Cables From The Diplomatic Frontlines - Hamas- Israel ceasefire, Rafah invasion, and Saudi "Plan B" security pact with the US.
Hamas - Israel endgame is near.
If not in grand strategic terms, the at least in terms of present war.
The reality on the ground is that Israel is all but certain to destroy the remaining battalions if there is no surrender (whether de facto or formal) from Hamas.
(side note: here we can define destruction in accordance with military doctrine: that the adversary’s forces would be unable to respond/continue their own offensives without reconstituting first. In other words: a state of affairs where Hamas is no longer a military threat to Israel (even if individual terrorists may always remain a danger.)
Leaders of Hamas’s military wing have three options:
1) Fight until the last man standing;
2) Delay for as long as possible and hope that ultimate Israeli assault is avoided in the near-to-medium term, and;
3) Surrender either formally or informally (eg. asking for self-exile - something that PLO leader Yassir Arafat did when withdrawing from Lebanon to Tunisia in 1982.)
Notice how there is no fourth option of fighting back and reclaiming lost territory and/or re-establishing their control in northern Gaza - Hamas simply has no capability to do this: it has approximately 5-6k fighters remaining and its remaining battalion leaders cannot leave their hiding spots in underground tunnels.
Politically too, Hamas is struggling to maintain public support: a recent poll shows support for Hamas dropped to 34% in early March, a decline of nearly 25% since November of last year.
In the West Bank too, support for Hamas decreased from 44% to 35%.
Why so?
Well..civilians in Gaza are increasingly discontent by a number of recent developments that they eagerly blame on Hamas: 1) absence of Hamas police and government bureaucracy leading to chaos, crime, and breakdown of civil order (note that half of Gazans are children, and such disorder is damaging to them in particular), 2) blame for inciting Israel to react in over the top manner and cause so much suffering, and 3) accusations of corruption and outright theft in distribution of crucial humanitarian aid.
Latest Israeli offer of a ceasefire.
Is ‘‘extraordinarily generous’’ according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
But is it actually?
While we don’t know the very specifics of the suffest hostages for (temporary) ceasefire deal from Netanyahu, we know on a high level that: 1) Israel wants 33 hostages released, in exchange for 2) Release of (unspecified number) of Palestinian prisoners, 3) A ceasefire for 40 days, and crucially, 4) Restoration of “sustainable calm”.
It is not clear what the term ‘‘sustainable calm’’ even means.
Does it mean permanent ceasefire by other names?
Is Netanyahu willing to end the war without admitting it because it would be too politically damaging to conclude the military operations without a definitive win?
(side note: Khalil Al-Hayya, a senior political leader of Hamas, proposed Hamas’s own version of a sustainable solution. Suggesting that the group would agree to a ceasefire with Israel for at least five years, disarm, and transition into a purely political entity, contingent on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. However, after the October 7th atrocities there is little political capital and goodwill from Israel that would ever allow for this scenario. And reading the room, Washington was also quick to dismiss any possibility of this happening.)
Netanyahu’s calculus.
In the near term, Netanyahu has three primary objectives that all contradict each other at least to some extent:
1) Stay in power and win elections.
2) Defeat Hamas definitively.
3) Normalize relations with Saudi Arabia.
Adding to this list, there is also a medium-to-long term objective of: 1) Weakening Iran’s reach via its proxies and, 2) Preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
And these longer term objectives are easier to implement if there is a good relationship with Washington - and a lot of that depends on how Netanyahu navigates his first three near-term objectives.
And when it comes to preventing Iran from getting its hands on a nuclear weapon, the US and Israel are fully aligned, and it is inconceivable that any administration in Washington would let that happen.
That would otherwise be a spectacular failure…
But this is certainly different from defanging Iran across the Middle East: here, interests don’t necessarily align fully.
Ideally, Israel would want Hezbollah and the rest of proxies to be wiped out completely.
This may not necessarily be fully in the US interests - or at least to the extent that would justify the costs of action for Washington.
There is also an argument that in the grand strategic terms, Iran losing all of its threat capacity is not necessarily in the US interests either.
Without a boogeyman to form a Middle East coalition against, the US influence amongst the Arab oil dictatorships would surely weaken even further.
In other words, if there are no longer meaningful security threats to guard against, (and need American help for), the Saudi/UAE/Qatari trade/investment relationships with China would continue to intensify to the extent that Washington would lose a lot of its soft power influence.
(side note: Latest accurate figures from 2022 show that the total trade volume between China and the Middle East is a staggering $507.2 billion, illustrating a nearly doubled figure since 2017, and more than 2x that of the US trade volume at $212.0 billion. Consequently, without security needs to cater to, in terms of crude napkin calculations, for the Middle East, the US is no longer as important as China)
As a result, one could argue that at least in grand strategic terms, there is a sweet spot of Iranian threat that is in line with wider US interests: where Iran is just enough of a danger to keep Arab monarchies on their toes, but where it is also nowhere near a threat to the US, and definitely not even close to acquiring a nuclear weapon.
