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“Israel must develop an alternative strategy to manage its relationship with Hamas and PIJ”

by Michael Mertes, Palina Kedem

Dr. Amichai Magen answers KAS Israel’s questions about the current hostilities between Gaza and Israel

Are the current hostilities between Gaza and Israel just another round in a never-ending conflict? What are the lessons to be learned from the 2014 experience? Dr. Amichai Magen, Herzliya, a leading expert on security, defense as well as international law issues, and a long-standing partner of KAS Israel, gives in-depths answers to our questions.

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KAS Israel: Is the current conflict between Hamas and Israel just another round in a never-ending conflict, or is there something novel?

Dr. Amichai Magen: The conflict is an ongoing one. Since Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005 – removing every last soldier and settlement – there have been three rounds of intense hostilities between Israel and the de facto ruler of Gaza, Hamas, as well as another Iranian-backed organization entrenched in Gaza: Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). The first major round of hostilities was in December 2008-January 2009 (what Israel calls “Operation Cast Lead”), the second in November 2012 (Operation “Pillar of Defense”) and now Operation “Protective Edge”. In between these high-intensity periods there is a constant trickle of rockets from Gaza onto southern Israeli towns and Kibbutzim, as well as weapons smuggling, tunnel digging, and attempts by Hamas and PIJ to kidnap Israeli soldiers and civilians close to the Gaza border.

That having been said this latest round of high-intensity conflict does contain at least three novel elements:

  • First, unlike previous rounds, this time Hamas has made firing long-range missiles (onto Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, and even as far north as Haifa) part of its standard playbook. In doing so it has really upped the ante, demonstrating to Israelis that Hamas rocket fire poses a threat to the entire country. Hamas has also become less restrained in attempting to carry out large-scale terrorist attacks through long tunnels it has dug from Gaza into Israel – a huge construction project – and through the sea, by sending militants to raid Kibbutz Zikim, a sea-side Kibbutz just north of Gaza.

  • Second, unlike previous rounds, Hamas and PIJ have, so far at least, thoroughly failed to inflict any real pain on Israel, and Israel appears much better prepared both defensively and offensively. Tragically, one Israeli civilian was killed by a Hamas mortal shell on July 16th and several others have been injured – including an 86 year old woman when a Grad missile landed on her home in Beer Sheva. But if you consider that in ten days of fighting Hamas and PIJ have fired over 1200 rockets and mortars onto Israeli civilian centers, the losses have been incredibly low. In large part this is due to the improved performance of the Iron Dome missile defense system, but it is also due to the Israeli population itself becoming more practiced at taking precautionary measures while maintaining remarkably high levels of normalcy in daily life. The level of interruption of economic, educational, and even cultural activity is visibly lower this time around. At the same time, the Israeli Army seems to have internalized important lessons from the 2006 Lebanon War with Hezbollah and previous rounds of high-intensity conflict with Hamas. Tragically, some 200 Palestinians (both combatants and civilians) have died in Gaza in nearly two weeks of fighting, but if you consider that the Israeli Air Force has carried out some 1400 strikes on Hamas and PIJ targets in heavily populated Gaza – destroying somewhere between 30% and 60% of Hamas’s long-range rockets – that, again, is a remarkably low number of Palestinian fatalities. This suggests very careful operational planning, based on excellent intelligence.

  • And thirdly, the reaction of the international community is very, very different. Whether it’s because people are just sick and tired of Middle East war stories, are distracted by other events – Ukraine, Obama, the FIFA World Cup – or because of the relatively low casualty rate, so far at least you sense much greater international annoyance with Hamas and (almost) sympathy with Israel. Apart from a small number of ugly far-right/extremist Muslim demonstrations in Europe (including the mobbing of a Synagogue in Paris), the Israel-bashers have not been able to really mobilize this time. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that leading Arab countries – especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia – despise Hamas and would quite like Israel to neutralize it. When Egypt and Saudi Arabia want to mobilize the Arab League or the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) against Israel diplomatically and in the international media, they can do so to a substantial degree. This has not happened. Also, you had the leaders of key states – like the US, Canada, and the UK – come out with strong statements in support of Israel.

