now gotten to the point of no return. To give an analogy, if the US and Israelis were in a car together, Joe Biden is asleep at the wheel, Benjamin Netanyahu has taken over the steering wheel, while Antony Blinken is telling Netanyahu to stop the car in a whispering voice from the back seat while adding gas to the gas tank.