(side note: one must also acknowledge that if such a sweet spot ever existed, then it is definitely no longer at that goldilocks position. Since Iran has beefed up its proxies in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, has developed thousands of ballistic missiles and invested in its new-age capabilities and supply chains to the extent that it can even offer a meaningful military aid for Russia in Ukraine).
But leaving aside these long-term objectives in relation to Iran, in the near-term, it is quite clear that Netanyahu is pulled in different directions: his popularity (and odds of fending off challenges and staying in power) can only improve if he crushes Hamas completely - and there is certainly a significant Israeli public demand for this complete victory - and the demand for a total victory is certainly stronger than a demand for the return of hostages.
On the other hand, a complete win requires a military operation in Rafah - and this will undoubtedly result in a significant number of civilian deaths.
And with that civilian toll, comes immense political cost.
And even though the conflict with Iran redirected attention and created some political capital for Netanyahu personally (since 99% of Iranian missiles were shot down and a wide coalition of states helped out Israel - definitely a major prestige boost in addition to rally round’ the flag effect), that was certainly short-lived, and attention is once again going back to the upcoming Rafah offensive.
Both the EU commission President and UN Secretary-General have voiced significant concerns about the Rafah assault.
EU’s Von Der Leyen even went as far as to call it ‘‘completely unacceptable’’.
(side note: this implies that the EU would impose certain measures on Israel as a response - potentially sanctioning certain officials etc. Either that or they will suffer credibility loss after calling something ‘‘unacceptable’’ and proceeding to accept it thereafter)
Even Trump is doubling down on his criticism of Netanyahu and praising his main political rival Benny Gantz: “Bibi Netanyahu rightfully has been criticized for what took place on October 7”.
With all that said however, Netanyahu still pressed on with the promise to enter Rafah to “eliminate the Hamas battalions there — with or without a deal, in order to achieve total victory.”
Netanyahu is therefore pushing for the maximalist war aims - something incompatible with offers of ‘‘sustainable calm’’.
And if Israel is going to proceed with a maximalist war objective, then what incentives do leaders of Hamas have to accept this deal?
If Rafah is going to be invaded regardless, and if Netanyahu promises to eliminate remaining battalions there, then why would Hamas weaken further remaining leverage by releasing hostages?
Why not hold onto this leverage for as long as possible?
What if Israel does invade Rafah and causes even further devastation and even stronger pressure grows on Israel to halt further operations?
Arguably, if Hamas was to hold onto these hostages for now, they would have had a stronger hand to negotiate.
It all hinges on what exactly the ‘‘elimination’’ of Hamas battalions will mean: if this is just rhetoric that Netanyahu is not willing to follow to the letter, and he is in fact preparing to declare victory after some damage to remaining Hamas battalions is done, then a ceasefire could be beneficial to Hamas: it could buy more time, and earn more goodwill for an eventual ‘‘sustainable calm’’.
Naturally, the answer lies in what the Hamas leadership believes in: if they are convinced that Netanyahu will not let them survive, then they will go all in.
But regardless if Hamas accepts this offer, Netanyahu would still be best served to announce a temporary unilateral ceasefire and adhere to it.
This is because more time will allow for further humanitarian aid and a better preparation for the inevitable civilian displacement: making it more likely that an assault will lead to a lesser toll.
And this is crucial: no matter what domestic incentives Netanyahu faces at this very moment, the future foreign policy objectives hinge on a sustainable and stable solution to this current conflict.
Without such a solution, the normalization with the Saudis will remain out of reach.
In addition, there is also the issue of the US Senate approving any potential treaty (and security guarantees) between US and Saudi Arabia: the longer this takes, the closer we are to elections, and the less likely is the upper chamber to approve such an unpopular (in the US) commitment.
Indeed, Saudis are well-aware of the crunch time: hence some ‘‘reports’’ that they are now pushing for some lighter “Plan B” security package/treaty with the US that sidesteps Israel altogether
And this ‘‘defense pact’’ allegedly includes US-Saudi tech sharing in sensitive areas, Saudi promise to stay away from certain amount of Chinese tech/investment, and further US assistance with the Saudi civilian nuclear program.
Even so, in practice, this is quite hard to imagine: if getting 67 Senators to ratify a US obligation to the Saudis was hard already, then doing so without any benefit to Israel is even harder to imagine.
So it may simply be a negotiation ruse to add urgency and pressure on Israel to come to the table.
With all that said, all of the players involved certainly do understand the stakes and importance of timing here: so by definition, an ultimate resolution (at least to this current chapter of conflict) cannot be too far away.