Cables From The Diplomatic Frontlines - Biden's Gaza peace deal proposal, debunking common myths, and perverse incentives at play.

• After eight months of war, President Joe Biden recently unveiled a comprehensive three-phase peace plan for Gaza - aiming to end the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

• Before taking a look at the proposal, what’s good and what’s missing (spoiler alert: a lot), let us unpack two common myths around Israel - Gaza war that have gone largely unchallenged and widely accepted by the general public, pundits/analysts, and even leading politicians/key actors involved.

Major myths surrounding the Israel-Hamas war.

• Myth #1: Biden admin is uniquely harsh on Israel.

• In fact the opposite is true - Biden admin has been uniquely deferential to Netanyahu.

• A hypothetical GOP admin would have been more confident in holding Netanyahu to account.

• This is because unlike Biden, they would not carry the burden of trying to prove their hawkish bona fides when it comes to Israel.

• It is not difficult to see for example, how Trump would have been harsher on Netanyahu far sooner than Biden.

• In fact, this is precisely what he did as a candidate: calling Hezbollah ‘‘smart’’ (for attacking Israel so soon after the October 7th terror act) and attacking Netanyahu for the October 7th security failure.

• And while it is true that the Biden admin had sanctioned extremist settlers in the West Bank and held off on certain types of ammo (while approving others - more on that later below), context matters: Israeli bombardment has led to significant civilian death tolls.

• Israel itself had admitted that up to 32,500 people may have been killed in Gaza, and that up to 60% of them were civilians.

• (side note: most international org estimates put the number at 35k+ - with 70% of these deaths being women and children.)

• When that happens, it is not unusual for the US President to refuse a delivery of GBU dumb bombs that cause so much collateral damage.

• And when it comes to settler violence, ultra-orthodox Jews have crossed all lines and more than 500 West Bank Palestinians have been killed (25% of them children) since October of 2023.

• (side note: this is not an usual outcome when a government Minister (Finance chief Bezalel Smotrich) arms settlers and the IDF itself has an extremist wing responsible for so many settler deaths.)

• In addition to all of this, there is also a serious precedent for a US President withholding arms to Israel.

• No one could accuse Ronald Reagan of being a dove - yet he did not shy away from cutting weapons and ammo delivery to Israel during the Israel - Lebanon war of 1982.

• In 1982, President Ronald Reagan imposed restrictions on arms shipments to Israel in response to Israel's use of American-made cluster bombs in Lebanon during the Lebanon War.

• This decision came after reports that these weapons were being used in civilian areas, which was in violation of a 1978 agreement stipulating that such munitions would only be used in conflicts with Arab states and against military targets​.

• Reagan's admin first temporarily suspended a shipment of 4,000 155 mm artillery shells, pending a review.

• After determining that Israel had likely violated the terms of the agreement, Reagan extended the suspension indefinitely, halting the delivery of cluster bomb ammunition and related artillery shells​.

• The goal was to exert political pressure on Israel to lift its siege of West Beirut and to restore the ceasefire in Lebanon​ - and he achieved this intended goal.

• Had Reagan listened to critics and had he provided a blank check to Israel, things could have turned out very differently.

• Yet today, we have a number of politicians and public figures who accuse Biden of ‘‘betraying an ally’’.

• If restricting certain arms and ammo (in order to achieve legitimate strategic and humanitarian goals) is a betrayal, well then their beloved and revered Ronald Reagan should not escape that label either.

• Myth #2: Israel has no political objectives to support the military operations.

• That Netanyahu has no plan for day after.

• On the surface, this sounds about right - after all, he has ruled out a possibility of a unified Palestinian state and return of Hamas to governance in Gaza.

• In the meantime, his war cabinet colleague and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is still searching for a government better than the corrupt and incompetent Palestinian Authority (PA) - currently in charge of running the West Bank.

• As such, a common criticism of Netanyahu (by the Western politicians, media and even his own domestic opposition - like Benny Gantz) is that he has no plan for the end-state: what happens day after the military operations are over?

• But an analytical error in this judgement is to conflate lack of observable plans with an absence of a plan.

• In reality, Netanyahu does have a plan, and he is pursuing a political objective: that the West should take care of the humanitarian and governance issues once the active phase of the war is over.

• We may not like this answer, but it is the only reasonable inference we can draw from his actions: if he is not agreeing to any specific political outcome, then that is the goal: to outsource the problem.

• And why wouldn’t he?

• He already burned all bridges with many foreign allies, ruined his relationship with Biden (and possibly, Trump) and is wholly dependent on the GOP wing of the US for further support.

• Right now, he has two main stakeholders: 1) Domestic audience - which is increasingly warming towards his tactics, and 2) GOP hawks in the US (for example: people like Nikki Haley who traveled to Israel and wrote ‘‘finish them’’ on an artillery shell).

• His current stance and tactics satisfy both key constituents quite well.

• And just like with building the temporary Gaza pier, the US (by the virtue of being the leader of the free world) will be pushed into a more active role in the post-reconstruction and administration too.

• So that is Netanyahu’s political objective: outsourcing the difficult post-war headaches to the West.

• Myth #3: There were no credible alternatives to Israeli conduct in this war.

• Perhaps the most harmful narrative of all: that heavy-handed airpower-centric approach was the only way to destroy Hamas.

• There is a common misconception that there was a black and white choice between ‘‘denying Israel its right to self-defense’’ and a ‘‘huge civilian death toll caused in a legitimate pursuit of Hamas.’’

• Nothing is further from the truth - in fact, from the very early days of the campaign, these cables have advocated for an infantry-led clear-hold-build counter-insurgency strategy.

• Israel did not do this - IDF relied on heavy bombardment and didn’t commit troops to holding regions clear of Hamas militants.

• As a result, we now not only have a growing Hamas resurgence in previously freed territories, but have an enormous death toll as well.

• It is true that an infantry-led approach would have resulted in heavier casualties for the IDF.

• Urban door-to-door fighting is brutal, but this approach would have prevented massive civilian casualties and Israel’s national security needs would have been better served where its international reputation isn’t as damaged and where the future military aid (and military cooperation) from western allies is not under threat.

• We have now arrived at a situation where countries like France are kicking out Israeli military production companies from defense expos.

• Had Israel adopted a more measured infantry-led approach, the isolation and the global political damage that it now faces would have been significantly lesser in magnitude.

• (side note: paradoxically, this would have allowed Israel to prosecute the war for much longer - a scenario that is not only more conducive to the objective of fully destroying Hamas, but also, one that plays into Netanyahu’s personal political incentives - more on that later below.)

Biden’s proposal.