KAS: Hamas knows that it cannot beat Israel. What do you think has been the strategic goal of its most recent rocket attacks?

Dr. Magen: To western eyes Hamas’s decision to attack Israel in this unrestrained way at this time makes absolutely no sense. After all Hamas has never been so strategically isolated and weak. With the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the return of the military to power there, Hamas is under the thumb of the Egyptians as never before. Egypt has blocked 90% of the tunnels from Sinai and Gaza – a major source of income for Hamas – and is now actively preventing the smuggling of rockets through its territory to Gaza. Also, with Hamas’s support for Sunni rebels fighting the Assad regime, it has lost the intimate patronage of Iran and Syria (at least for now). Even Erdoğan in Turkey has done nothing concrete for Hamas in the last few years and has formally reconciled with Israel.

You would think Hamas would want to lie low right now. So why is it acting in this way? There are several factors to bear in mind here:

  • First, you need to remember that we are talking about actors – Hamas and PIJ – whose raison d’être is armed “resistance” against Israel, and the West more broadly. Armed attacks are in the DNA of Hamas and PIJ. We in the West govern in order to live successfully. Groups like Hamas and PIJ (or like ISIS for that matter) govern first and foremost in order to wage Jihad on their enemies. This means that Hamas and PIJ may take tactical breaks from attacking Israel – for the purpose of rearming and preparing for the next round – but they cannot give up the cause of “resistance” for long. If they do they essentially cease being who they are, and are more subject to challenge by even more radical organizations who will accuse Hamas and PIJ of “going soft” and failing to lead “the resistance”. If Hamas and PIJ abandon violence they can become other things – indeed they could even become legitimate political actors like Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland – but that would require a profound change in identity which has not happened yet.

  • Second, as is perhaps typical of radical revolutionary movements that are controlled by a small group of zealots, Hamas leaders are susceptible to “group think” and to believing their own rhetoric. It is entirely conceivable that key decision-makers and power brokers within Hamas – especially within the military arm of the organization – convinced themselves, wrongly as it turns out, that they were truly prepared to inflict terrible damage on Israel. So part of the explanation may simply be hubris borne out of overconfidence in Hamas’s attack capabilities.

  • Third, the goal of Hamas is to restore its relevance and what it sees as its own vanguard role in the “resistance” community – which now includes not only Iran, Hezbollah , and PIJ, but also new Salafi jihadist organizations that have attracted the limelight recently in Iraq, Syria, and Sinai. There are three components here: First, since it took control of Gaza in 2006 Hamas has portrayed itself as the spearhead of an Islamist wave. In a way it saw itself as the organization that paved the way for the Muslim Brotherhood to take control of Egypt. In the aftermath of the fall of Morsi, it is trying to show that the Muslim Brotherhood movement – and Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood – is still alive and kicking. Second, we need to remember that Hamas is in an ongoing “governance competition” both with Fatah – indeed Fatah still has hundreds of thousands of supporters in Gaza – and with the more radical PIJ and Salafist organizations in Gaza. By fighting Israel in this way, Hamas is not only trying to reclaim its role as the vanguard of resistance, but also to signal to its own domestic enemies “Be careful! We are here and we are strong!” As they say, all politics is local. And third, Hamas is using the tools it has. The ability to decide when and how to exercise violence is the main instrument of influence that Hamas has. The use, or non-use, of violence is the main strategic currency of these organizations. They don’t have many other tools (economic, diplomatic etc.).

  • Lastly, Hamas keeps a close eye on Israeli politics and part of its long-term strategy is to seek to disrupt Israel’s political system. It is very difficult to establish this empirically, but my sense is that Hamas leaders have picked up on the growing challenges in the last couple of months to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s authority – challenges that have come both from within his own Likud Party and from Avigdor Liberman. It is possible Hamas strategists have bought into the discourse that says Netanyahu is indecisive and will bend over backwards to avoid risking military entanglement or damage to his political legacy. This too may have played a factor in Hamas’s calculus.
KAS: Israel may be able to restore deterrence. However, will it ever be able to definitely beat Hamas by completely destroying its military infrastructure and weaponry? How would you comment on critics from the Israeli right who believe that a premature cease-fire and truce boil down to a psychological and hence political victory for Hamas?

Dr. Magen: I think that perhaps the key lesson of this latest round of violence for the Israeli security establishment and public at large is that the “deterrence paradigm” does not work reliably enough to be preserved, and so Israel must develop an alternative strategy to manage its relationship with Hamas and PIJ. There is no doubt that from a military point of view the result of this round is a win for Israel and a big lose for Hamas and PIJ. But the fact that we have now had three rounds of major hostilities with Hamas and PIJ in five years, and that Hamas has proven that it is essentially incapable of acting as a responsible sovereign, will push Israelis towards a debate – some behind closed doors, some public – about an alternative strategy. Already you hear voices stating that Israel’s goal should be the disarmament of Hamas and PIJ (with some analysts pointing to the removal of Assad’s chemical weapons program as an example) or the actual toppling down of Hamas’s rule in Gaza.

KAS: In recent time, the relationship between Hamas on one side, and Iran, the Assad regime in Syria and Hezbollah on the other side, have been at a low-point. Hezbollah did not explicitly applaud Hamas’s rocket attacks on Israel, but it has begun to launch its own rockets. Is this indicating a new anti-Israel solidarity among the two terror organizations?

Dr. Magen:In recent days we have had two or three incidents of a small number of rockets being fired from Syria and Lebanon into northern Israel. The IDF responded with limited artillery fire towards the shooters, but have not, thankfully, seen an escalation. I think it’s important not to rush to conclusion that the source of the fire is Hezbollah. In fact, as part of the disintegration of Syria and rising sectarian tensions in Lebanon, we see on the Syrian side of the Golan and in southern Lebanon the proliferation of various state and non-state armed actors, virtually all of which are capable of taking pot shots at Israel across the border. We have the Syrian and Lebanese armies (who are also not always able to impose discipline on their local units) but also Hezbollah, relatively moderate anti-Assad rebel groups, and radical jihadist groups such as Al-Nusra and ISIS affiliates. I don’t think that what you describe is solid evidence for some kind of Hamas-Hezbollah rapprochement.

KAS:In the past, it seemed that the Netanyahu government did not miss an opportunity to expose PA President Abbas’s and Fatah’s political weakness, thereby increasing the reputation of Hamas as the only strong player on the Palestinian side. Do you think the most recent experience will lead the Israeli government to changing its attitude?

Dr. Magen:__. Magen:__Magen:__gen:__n:____ I take your point, but I would also suggest that a more dominant part of Netanyahu’s strategy vis-a-vis the Palestinians has been trying to steer Palestinian opinion and policy choices towards moderation by trying to ensure – and show – that life in the West Bank (under Abu Mazen) is far better (economically and in terms of security and personal freedoms) than in Gaza (under Hamas). I also think that the continuing blockade and generally successful isolation of Hamas means that today Hamas does not have a reputation for being a strong player. In fact Hamas is now absolutely desperate to secure cease fire terms with Israel that give it something it can wave as a victory (even if a very small one). If anything, I believe that the Netanyahu government will resist “rewarding” Hamas partly to avoid a scenario whereby Hamas gains politically at the expense of Fatah and therefore Abu Mazen appears weaker. We may even perhaps see some new steps taken by Israel to engage Abu Mazen positively in order to reward relative moderation and demonstrate that violence does not pay.

Dr. Amichai Magen, Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, is Head of the Governance & Political Violence Program and Marc & Anita Abramowitz Senior Researcher at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya, as well as Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

The questions were asked by Michael Mertes and Palina Kedem.

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